Ongoing border closures, shrinking international arrival caps and global uncertainty have led to a widespread talent shortage. With one in four Australian businesses struggling to fill critical roles, leaders are looking to recruitment and talent acquisition strategies for filling gaps.
But are these two terms – recruitment and talent acquisition – synonymous with each other? Not necessarily, and treating these two dissimilar concepts as equal might serve to perpetuate widespread talent shortages in an organisation.
Businesses now need to fully understand the various strategic and tactical tools at their disposal. In this article, we have a look at the significant differences between recruitment and talent acquisition, and how you can take advantage of both.
Picking apart the differences
First, let’s compare recruitment and talent acquisition at a high level:
For example, if you’re running a project and you have an immediate need for an IT Specialist, you would use recruitment to source and engage the worker.
However, if you take a broader view, and have an understanding of the types of projects that are likely to come up in a year, five years, or ten years into the future, you’ll more likely use talent acquisition to ensure that you have the talent there when you need it.
And where the recruitment process may end when the IT Specialist is hired, the talent acquisition process is cyclic, and depends on continued assessment of future needs.
What we’re seeing in the market
CXC has seen significant shifts in the sourcing and management of contingent workers in the past 10 years in Australia. Traditionally, contingent solutions were largely procurement-driven programs, with a large focus on recruitment and cost; however, over the past few years, we have seen human resources and legal take an active role in shaping the solution, with a focus on talent acquisition. This is due to the increase volume of contingent workers in the overall workforce, more prevalent workforce and supplier risks, increased expectation of worker experience and a heightened demand for contingent talent.
As part of this renewed focus on talent acquisition, organisations are now building talent pools to develop a pipeline of skilled talent. For contractors, these talent pools can incorporate:
In a recent Ardent Partners report, 54% of companies currently use previously engaged workers as a core component of their contingent sourcing strategy, with an additional 61% expected to use private talent pools in the future.
We’ve recently discussed the various ways organisations can develop talent pools in our recent blog article.
How CXC can help
To assist organisations with their talent acquisition targets, CXC can provide our clients with a talent mapping strategy targeting critical project and niche roles.
Our approach is to work with key stakeholders and contingent workers to build a community of aligned skills for specific talent areas that meet current and future sourcing needs. CXC has the capability to map and pool talent based on knowledge of contractor end dates and forecasting of key strategic initiatives to match skills and availability for upcoming vacancies.
Through our Workforce Exchange (WEX) solution, we provide access to contractors coming off assignments in our other enterprise clients. This community has 1,500 candidates aligned to a variety of sectors including energy and resources, financial services, telecommunications, technology, infrastructure, media, FMCG and consulting and professional services.
These strategic initiatives help our clients achieve their talent acquisition objectives, reducing time to fill and lowering cost to hire.
As one of the world’s top suppliers of contingent worker management solutions, CXC is perfectly positioned to optimise all elements of your contingent workforce strategy. With operations in more than 50 countries across 5 continents, and with decades of experience, we can assist with every aspect of your program.
If you would like to find out more about how we can help with your contingent workforce solutions please contact us here.
