Finding the Right Talent: Tips to Strengthen Your Talent Acquisition Strategy

It’s become harder and harder to recruit the right candidates. Two main reasons talent acquisition is more difficult these days: the shift of employee priorities (e.g. people wanting more flexibility and mental health benefits) and the inability to compete with others’ compensation plans. And for many organizations, current budget constraints only allow them to do so much when it comes to people-first initiatives in the pay-and-benefits realm.

But the thing is, the right people are out there; you just have to find them. By strengthening your talent acquisition strategy, you can do just that. 

Read below to learn reasons why so many organizations are experiencing sourcing and retention struggles as well as how to mitigate these risks in the future.

Common Struggles in Talent Acquisition 

Twenty percent of turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment. The percentage is even higher for younger generations. 

What’s going on? Studies point to:

• “Belief-driven” employees. Sixty percent of people want to work for an organization whose values align with their own – and will leave to find a company that better matches these beliefs if their current one isn’t cutting it.
• Vague job descriptions. Many job descriptions and interviews aren’t transparent about expectations, company culture, or benefits. Surprised and overwhelmed employees on the first day, week, and month can quickly lead to high turnover.
• Quick fixes. Candidates sometimes look for a quick fix to unemployment instead of searching for a long-term solution. Unfortunately, the same can be said for recruitment teams who don’t have up-to-date headcount or contingency plans.
• Subpar onboarding. When new employees have a rocky or unsupportive onboarding experience (aka there’s no standardized program or buddy system), they’re more likely to leave.
• Short-sighted recruitment teams. In the matchup of talent acquisition vs recruitment, talent acquisition wins every time. Recruiters do a great job of bringing candidates in, but may not choose the best candidate for the company’s long-term goals. 

Luckily, you can mitigate the above risks by developing a transparent approach to your talent acquisition strategy. 

3 Ways to Strengthen Your Talent Acquisition Strategy

Ready to create a stronger talent acquisition strategy? The three tips below will empower your talent acquisition team and help them recruit and retain top talent.

1. Give Talent Acquisition Teams a Seat at the Table

The first step to take when it comes to strengthening your talent acquisition strategy is partnering with your talent acquisition teams.

In fact, when talent acquisition teams capitalize on their relationships with People Ops and managers – such as regular check-ins and aligning on qualified candidates – they’re better suited to find strong candidates that fulfill team needs (think filling skills gaps and bringing new perspectives to the table). These strong candidates eventually develop into leaders within your company. 

Melissa Adamo, Principal Business Partner at ChartHop, explains: “Talent acquisition teams must have a view of your strategy in order to make the best decisions for your budgeting and headcount planning needs. Ultimately, having a seat at the table allows Talent Acquistion to plan ahead, which looks like pipelining candidates, early sourcing, and networking. This strategy allows us to develop relationships with candidates so that when a role is ready to be filled, we are already ahead.”

2. Create Robust Job Postings

A transparent job posting is one that embeds your values, lists the salary range and benefits, and describes (in detail) the role’s responsibilities. This strategy reduces surprises for new hires in the first 90 days, helping you retain and develop your people.

To create a more empowering interviewing process, consider creating an FAQ section for each job description so candidates can decide early on whether they should pursue the position. Below is an example from Juro.

Additionally, consider posting your open roles on a variety of websites to increase visibility, advance your inclusivity efforts, and discover which sources are most valuable for your organization. 

Thorough, inclusive job descriptions also help your talent acquisition team, as they’ll spend less time sifting through resumes and more time conducting interviews with interested and informed candidates. Here we cue the domino effect: Candidates that have positive interviewing and hiring experiences are more likely to be engaged during their onboarding process. In fact, a positive onboarding experience has been found to increase retention rates. Sixty-nine percent of employees are more likely to stay with their organization for at least three years after a great onboarding experience.  

In short, writing transparent job descriptions not only helps you sift through and find the right candidates, but also helps retain your people in the long run.

3. Use a People Operations Platform that Maximizes Your ATS Tools

Talent acquisition teams that use an applicant tracking system (ATS) work collaboratively towards hiring goals. But to really boost and streamline hiring processes, consider investing in a people operations platform that integrates with ATS tools. 

With a more comprehensive tech stack, you can easily collaborate with others, track people analytics, and empower decision-making from your existing people data. This looks like:

• Building headcount plans, collaborating on hiring scenarios across teams, and publishing finalized plans all in your people operations platform, therefore eliminating the need to edit and share multiple spreadsheets.
• Supporting global teams by equipping your talent acquisition team with information – such as ownership and roles – to stay organized.
• Generating reports that visualize and track when candidates are hired or your overall time-to-fill, allowing you to establish and manage recruiting costs along any dimension (such as by department or location).

Ultimately, housing your information in one space will help recruiters hone in on candidates with the right skills, traits, and experiences to get the job done. 

Bringing It All Together: How Plaid Introduced a Single Source of Truth for Collaborative Planning 

It’s hard to understand who sits where and what roles are open when you’re working in silos. Alternatively, a people operations platform that integrates with ATS tools allows teams to collaborate and iterate on hiring scenarios before finalizing headcount plans. Once those finalized plans are published within your platform, managers and People teams can easily access pertinent details like hiring priority, start-date, and recruiter assignment. 

And even better, a dynamic org chart updates automatically with every new hire. No more manual data entry or moving boxes around on a tiny screen.

So how does this look in real life? Financial services company Plaid was working with over 40 different budgeting and hiring spreadsheets, which quickly become a recipe for disaster.

Dan Beksha, Plaid’s Head of Strategic Planning, says their old strategy – using different systems and creating siloed decisions – wasn’t a long-term solution for their organization. He explains: “We were doing everything in spreadsheets and it just wasn’t sustainable as the company scaled. Every team had their own version of the headcount plan in a separate spreadsheet and there was no single source of truth tied to employee data.” 

Beksha notes that workforce planning and collaboration has changed since adopting ChartHop as their people operations platform, saying that “now the recruiting team and hiring managers are clearly aligned on approved roles, saving time on false starts.”

In short, when everyone is on the same page, your talent acquisition strategy is streamlined, making for happier recruiters and a more positive future-employee experience.

With the right accessibility, leaders across your organization can view, edit, and finalize headcount scenarios – all in the same sandbox.

Confidently Plan Your Talent Acquisition Strategy

If your organization is adopting a people-first approach, it’s important that your strategy is also reflected in your recruiting and hiring practices. Therefore, look to transparent communication – in the form of collaboration, job descriptions, and people data – to ensure you’re making the best decisions for your current and future employees. 

Instead of distributing dozens of spreadsheets for each manager to create their own hiring plan for the new year, you can use ChartHop to streamline the entire planning process. Ready to help your leaders visualize your people data so they can make the right decisions?