If you’re a people person who’s got an interest working in human resources, and a desire to help companies find the best possible recruits, you may be interested in being a talent acquisition specialist.
This particular position is a relatively new job, but talent acquisition specialists have become an indispensable role in the human resources department for many companies. This professional job is responsible for the various tasks related to finding, acquiring, and hiring the best talent for their company. This is a specialized job that requires hard work and dedication.
What is a Talent Acquisition Job?
Talent acquisition specialist is a specialized occupation that has a focus on identifying and recruiting great employees for the company for which they work. This is a role requires the person in it to be up to date with how technology and social media works, as well as the latest industry trends.
Work With Hiring Managers
One of the main responsibilities for talent acquisition specialists is to work with hiring managers to find the best candidates for the various positions the company needs to fill. These two jobs have a close working relationship so that the highest quality employees can be found, interviewed, and hired.
The hiring manager makes sure the specialist knows the exact requirements and qualifications for the job in question to ensure these roles are properly filled with applicants who truly meet the qualifications.
Find the Best Candidates
Another thing that a talent acquisition specialist does is use a variety of means for finding the best candidates. This can include using a variety of social networking platforms, job search engines, sending information to job fairs, being a representative at a job fair, or physically going to places of education to recruit directly. The ultimate goal of this part of the job is to develop relationships with possible talent.
Generally, these specialists will be the ones who schedule interviews and help prepare the candidates for their interviews. Part of this process involves looking over resumes and cover letters, as well as taking a critical look at their interview performances.
Check Backgrounds of Candidates
Talent acquisition specialists also must conduct any background checks the company requires, administer drug tests per regulations, and make any phone calls to references of potential employees.
Doing the Paperwork
Another primary duty of this position is to make sure all paper work has been submitted for the potential candidate. If the candidate is successfully hired, then the specialist will help make arrangements for any type of job orientation needed for the new hire.
Possible Job Titles That May Be Assigned to This Role
Talent acquisition specialists may also be referred to as recruiters or talent recruiters on some job descriptions.
What are the Main Responsibilities of Someone in Talent Acquisition?
A Talent Acquisition Specialist is a high demand job with a wide variety of responsibilities. While each company will have their own specific needs, there are a number of responsibilities that are common regardless of the industry and field of the company that is hiring for this specific position.
- Work with the hiring managers to pinpoint the company’s exact staffing needs.
- After figuring out what the staffing needs are, making sure the correct criteria is used in finding the best candidates.
- Utilize the internet based professional networking websites and social media platforms to reach out to the best available candidates.
- Planning out the entire interview and selection process, which includes things like screening calls, in person interviews, and making assessments.
- Gather, process and analyze all the relevant data on the candidates, which includes resumes, contact details, and any relevant social media.
- Make sure the advertised job descriptions properly convey the company’s needs.
- Create interview questions which will ensure the candidate is tested properly, and reflects the position’s specific requirements.
- Look at the company’s branding initiatives from the past and help organize future ones to be optimized.
- Organize participation in job fairs and attend them so that they may work directly with potential recruits.
- Help create and organize other types of recruitment events, just as job open houses and in-house hiring fairs.
- Pay close attention to trends to be able to help forecast both the quarterly and annual hiring needs breaking down by the company’s various departments.
- Create long lasting relationships with both potential candidates and previous applicants who may later fill a role that comes up.
What Skills and Qualifications Does a Talent Acquisition Role Require?
This is a highly specialized job that requires a number of skills, talents and qualifications, many of which are general skills that nearly every job type requires, as well as some very job specific skills.
Strong Interpersonal Skills
Because of the majority of this job is about connecting and working with people, recruiters need to have excellent interpersonal skills. That means you’ve got to not only work well with co-workers and supervisors, but you’ve got to be able to assess the skills, personality traits, and temperaments of other people.
Since recruiters are responsible for making sure candidates fit the company’s overall view, they must know how a person’s traits and quirks might work within the specific work environment for which they’re being considered. Certain jobs are suitable for any type of personality, while others must have certain traits like ambition, customer service skills, and proper bedside manner professionalism.
Having strong interpersonal skills will make a recruiter the very person most capable of determining how someone else will fit within the team to which the new candidate is hired.
Excellent Communication Skills
While recruiters may not be the only ones to interview potential candidates, they are the ones that first connect with both sides of the equation. That means recruiters must have excellent written skills to write emails, create interview questions that will work out qualification requirements, and similar matters.
Talent acquisition specialists must also have great verbal communication skills, as they are the ones who follow up with potential candidates, deal with hiring supervisors, and others who will help determine which potentials should be considered for a job.
Other Talents and Skills Needed
You’ll also need a variety of other job skills and personal talents to fulfill the role of an excellent talent recruiter.
- Good at building long term relationships
- Self-motivation
- Has a lot of ambition
- Driven by the need to succeed
- Having a proficiency and certification in Microsoft Office and similar applications
- Have experience working in Human Resources
- Have experience working in recruiting or a related field
- Make sure that you have a wide knowledge of industry specific topics
- Have a proven track record of success in all your previous positions
- Experience in the specific sector you are wanting to help recruit in.
- Have had experience with recruiting through the full lifecycle
- Have obtained a professional certification in Human Resource.
- Prior training and experience in working with Applicant Tracking System
What Kind of Salary Does a Talent Acquisition Job Pay?
One of the big questions for many, in any line of work, is what kind of pay scale is there for the position. Glassdoor findings suggest that the average median pay for recruits across America is approximately $70,000 per year. The lower end pays recruiters around $51,000 per year, and high-end positions earn $98,000 per year.
This is one of the widest pay ranges in jobs, with nearly a whopping 50% difference from the low end to the high end.
These vast differences can be assumed to come from the different types of corporations and companies that hire the specialists, as well as the location of the company’s headquarters or local hiring offices. The higher in the average income of the given city, generally the higher the pay rate for positions like this would be.
The average mid-range wage in the United States during the fourth quarter of 2017 was only $44,564, so that means that even the lower end of the pay range for talent recruiters in America is above the average pay for most folks in the country.
The Perfect Job for Extroverts: Talent Acquisition Specialists
If you’re looking for a role that allows you to work with people on a nearly constant basis, using your interpersonal skills, communication skills, and possibly your love of travel, you will definitely want to consider the reasonably well-paid role of a talent acquisition specialist.
This job demands a lot of time and focus, but it pays out in high rewards of allowing you, the recruiter, to meet and work with the best of the best in the field of your company, as well as meet tons of other people from all walks of life as you examine the best possible candidates for the company for which you work.
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