Introduction
Many business leaders today acknowledge the importance of talent management in business processes because it is imperative for a business to recruit the best human resource talent to be competitive (Taylor 2005, p. 1). As such, many organizations today emphasize a lot on the efficiency of the recruitment process because many are seeking the best talent there is in the market.
This means that, recruitment processes practiced today represent a paradigm shift when compared to past recruitment processes. This is true because organizations are today seeking the best employees to drive business results. However, in as much as organizations may recruit the best talent, the biggest hurdle for most organizations lies in managing this talent.
For many people, there is no significant difference between talent management and recruitment, but much to the contrary of public expectation, the two aspects are not synonymous to one other. What many people fail to acknowledge is the fact that, there is more to the two concepts than meets the eye.
For instance, employees normally have a certain perception about a given organization and this may ultimately affect the talent management or recruitment process.
The process of talent management is therefore not an easy task for most managers because it incorporates several processes before the ultimate goal of talent management is achieved. Due to this complex task, some organizations have been known to seek the services of external agents in integrating their talent management processes with recruitment processes (Taylor 2005).
Up to this point, we can see that some organizations acknowledge the distinction between recruitment and talent management. This study reiterates this distinction by noting that talent management and recruitment processes are different concepts of human resource management. However, before we undertake this analysis, it is important to first understand the nature, scope and use of talent management in the conventional human resource environment. This will be done in the conceptual analysis segment of this study
Conceptual Analysis
Talent management is specifically focused on the concept of attracting employee skills, for organizational sustainability. Often, this concept is assumed to be the management of entertainers’ skills. Talent management is also referred to, by some employers as the process of human capital management, but it is an unique human resource function since its scope is not only limited to the human resource department but also other departments of an organization (Taylor 2005, p. 1).
This means that the talent management process incorporates the input of not only the human resource manager but also other managers in the organization.
Often, talent management has been a widely misunderstood concept because some people perceive it as the general management of talents while others perceive it as one way to manage highly skilled talent in the organization (HR Executive 2011).
These perceptions however have some truth in them because their difference only lies in the scope of analysis. Regardless, talent management incorporates the identification and selection of talent in the organization as part of a strategic goal of remaining competitive and profitable by having an edge above competitors.
Talent management is used by organizations for several purposes. However, in the ideal setup, talent management is used as a cost-cutting tool where organizations seek to optimize the output and efficiency of individual employees (Taylor 2005, p. 11). For many organizations though, the concept of talent management has not deeply taken root because many organizations still perceive it as an abstract concept of human resource management.
In reference to this fact, it is established that not more than 5% of all organizations today have a clear talent management strategy (HR Executive 2011). Nonetheless, organizations also find it increasingly important to adopt the talent management process to evaluate an employee’s performance and career potential in the organization (Shavinina, 2004, p. 17).
Others however find the concept meaningful because it enables them develop top talent in the organization, while others simply find the concept useful because it enables them identify a possible successor in the organization. Mostly privately owned enterprises adopt talent management for this reason, since it gives them an opportunity to prepare certain individuals for future positions of leadership. Doris (2009) affirms that:
“This is what talent management is all about — gathering information about talent, analyzing their career interests and organizational business needs, identifying top talent and successes, and developing these individuals to reduce the risk of losing the best people and experiencing extensive leadership gaps when turnover occurs” (p. 9).
Literature Review
The difference between recruitment and talent management is embodied in its functions. Though many recruitment agencies and human resource firms are still detailing the recruitment and selection process with an end-to end approach (through selection and filling vacant post), the functions of talent management is more articulate (Cottell 2009).
Talent management is known to start from realizing the organizations’ goals and seeking the best ways to accomplish such goals. However, the recruitment and selection process starts with identifying a given vacancy and seeking the best people to fill them.
The focus on talent management by most organizations today was not a common human resource practice. In the past, organizations only used to fill organizational vacancies without a keen regard on the capability of the selected person to suit the job profile. This trend has however changed. Cottell (2009) affirms that “We see a clear move away from what might be described as the ‘recruitment waiter’ service: take the order, go away and find somebody to fill it” (p. 6).
Some recruitment agencies and human resource departments have even changed the profile of some human resource executives from heads of recruitment to heads of talent acquisition. This transition clearly shows a paradigm shift for most organizations because several of them now acknowledge that the demand of present-day organizations is higher and organizations have to live up to it, through their human resource strategies (Hatum 2010, p. 66).
As such, many organizations have increasingly acknowledged the input of the talent acquisition process, as opposed to the recruitment process, because talent management is more focused on results than recruitment and selection.
This sentiment reiterates an earlier fact identified in this study that, talent management starts from the end product (results) as opposed to the beginning. Cottell (2009) affirms that “Recruitment starts with a vacancy and ends when you fill it; talent acquisition starts not with a vacancy, but with the business plan and understanding what the client needs to meet its business plan” (p. 19).
Employers affirm that the paradigm shift from recruitment and selection to talent management has been necessitated by the fact that talent management is quickly coming up as the differentiating factor for most businesses and successful businesses cannot achieve high levels of success without incorporating talent management as a core human resource activity; therefore, many companies today note that the recruitment and selection process is only part of the talent management process because recent studies have exposed the fact that, there is a link between successful employees, success in business and the importance of managing talent to achieve success (Cottell 2009, p. 20).
Many companies operating in today’s turbulent business times therefore acknowledge that, talent management is one way through which they can make a name for themselves and save their companies from disappearing because of increased competition and a worsening business climate (Shavinina, 2004, p. 17).
Talent management is therefore part of a wider integrated scheme which goes beyond the conventional recruitment and selection process. For instance, the talent management process can include a learning intervention process which is not often included in the recruitment and selection process. Alternatively, the talent management process may break away from the norm and include an internal succession plan or even an external recruitment process (Silzer 2009, p. 112).
In this regard, it is difficult to separate the recruitment process from human resource process in totality since successful companies find it important to integrate human resource with the recruitment process to develop in-house teams which are responsible for end-to-end recruitment.
However, this process is taxing for most human resource managers and personnel because it requires extra skill, planning, coaching and guidance for most human resource personnel.
It is also very easy for the roles of different human resource personnel to clash with each another and therefore there is a stronger need for clearer job definition specifications (Chanda 2007). In a related twist of events, many human resource teams are also getting involved in contract development, onboarding and such like practices, thereby prompting many organizations to experience and end-to-end function.
Though it is not openly known, these changes are driven by the emotional contract between organizations and human resource departments when they succeed to bring everyone on board as a synchronized human resource team (Cottell 2009). Other factors that have increased this trend is the increased endowment of human resource experience by some human resource staff but more importantly, the need to adopt cost-cutting measures by some companies.
Organizations which are on the forefront in embracing this new human resource paradigm (talent management) increasingly finding it useful to adopt the strategy through an e-recruitment process. Through this process, organizations are able to adopt an end-to-end approach in human resource management because they can be able to follow employee progress, right from the attraction stage to the end of their training.
The strong focus on talent management is the reason many organizations focus on a candidate’s experience as a major determinant criterion to evaluate if a candidate is suitable for a certain employment position or not.
In the past, the recruitment and selection process used to treat candidates as “commodities” as opposed to performance driving instruments. The end-to-end recruitment process (talent management) now puts the candidate at the centre of the recruitment and selection process because skills, expertise and talents are core to most organizations. Cottell (2009) affirms that:
“No longer is the recruitment process the question of employers assembling evidence and information on which to make decisions, but a two-way process in which candidates can obtain the evidence and information they need to make decisions about their career choices” (p. 23).
Critics of the talent management process have however noted that the process is only exclusive to external recruitment processes but in the real sense, even internal recruitment processes are end-to-end (Rothwell 2010, p. 289). This is because internally recruited staffs also undertake a thorough talent management process because before they scale the organizational ladder, they are thoroughly vetted and ultimately appointed to such positions based on merit, skill and their suitability for the job.
Nonetheless, the biggest challenge in adopting talent management as the new human resource paradigm rests in deciding the lines of difference among the functions of various human resource processes and teams, such as resourcing teams, learning and development teams and the like.
This challenge is often daunting for most organizations because several strive to give their candidates a seamless experience during recruitment and in the course of their work duration but it is difficult to do so, if the differences between the human resource processes are not clear.
Another great challenge experienced by most organizations in the entire talent management process is drawing a clear-cut difference between the roles of different human resource personnel because if this is not done, the candidates may be unable to derive a solid experience from the entire process (Chanda 2007).
Regardless of the above challenges, some experts have noted that the difference between external recruitment and talent management is not as clear as it should be. Their distinction is blurred because these experts note that both processes have often been regarded as part of an unified strategy.
For instance, in some organizations, employees recruited from both internal and external processes are normally evaluated based on how well they integrate with the company’s values and behaviors (Rothwell 2010, p. 289). Such values may involve their ability to work well in teams or how best they are in taking responsibility for their actions. However, the best way to appreciate the paradigm shift is by acknowledging how organizations measure their success.
Cottell (2009) affirms that “Typical measures of success in recruitment have been how quick and how cheaply; with talent management, it’s around quality of hire, reduced costs, increasing business success and effectiveness — much more strategic values than recruitment outputs” (p. 30).
Because of the importance of talent management and its apparent difference with recruitment and selection processes, various aspects of human resource have changed as can be evidenced from the changing relationship between employers and employees. Interestingly, even the term “candidate” is slowly being redefined.
Concerning this trend, Cottell (2009) makes reference to his organization by stating that “A good 60% of our client focus is less on the active candidate market and more on the passive market” (p. 30). He further reiterates that “They are not even thinking of looking for a job and our clients want to engage with them” (Cottell 2009, p. 30).
However, the strongest reason this change is evidenced is because of the advancement in technology which has changed the way employers and prospective employees relate. This relationship has further changed the expectations of candidates because several of them now look forward to having a new experience with their employers, and yet, many more, strive to build a relationship with their employers in advance to applying for a given position in an organization.
Experts have in the recent past acknowledged that the paradigm shift from recruitment and selection to talent management has been greatly enhanced by the increased awareness of employers because many of them currently acknowledge the input software can have on their goal of easing the talent management process to be efficient and sustainable in the long run. Mark Tims, a recruitment and selection service provider (cited in Cottell 2009) acknowledges that:
“the trend for talent acquisition is mirrored by increasing awareness of software to help manage the whole recruitment life cycle from application, selection or rejection, and on boarding, to keeping building candidate pools of speculative jobseekers, if vacancies come up in the future” (p. 34).
The above statement is true because many employers now rely on soft wares that support talent management to know the best approaches needed to tackle, recruitment, retention and outsourcing processes.
This trend can be evidenced from the fact that many employers now seek to recruit experienced personnel into their businesses, especially during the first months of business. A common way of doing so is through the appointment of internal mentors because they pose fewer risks when compared to mentors picked from out of the organization (Rothwell 2010, p. 289).
This trend is normally observed because many employers are now wary of the increased risks associated with recruiting personnel from out of the organization. In fact, it has been established that some organizations run losses of up to $250,000 dollars from the risks associated with externally sourcing employees (Cottell 2009).
Comprehensively, Schweyer (2010) notes that, there is no way an organization will fall back to how it used to carry out its human resource processes because talent management is the new frontier in human resource practices. He finalizes his sentiments by stating that:
“Recruitment is no longer a ‘one size fits all’ process, in which candidates can expect to send a CV, go through an interview and have references taken up — this is about an ongoing experience and engagement, a completely different experience” (p. 3).
Conclusion
Talent management is a relatively new concept in the business circle and its potential is yet to be fully exploited. However, we can see that there is a blurred interpretation of talent management and the recruitment and selection process because talent management is an extension of the recruitment and selection process.
In other words, from recruitment and selection, the concept of talent management grew. Now, talent management is a wider concept which encompasses recruitment and selection; or in simpler terms, recruitment and selection are part of the wider strategy of talent management.
The concept of talent management has specifically grown because of the change in the business environment. More so, the manner in which success is measured in today’s business world prompts many organizations to focus their attention on talent management. The significant change in paradigm is necessitated by the fact that talent management is result-oriented while recruitment and selection are not.
In other words, the recruitment and selection process is focused on the beginning of the talent management process and does not extend into the end of the process. However, talent management encompasses the beginning of the process (recruitment) up to the end of the process (results or performance). This is the reason why many experts note that the talent management process is end-to-end.
References
Chanda, A. (2007) Strategic Human Resource Technologies: Keys to Managing People. London, SAGE.
Cottell, C. (2009) Talent Managing – Key To Recruiting. Web.
Doris, S. (2009) Debunking Top Ten Management Myths. Web.
Hatum, A. (2010) Next Generation Talent Management: Talent Management to Survive Turmoil. London, Palgrave Macmillan.
HR Executive. (2011) Talent Management Origins. Web.
Rothwell, W. (2010) Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity And Building Talent from Within. New York, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Schweyer, A. (2010) Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Planning. London, John Wiley and Sons.
Shavinina, L. (2004) Silicon Valley North: A High-Tech Cluster of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. London, Emerald Group Publishing.
Silzer, R. (2009) Strategy-Driven Talent Management: A Leadership Imperative. London, John Wiley and Sons.
Taylor, S. (2005) People Resourcing. New York, CIPD Publishing.