What Is Talent Acquisition? 

Talent acquisition is generally understood as the longer-term process of identifying the capabilities an organisation may need, understanding where those skills can be found and building an approach to reaching and hiring them. Recruitment typically forms one part of that process and often begins once a vacancy has been approved. For talent acquisition, the process can start earlier. This is while the business and key decision makers are still considering what work needs to be done, the timelines when a talent is required and how realistic the hiring plan is in the key market.

For many organisations, setting up the conversation earlier gives HR and TA teams more opportunity to contribute market insight before decisions around location, experience requirements or hiring timelines are fixed.

This is where talent acquisition can extend beyond filling individual roles. It can connect hiring activity with a longer view of workforce demand and give business leaders more information as they make decisions about future capability.

Why Talent Acquisition Can Start Before the Vacancy

Many organisations are looking at how TA can contribute earlier in the workforce planning process, rather than becoming involved only once individual vacancies are ready to recruit.

That may include understanding where the organisation expects to grow, which capabilities could become harder to secure and where future demand may place pressure on particular talent pools.

In financial services, for example, a requirement for risk, compliance, cyber, data or actuarial talent may appear achievable when each factor is considered independently. Once geography, regulatory experience, seniority and notice periods are considered together, the available pool may look quite different.

Bringing talent-market information into the discussion earlier can give leaders more room to examine those trade-offs before recruitment activity begins.

Robert Walters’ TA Evolution 2026 guide explores this broader role for talent acquisition, including closer working between TA, HR, learning teams and workforce planning. For some organisations, this creates an opportunity for TA to contribute market knowledge to decisions that influence future workforce demand, rather than operating only at the point of hiring.

What Does Talent Acquisition Include?

Depending on the organisation, the structure and workforce challenges will determine the scope of talent acquisition. Most of the time, it can include areas such as workforce demand, role planning, talent sourcing, candidate engagement, recruitment delivery and hiring data.

Sourcing is an important part of this work, although the conversation does not necessarily begin with which channels to use.

An earlier question may be: who is the organisation hoping to hire, and how readily can that talent be found in the chosen market?

Consider a business planning to recruit 20 compliance professionals in one city within a quarter. Before deciding whether to use job boards, direct search, referrals or external partners, TA may choose to examine the local talent pool, competitor demand, likely notice periods and whether people with adjacent experience could also meet the requirement.

Those findings may reinforce the original hiring plan. In other cases, they may prompt a discussion about location, profile or timing.

This is one reason sourcing can be more useful when viewed as part of a wider talent acquisition strategy rather than as an isolated recruitment activity.

How to Build a Talent Acquisition Strategy

When building a talent acquisition strategy, it is important to note that there is no one size fits all approach as there are different variables shaping a strategy for an organisation. Different hiring volumes, hiring location, business goals and the availability of required skills can all influence the approach.

For HR and TA leaders reviewing their current strategy, several areas may be useful to explore.

Start With the Work Behind the Vacancy

A familiar job title does not always describe what a team now requires.

Roles can change as organisations introduce new technology, respond to regulation or adjust how teams serve customers. Looking first at the work to be delivered can help leaders distinguish between capabilities that are essential and criteria that may simply reflect how the role was hired previously.

That conversation may still lead to an external hire. It may also surface other possibilities, such as developing an internal employee, adjusting the role or reconsidering how the work is divided across the team.

Test the Hiring Brief Against the Market

Acquiring market intelligence to understand the talent-market can be particularly useful while there is still flexibility in the hiring plan.

Factors such as talent availability, candidate expectations, salary levels, competitor demand and location can help HR, TA and hiring managers understand how the requirement is likely to perform in the market. For niche or harder-to-find roles, having this information will build a better understanding of how to approach hiring before sourcing begins.

For example, an insurer looking for experienced actuarial talent may find that a tightly defined combination of product knowledge, regulatory experience and location significantly reduces the available pool. That does not necessarily mean changing the brief. It gives the business a clearer view of the trade-offs before the search begins, including where requirements are essential and where there may be room to consider adjacent experience.

Match the Sourcing Approach to the Talent

Different groups of candidates are likely to respond to different forms of engagement.

A specialist professional who is not actively considering a move may respond better to informed, individual outreach. High-volume recruitment can require a more consistent approach to messaging and screening. Early-career hiring may involve relationships built over a longer period rather than activity concentrated around an application window.

The experience after the first contact can be just as important.

For scarce talent, unclear interview stages or long periods between conversations may affect candidate interest. Some TA teams therefore agree decision points, responsibilities and expected timelines with hiring managers before sourcing activity increases.

The aim is not necessarily to make every process faster. It is to create an experience that reflects the type of talent the organisation is trying to attract.

Consider Measures Beyond Recruitment Activity

Applications, interviews and time-to-fill remain useful measures of recruitment activity. Depending on the business objective, HR and TA teams may also find value in looking at what happened after that activity.

The most relevant measures will differ by hiring requirement.

A market-entry programme may look at whether the required team was in place for launch. A specialist function may place more emphasis on shortlist quality, offer acceptance or retention. Candidate withdrawal or repeated changes to a hiring brief can also provide useful signals about where the recruitment experience could be reviewed.

The purpose is not to replace established TA metrics. It is to consider whether additional measures could give the business a fuller view of how effectively the hiring requirement was met.

Where Talent Acquisition Strategies Can Come Under Pressure

Even established talent acquisition approaches may need to adapt when business priorities, hiring demand or talent markets change.

In some organisations, TA may become involved after decisions around location, salary or timing have already been agreed. Hiring managers may understandably begin with the profile of a previous successful employee, even when parts of the role have since changed. A global hiring approach may also produce different results as it is applied across markets with different candidate expectations.

In these situations, additional recruitment activity is one possible response, but it may not always address the source of the difficulty.

More advertising or sourcing activity can increase reach. If the candidate pool remains narrow, approvals take time or the brief leaves little flexibility, HR and TA leaders may also choose to examine those factors.

Earlier market insight can help create that conversation before additional hiring activity is committed.

When RPO Can Support Talent Acquisition

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)  can be useful when an organisation wants extra support across a broader hiring requirement, rather than help filling one vacancy at a time. The scope will look different from one business to another. An RPO partner might work alongside the internal TA team to build candidate pipelines in a particular market, coordinate hiring across several teams or take responsibility for parts of the recruitment process that need more consistent support.

The value of that support is likely to depend on how the partnership is set up and where the external team becomes involved.

Where an RPO provider has visibility of workforce priorities and access to hiring stakeholders earlier in the process, there may be more opportunity to contribute market information alongside recruitment delivery. In other situations, the requirement may be more focused on providing consistent execution against an already-defined hiring plan.

Project RPO can offer a more contained approach for organisations facing a hiring surge, entering a new market or recruiting a defined group of roles.

A Robert Walters Project RPO partnership with Bosch provides one example. A coordinated local hiring approach supported recruitment delivery around Bosch’s particular workforce requirements, showing how a defined programme can work alongside an organisation’s existing team.

What HR and TA Leaders May Consider Next

For organisations reviewing their talent acquisition strategy, one practical starting point may be a part of the business where hiring demand is expected to remain important over the next six to twelve months.

Looking at that demand in more detail can help surface useful questions.

• Is the required talent available in the chosen location? 
• Which capabilities are essential? 
• At what stage does TA become involved? 
• Do current sourcing methods reflect the people the organisation wants to reach? 
• Are hiring managers and TA working from the same understanding of the requirement?

The answers will naturally differ between organisations. The intention for these questions is not to add another layer to the recruitment process. It is to give stakeholders the information they need while there is still scope to adjust the plan. 

Robert Walters works with HR and TA leaders who are reviewing how their talent acquisition approach supports wider business priorities. Our talent solutions specialists can work alongside internal teams to explore workforce demand, talent-market conditions and tailoring a solution for your business needs. Consult our team to get started.