What is Recruitment?
According to TechTarget, recruitment is the process of finding, screening, hiring and eventually onboarding qualified job candidates.
What is Talent Acquisition?
According to LinkedIn, talent acquisition is powered by recruiters, sourcers, human resources professionals and hiring managers who organize the entire process of talent acquisition to find the right person for the job. It continues that in a corporate setting, it’s often placed under Human Resources (HR) and involves sourcing, attracting, interviewing, hiring and onboarding employees.
What is the difference between recruitment and talent acquisition?
When discussing the difference between recruitment and talent acquisition, many either think recruitment and talent acquisition are the same or that one feeds off the other. Jobvite says recruitment and talent acquisition are synonymous, but companies who keep an eye on the big picture know there’s a crucial difference between the two. Honestly, I couldn’t agree more.
JobVite continues that recruitment is about filling vacancies and that talent acquisition is an ongoing strategy to find specialists, leaders, or figure executives of your company.
Recruiter.com says that the main difference between recruiting and talent acquisition is that recruiting is reactive because a recruiter’s main goal is to fill a position that has opened and need to be filled. It continues that talent acquisition focuses on finding qualified candidates for tougher positions that might open up in the future.
Recruiting is used and can be used in any industry or business. Talent acquisition, on the other hand, focuses mainly on niche industries like:
- Medical
- Technology
- Legal
- Engineering
How much is a recruiter and talent acquisition professional’s salary?
A recruiter’s salary is not the same as the salary of a talent acquisition professional. Typically, recruiters earn a lower base salary but get bonuses and commissions added to their base on a regular basis. Typically, this is paid out monthly or quarterly, if not, both monthly and quarterly.
According to Salary.com, recruiters are paid a minimum annual base salary of $45,353 to a maximum annual base salary of $69,253. This does not include their monthly or quarterly bonuses or commissions. The national median salary for a recruiter is $57,617 per year.
According to Salary.com, talent acquisition professionals are paid a maximum base salary of $57,393 to a maximum annual base salary of $64,976. The national median salary for a talent acquisition professional is $64,976 per year.
What is a day in the life like for a recruiter and a talent acquisition professional?
A typical day in the life of a recruiter includes posting jobs on job boards, tracking candidates in the application tracking system (ATS) and creating or attending job fairs and recruiting events.
As you can see, the pictures in this blog shows me standing at the employer table with company branded and company sponsored items. These are used to inform potential applicants about the jobs my employer currently has available. At the same time, there are tons of other recruiters with tables similar to mine, informing the same candidates about open jobs at their company.
I have not only attended job fairs, but also built a network that allows me to inform their audience about my open positions. In this video, I recruited new applicants using the local CBS news. In this video, an external recruiting agency created a job fair at their office.
A typical day in the life for a talent acquisition professional using their strategy and their talent acquisition team of sourcers, screenings and follow-ups to ensure having or finding the right person with the right skills for a long-term position. This helps to reduce a high turnover rate.
In this video, I show what a day in the life for talent acquisition professional could be like for me. My day is not the same every day.
Meet me in the comments and tell me what you think about recruiting versus talent acquisition.