Recruiting Glossary and Processes

Talent Acquisition

Talent acquisition refers to the HR functions necessary to source, attract, process, screen, qualify, and hire talent. These functions include:

• ​Developing a hiring plan
• ​Developing a candidate acquisition program
• ​Writing job descriptions
• ​Posting jobs to job boards, careers pages, and social media accounts
• ​Tracking hiring metrics
• ​Receiving and tracking applications and resumes
• ​Developing screening questionnaires, candidate scorecards, and interview scripts
• ​Scheduling and conducting interviews
• ​Performing background and reference checks
• ​Writing offer letters
• ​Employment contract negotiation
• ​Creating employee referral programs
• ​Finding the best candidates who may not even be looking

Talent Acquisition Management

The task of talent acquisition varies depending on the size of a company. In small businesses, owners may handle all recruiting tasks themselves. In larger organizations, Human Resources departments and hiring managers perform much of the recruiting work. At the enterprise level, companies may outsource recruiting to staffing agencies or professional recruiters (sometimes called headhunters).

How does a talent acquisition specialist fill an open job?

A general process a talent acquisition specialist or hiring manager would follow:

• ​Submit a job requisition to appropriate members of leadership and obtain approval
  • ​Perform a job analysis to identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics required for a position
  • ​Decide whether to fill the new position with an outside candidate or through internal placement
  • ​Write a job description based on the position analysis
  • ​Create the application including any screening questionnaires included in the application process
• ​Post the job to job boards, social media sites, careers pages, or other job advertising venues
  • ​Seek referrals from current employees
  • ​Review applications and resumes for qualifications and experience
  • ​Select a pool of top candidates from the overall applicant pool
• ​Manage the interview and evaluation process:
  • ​Select the candidates from the initial pool who will advance to a phone interview
    • ​Of those candidates, choose which candidates to invite for in-person or video interviews
    • ​Schedule interviews
    • ​Conduct interviews
    • ​Gather feedback from the hiring team
• ​Make the final hiring decision
  • ​Obtain approval from the executive team (or other necessary stakeholders)
  • ​Conduct background and reference checks
• ​Extend an offer letter
  • ​Negotiate the employment contract

Recruiting

Human resources recruiting is the process of finding and hiring talented employees. Recruiting includes tasks such as sourcing, attracting, screening, and offering jobs to high-quality candidates.

Recruiting may involve the following tasks:

• ​Developing a candidate acquisition program
• ​Designing a hiring plan
• ​Submitting and obtaining approval for job requisition requests
• ​Writing job descriptions
• ​Posting jobs to job boards, careers pages, and social media accounts
• ​Tracking hiring metrics
• ​Receiving and tracking applications and resumes
• ​Creating screening questionnaires and candidate scorecards
• ​Writing interview scripts
• ​Scheduling and conducting interviews
• ​Performing background and reference checks
• ​Writing offer letters to make a good impression
• ​Negotiating employment contracts
• ​Managing compensation and benefits programs
• ​Creating internal hiring and employee referral programs
• ​Finding the best candidates who may not even be looking

Who manages recruiting?

Recruiting is handled in different ways by different companies. In small businesses and startups, owners or managers commonly handle recruiting. In larger organizations, a Human Resources department hires and retains the talent acquisition team that finds candidates for open positions. Enterprise-level companies may have a specialized team with hundreds of recruiters working to fill job openings. Large companies may also outsource recruiting to staffing agencies and professional recruiters (sometimes called headhunters).

Automated Recruiting using Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

An applicant tracking system (ATS) automates nearly every task involved in hiring. These tasks include job posting, tracking and managing resumes, sending emails to applicants, creating hiring workflows, filtering candidates, creating interview scripts, and writing job descriptions.

How can job boards improve recruiting?

A job board is a search engine that allows users to search open jobs by a variety of variables. These include job role, geographic location, industry, and job type (contractor, part-time, remote position, etc.). Some job boards specialize in tech jobs or a specific geographic area; others focus on an underrepresented employee demographic. Job seekers can apply for jobs and upload resumes on the job board; recruiters can post open jobs and search for best-fit candidates in the resume database.

What is a job distribution platform?

This is a website that aggregates thousands of independent job boards. For those seeking employment, it doesn’t work much differently than a job board. Users can search by job title, location, company, job type (part-time, remote, intern, contractor), or many other variables. Job distribution platforms allow companies to post jobs on multiple job boards at once, making it quicker and less expensive than posting to individual job boards. These platforms also provide artificial intelligence tools to help recruiters identify the best boards for their specific job postings.

Hiring Processes

Hiring processes include the specific tasks necessary to source, attract, process, screen, qualify, and hire talent. These tasks include:

• ​Creating a job requisition process
• ​Writing job descriptions
• ​Posting jobs to job boards, careers pages, and social media accounts
• ​Tracking hiring metrics
• ​Receiving and tracking applications and resumes
• ​Developing screening questionnaires and scorecards for candidates
• ​Writing interview scripts
• ​Scheduling and conducting interviews
• ​Performing background and reference checks
• ​Writing offer letters
• ​Employment contract negotiation
• ​Managing compensation and benefits programs
• ​Creating internal hiring and employee referral programs
• ​Writing an Employee Value Proposition
• ​Finding and nurturing passive candidates

Who manages hiring processes?

The hiring process may be handled by a wide range of people in different roles, depending on the size of the company. In a small business, the owner might handle hiring. In larger organizations, a Human Resources director would generally manage talent acquisition. Enterprise-level companies may have a talent acquisition team that includes hundreds of talent acquisition specialists or associates. Companies also outsource hiring to staffing agencies or professional recruiters (sometimes called headhunters).

How do applicant tracking systems (ATS) automate hiring processes?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) automates nearly every task involved in filling a job opening. These tasks include posting jobs online, tracking qualified candidates, managing resumes, sending emails to applicants, creating interview scripts, and designing job postings.

How can job boards improve hiring processes?

A job board is a search engine that allows users to search open jobs by a variety of variables, including job role, geographic location, and industry. Some job boards concentrate on a specialty such as tech jobs while others focus on a specific geographic area or an underrepresented employee demographic. Job seekers can apply for jobs and upload resumes on the site; recruiters can post open jobs and search for best-fit candidates in a resume database.

Employers generally pay fees to have their job openings listed on job boards. Some well-known job boards are Indeed, Zip Recruiter, LinkedIn, Monster, StackOverflow, Dice, CareerBuilder, and Craigslist.

What is a job distribution platform?

This is a job board aggregator that allows employers to post their job openings on multiple job boards at the same time. Recruiters can search for jobs by title, location, company, type (full-time vs. part-time, remote, internship, or contractor), or many other variables. Employers and staffing agencies use this platform to make their job postings available on multiple job sites without needing an individual account for each one. Using a job distribution platform can be quicker and less expensive than posting to job sites individually. Job distribution platforms also provide AI tools that help recruiters identify the best job sites for their specific job openings. This removes some of the guesswork in choosing the best advertising channels for job postings.

How does resume parsing software affect hiring processes?

Resume parsing software allows users to perform advanced searches on a database of resumes. Resume parsing tools are especially helpful for large companies that manage hundreds or thousands of applications and job openings. Recruiters can search the database for keywords, skills, and other variables to identify candidates most suitable for a given position. Many ATS come equipped with resume parsing software.