TA Belongs In The Go-Go of Sales And Marketing
Absolutely, you could argue that talent acquisition shares more similarities with sales and marketing than traditional human resources functions. Let’s break it down.
First, let’s look at what sales, marketing, and talent acquisition all do. They all try to attract the best “clients,” whether these are consumers buying products, viewers clicking on an ad, or potential employees considering a job offer. They all build and sell an attractive image of their “product,” whether it’s a consumer item, an advertisement, or a company culture and the opportunities it offers.
Take sales. What’s the key to a successful sales operation? It’s about identifying your audience, figuring out what they want, and presenting your product in the best light, right? Now, isn’t that exactly what talent acquisition teams do? They identify potential candidates (their audience), understand what those candidates want in a job (the product), and present the company (the product again) in the best light. The pitch.
On to marketing. Branding, messaging, and targeting are all key elements of marketing. Aren’t they equally vital in talent acquisition? Your company brand is what attracts candidates. Your job descriptions are your messaging, and you target specific audiences when you look for candidates. It’s the story.
Finally, let’s talk about metrics and data analysis. Both sales and marketing teams live and breathe numbers — click-through rates, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs. Talent acquisition is heading the same way, with metrics like time to hire, cost per hire, and quality of hire becoming increasingly important.
Compare all of this to traditional HR functions, like payroll, benefits administration, and conflict resolution. While these are absolutely critical for any company, they don’t align as closely with the proactive, externally focused work that talent acquisition teams do.
In the end, talent acquisition is all about selling the company to potential employees. It’s about marketing the brand, making the pitch, and closing the deal. Sure, it falls under the wider umbrella of HR, but to lump it in entirely would be a disservice. It’s more akin to a suave, martini-sipping secret agent than a bean-counting bureaucrat.
So let’s rethink our organizational structures. Stop relegating talent acquisition to the backwaters of HR and bring it into the limelight, where the sales and marketing magic happens. Because at the end of the day, we’re all just trying to make a sale — whether it’s a product, an idea, or a job.
