A talent advisor does not fulfill the same role as a recruiter. While a recruiter has the skills, knowledge, and expertise to help streamline a company’s hiring process, a talent advisor acts as a strategic partner to a company’s hiring manager as well as the company as a whole.
So what exactly does a talent advisor do? Primarily, a talent advisor uses data such as market, industry, and hiring trends to develop strategic recruitment processes that align with a company's current and future needs.
A key, common difference between a recruiter and a talent advisor is their approach, long-term view, and specialization. While every business in every industry is likely to have a recruiter on its team, a talent advisor is often a specialist in a specific industry or type of company. This means talent advisors have more extensive knowledge about trends in a certain industry.
Common challenges that companies are facing as well as future needs of a sector are all factors talent advisors are thinking about when looking for talent and developing strategies to hire talent.
A talent advisor’s strategic, cost-effective recruiting process is a big benefit companies experience when working with talent advisors. For many companies, recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding new team members can be a long, tedious process. What’s more, after a team member is hired, a recruiter may consider their job over.
But a talent advisor continuously evaluates the quality of the hires they make to ensure that they are actually finding the talent a company needs — both today, and tomorrow — by staying up to date with retention rate data.
Additionally, their strategic partnership with hiring managers and recruiters helps a company’s hiring funnel continuously improve and adapt to a company and industry’s needs.
It’s a talent advisor’s long-term outlook, industry expertise, and commitment to providing effective recruiting solutions that save the companies they work for considerable time and resources.
One of the main recruitment strategies a talent advisor deploys is called talent mapping.
Talent mapping provides several benefits for a company. The main benefit of effective talent mapping is finding and onboarding talent that a company needs through a more cost-effective recruitment process.
Instead of reaching out to a larger pool of potential candidates, talent mapping prioritizes a company’s goals and needs to strategically find the right talent faster. Instead of needing to fish in a sea of applicants, talent mapping helps a company fish for great talent by reducing the size of the applicant pool.
The needs of a company change every year. So too does a company’s industry and market. Therefore, a more effective recruitment model takes into account the needs of a company today and anticipates its needs in the future.
Talent mapping helps talent advisors take a whole-picture look at a company and plan for upcoming talent needs.
Talent mapping allows a talent advisor to identify the current needs of a business and connect these needs with a team member already at the company whose skills might be a good match. For example, if a company needs mid-level managers for new locations, talent mapping can help a talent advisor determine which employees already have the experience that could align with a manager’s responsibilities.
While talent mapping helps keep a company’s recruiting strategies relevant and flexible, talent mapping also seeks to look for team member development opportunities as well. Creating training paths to leadership roles or specialization training can help companies fill gaps with their current team members, and create a more innovative workforce as well.
If you’re looking for the expert help of a talent advisor, or you’d like to learn more about what a talent advisor does and how it can help your company, contact SGA Talent for a consultation.
