Talent Acquisition Problems

“The COVID-19 pandemic has made many people reconsider what they want in a job — and an employer — putting even greater weight on ensuring a frictionless, positive candidate experience from initial contact to job offer”, says Robert Half. “To boost your hiring efforts, you need a candidate-centric approach in which potential employees are treated with the same care as existing staff and customers.”

However, taking these words to action is not an easy task. We see the same recruitment problems repeated daily in our field, but we can't seem to find a solution for them. ”Firms aren’t matching talent to their top markets. Having the right people in the right places would boost the economy by millions,” declares Charles Davis.

So what can we do to face this issue? According to Lauren Shufran, these are the best strategies to tackle the three most significant talent acquisition difficulties.


  1. Find qualified talent

    Rather than a “talent shortage,” the reason enterprise TA teams aren’t “finding” qualified talent likely has something to do with a lack of effective sourcing methods, impractical job requirements, weak employer branding, or impersonal candidate experience — or some combination of the above.

    Tip: To stand out against other companies trying to hire talented candidates, “research what motivates them and what makes them happy in their job. With this knowledge, personalize your sourcing emails to describe what you can offer them instead of what they can do for your company,” says Nikoletta Bika.

  2. Meet diversity recruiting goals

    Over 80% of talent leaders said that diversity was the most important trend shaping the future of recruiting and hiring in 2020. And we continue to see more and more enterprise TA teams set new diversity goals and create new diversity initiatives in 2021.

    Tip: Create a plan based on sourcing, selecting, attracting and retaining diverse talent. Learn how to do this with The 17th Floor’s guide on how to overcome the challenges of recruiting diverse talent and start seeing results.

  3. Create a Structured Process to Nurture Passive Talent

    Most recruiters aren’t maintaining relationships after their initial outreach when the job opportunity doesn’t align with talent’s timing. In doing so, they risk missing stellar but not-quite-ready candidates every time they fail to nurture those connections.

    Tip: The best recruiting teams aren’t just hiring for today; they’re hiring with the long-view in mind. They know that nurturing passive talent over the long-term ultimately means faster time-to-hire, better quality-of-hire, employees who are more aligned with their values, and better retention numbers.

What are the challenges you encounter when acquiring new talent? Tell us in the comments section below. 


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