The days when recruitment was synonymous simply with filling vacancies are coming to an end, according to growing numbers of employers and recruitment agencies. As the old approach loses ground, it is being replaced by an end-to-end recruitment process, consisting of several stages of the recruitment life cycle.

“We are seeing a clear move away from what might be described as the ‘recruitment waiter’ service: take the order, go away and find somebody to fill it,” says David Mason, international talent acquisition director at global project management company CH2M Hill.

As Mason points out, “even the names of those responsible for recruitment have changed to heads of talent acquisition”. Indeed, a quick search of any professional networking group confirms that employers of the stature of Lloyds Banking Group, Vodafone, and Oxfam all employ staff whose titles include this term.

Such a change has been recognised not just by employers, but also by staffing companies. Sue Brooks, managing director of Ochre House Talent Management, says the company was set up in 2006 specifically to catch and, she hopes, to lead this trend.

Brooks is clear about the difference between recruitment and talent acquisition. “Recruitment starts with a vacancy and ends when you fill it; talent acquisition starts not with a vacancy, but with the business plan and understanding what the client needs to meet its business plan,” she explains. So what has driven this change? “Talent management is increasingly the differentiator for business and is increasingly seen as critical to its success. If that is the case, then recruitment is a critical part of managing talent,” says Brooks. Brooks says that a growing number of “ambitious companies” have made the link between great people, the achievement of their business goals, and the need to strategically manage their talent.

Indeed, Brooks says that in the current economic climate, “there aren’t many companies who don’t see a strategic approach to managing their talent as a route out of the downturn”. Brooks says that talent acquisition is part of an integrated approach, which can go well beyond traditional recruitment; for example, it might include “a learning intervention”, or an internal movement based on a succession plan. It might also involve going externally to recruit.

Nicky Bizzell, head of resourcing at law firm Eversheds, says the days when recruitment and HR “sat very separately from each other and sometimes not even in the same team”, have passed. In “forward thinking companies”, she says the two areas have combined to see the formation of in-house teams responsible for end-to-end recruitment.

At one end, this involves more manpower planning, coaching and guidance for line managers and job specification definitions. At the other end, teams are getting much more involved in, for example, contract development and onboarding. “That’s how we have ended up having a more end-to-end function,” says Bizzell. She says the changes have been driven by cost savings, and “the enhanced candidate experience and the emotional contract that you will get if you bring staff on board directly”.

Bizzell says that Eversheds has always adopted an end-to-end approach to graduate recruitment — from attraction right up to when graduates finish their training contracts. However, she says the firm is now looking to adopt the same type of approach to all its hiring, whether that be contractor, temporary, experienced or graduate. All this will be handled through one e-recruitment system.

The firm’s four-strong resourcing team will be responsible for the overall recruitment strategy and the recruitment process, and for providing advice and guidance to HR rather than the resourcing team doing it themselves. HR will be responsible for operational delivery, says Bizzell.

Bizzell says the candidate experience is fundamental to these changes. “In the past,” she says, “the candidate was a commodity and nothing else.” But with recruitment now end-to-end, the candidate is centre stage and in a position to receive an enhanced experience.

No longer is the recruitment process a question of employers assembling evidence and information on which to make decisions, she says, but a two-way process in which candidates can obtain the evidence and information they need to make decisions about their career choices.

Internal recruitment also falls within the remit of endto- end recruitment, says Bizzell. For example, she says staff don’t get to a certain level in Eversheds without a rounded career experience, and this has to be managed.

Bizzell says the biggest challenge in introducing these changes has been to decide where the cut-offs are between the various processes and teams — HR, resourcing, and learning and development — so as to give the candidate “a seamless experience”. It is also vital that the various “pieces of work” handled by different people are well documented to ensure the candidate experience is “solid”.

The distinction between external recruitment and talent management is increasingly blurred, suggests Penny Davis, HR director of facilities management services provider Balfour Beatty Workplace (BBW). Davis says the two have increasingly become part of a cohesive and unified strategy. For example, at BBW, candidates (both internal and external) are now assessed against the company’s values (behaviours), such as teamwork and taking responsibility.

Brooks says it is possible to gauge the significance of the changes by the way that success is measured: “Typical measures of success in recruitment have been how quick and how cheaply; with talent management, it’s around quality of hire, reduced costs, increasing business success and effectiveness — much more strategic values than recruitment outputs.”

The changing nature of relationship between employers and candidates is so profound that even the definition of the term ‘candidate’ has altered, says Brooks. “A good 60% of our client focus is less on the active candidate market and more on the passive market,” she says. “They are not even thinking of looking for a job and out clients want to engage with them.”

Brooks says this has been aided by developments in technology, particularly IT and the internet, which has “created an entirely different connection” between an employer and the candidate market. “The candidate increasingly expects a differentiated experience, speed and to build a relationship in advance of applying for a role.”

Mark Tims, managing director of GTI Recruiting Solutions, a provider of end-to-end recruitment services, agrees that the trend for talent acquisition is mirrored by “increasing awareness” of software to help manage the whole recruitment life cycle from application, selection or rejection, and on boarding, to keeping building candidate pools of speculative jobseekers “in case vacancies come up in the future”.

Darren James, chief executive of Definitive Consulting, recently opened DAJ Consulting with the intention of catching the trend for talent and talent acquisition. James says that clients are increasingly looking for help and advice on attraction, recruitment, retention and outsourcing.

James says that many companies now recognise the need to integrate new people (particularly experienced senior people) into the business within the first three to six months. One major trend is the use of internally appointed mentors, he says.

James says employers are increasingly aware of the need to avoid the cost of a bad hire (which he estimates at £250,000 in his own business). This recognition now extends into the area of preferred supplier lists for recruitment agencies, he says, where one of the criteria increasingly used is the conversion rate: people placed versus people retained.

Bill Haynes, chief executive of Verridian, says that in the current labour market where it’s “probably easier for employers to recruit than at any stage in the past five years”, the writing is on the wall for agencies that simply provide basic recruitment services. Consequently, the company has embarked on a strategy of broadening its service. This includes everything from sourcing the candidate to handling their induction over the first two months.

Simon La Fosse, managing director of La Fosse Associates, says one of the services his firm offers is a coach to help on board senior hires. Even though this has a short-term hit on the company’s margins, La Fosse, says he is prepared to pay for it. “We believe it’s a much more effective way for an individual to start with an organisation,” he says.

Brooks says there is no going back to the old ways.

“Recruitment is no longer a ‘one size fits all’ process, in which candidates can expect to send a CV, go through an interview and have references taken up — this is about an ongoing experience and engagement, a completely different experience.”