Talent Operations: A Complete Guide

In the greater scope of recruiting, talent operations, also known as recruitment operations, is a relatively new role in hiring. Talent operations functions and managerial roles formed following the emergence of newer technologies in the hiring and recruiting space. As more advanced and powerful solutions became available to recruiters, the need for a specialist who understood how to leverage those solutions also grew. 

Data analytics technologies, automated references, assessment tools, and recruiting dashboards have made it possible for hiring teams to streamline various hiring processes and become more proactive in finding new hires. Greater efficiency, control, and oversight of recruitment and hiring is essentially what talent operations aim to provide for hiring teams.  

What is talent operations?

A talent operations manager or specialist is someone who uses proactive, data-driven approaches to find solutions to your hiring challenges and needs. Talent ops representatives will focus on understanding the holistic needs of your business and utilize the various tools at their disposal, like a talent wall, to achieve hiring results. 

Talent Operations members will be experts in understanding and applying insights from hiring analytics, identifying talent acquisition strategies, and staying up-to-date on the newest technologies and solutions that enable hiring teams to excel. 

What is the difference between talent operations and talent acquisition?

Talent acquisition is a task that talent ops representatives typically have to fulfill in their roles. Unlike talent operations, which refers to a role or individual, talent acquisition is about the process of finding qualified candidates to fill open positions. 

While talent acquisition is narrowly focused on finding quality hires to fill roles, talent operations is concerned with the entire hiring ecosystem–efficiency markers, actionable solutions to problems, potential hurdles, long-term challenges, data analysis, optimizing integrated tools (like your ATS), and more. 

What is the responsibility of talent operations?

Whether you’re looking to hire a talent operations manager, specialist, or representative, they will fulfill most of the same roles and responsibilities. You can expect a quality talent operations representative to fulfill the duties:

• Work closely with talent leaders to identify challenges, develop strategies, and define long and short-term solutions
• Develop strategies to optimize your technologies and digital infrastructure
• Work with managers to understand the long-term, holistic goals of the company and their hiring needs
• Create presentations and report to relevant stakeholders, partners, and team leaders regarding the status of hiring plans and projects
• Leverage data and analytics solutions to enhance metrics and hiring operations
• Assist with perennial budgeting, headcount, and long-term hiring needs
• Improve talent acquisition operations, practices, and metrics, including quality of hire

Talent operations metrics

Because talent operations specialists are focused on so many aspects of the hiring process, they often have to stay on top of several recruiting metrics (depending on the needs of the company). 

While the following measures can change from organization to organization and season to season, you can expect a combination of the following metrics to be prioritized by talent operations members. 

• Quality of hire: Quality of hire is the gold standard when it comes to hiring metrics. Teams want to figure out how to identify, attract, and retain quality hires. They know bad hires can be costly, and they expect talent operations representatives to optimize their quality of hire metrics. Check out Crosschq’s “Q” Report, which looks at more than 24 million pre-hire recruitment decisions with post-hire performance to determine what are and aren’t good indications of quality of hire. 
• Employee engagement/satisfaction: It won’t mean much to acquire quality talent if you can’t retain them. Employee surveys, one-on-one meetings with employees, managerial testimonies, employee suggestion boxes, and software that integrates feedback functions are all ways that talent ops specialists can gauge employee satisfaction and engagement. 
• Turnover rate: High turnover rates could be an indicator of several issues. You might be hiring the wrong types of candidates, either because they aren't a good cultural fit, don’t have the skill set to excel at their roles, or something else. You might have a poor onboarding process, which leads 64% of new hires to leave their jobs. Whatever the case may be, talent ops reps are there to learn from turnover rates and find solutions.
• Cost per hire and time to hire: With the right solutions, technologies, and data-driven strategies, you should be able to reduce both cost per hire and time to hire with the help of a talent ops specialist. Remember, though, that cost and time aren’t everything. It’s going to cost you a lot more to replace a bad hire that you secured quickly than it will to secure a quality, long-term hire–even if it costs you a bit more initially. 

How your talent ops representatives will excel with Crosschq

At Crosschq, we’ve done the work to identify which hiring methods lead to quality hires and which do not. Our “Q” Report identified radical insights that will change the way your talent ops reps approach your hiring ecosystem, like why you might be accidentally laying off your best hires and how to identify the best sourcing channels. 

From ensuring you’re leveraging all your integrations to improved collaboration with stakeholders and maintaining your pipeline health, Crosschq has all the tools your talent operations members need. 

Click here to request the Crosschq demo today.