Search vs Talent Acquisition

Moving from search into Talent Acquisition is a path well-travelled – and we’re constantly getting asked about in-house roles by candidates. But are there some reasons to pause before taking this step? 

Reasons to consider a role in talent acquisition:

• The chance to be close to the business and involved in making strategic internal decisions; you get to understand the business decisions behind recruitment.
• You can help shape an employer’s brand.
• Having fewer financial targets makes the job less stressful for some people.
• The variety of work – your work might include dealing with HR issues, devising retention schemes, reviewing compensation packages as well as recruiting across a broad range of areas.
• A TA role can be a good route into other parts of a business, such as HR.

However, I also hear many frustrations from those who’ve made the switch to TA roles.

Volume of work

A search professional might work on 20 searches a year; we’ve heard of internal recruiters working on between 30 and 50 roles at any one time! Given the huge volume of roles you might be expected to manage concurrently as a TA, it can be hard to build up IP in an area of real specialism (unless you’re at a massive company where hiring is much more delineated). Going from being a sector specialist at an agency where you can talk credibly about your market to managing 40 roles at any one time spread across a multitude of areas can be hard.

Compensation

Base salaries can be competitive but since you don’t normally get bonuses for each search you complete as a TA, bonuses tend to cap out at 10-20% of your base. Compare that with top search professionals who can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, and often millions if you are at one of the top search firms, and there is a big gap. Also, even if you are given stock options or shares, the terms are such that it is often hard to realise their cash value. The exceptions to this are TA roles for hedge funds, some family offices and some private equity firms. 

Not being viewed as a trusted advisor

When working on the most senior roles, TAs sometimes find it hard to engage with candidates, because the candidates do not perceive in-house recruiters as the sort of trusted advisors who can offer them impartial, strategic advice about their careers. The best search professionals focus on building relationships for the long term. A TA role can be more transactional. Also, and especially at the most senior levels, there seems to be an additional cachet to being ‘headhunted’ by a search firm and being part of a search process – which can be tough for TAs to compete against.

More admin and resourcing

Unless you join in a very senior TA role where you have the ability and power to influence at the executive level, TAs can often end up doing what feels like a resourcing role and can be quite monotonous. A TA role can be heavy on admin which can make it harder to add value as a recruiter. The admin tends to be around business processes which can represent a serious learning process for those not used to being pulled in so many different directions.

More complicated stakeholder management

There’s no escaping your clients and their sometimes completely unrealistic expectations! In search, you can be commercial about your time. In a TA role you may not have that luxury. There’s extra complexity around the fact that you may have to manage so many different, competing internal stakeholders – they all want you to prioritise their role. While internal clients can of course be wonderful, I have spoken with many TAs who have faced considerable cynicism from internal stakeholders and a battle to convince them that the TA function adds value.

Job security?

As we have seen in recent times with large amounts of layoffs for TAs within the tech sector, in-house recruitment roles are more susceptible to economic slowdowns compared with search firms operating at the top of the market. Enlightened firms might use times when they aren’t recruiting to allow their TA teams to make improvements to their hiring processes, but many businesses will see TAs as a cost centre, and they can therefore be first in line for redundancies. As a search professional who originates business, you are a revenue generator – although in a downturn, everyone in recruitment is affected to a greater or lesser extent.