Talent Acquisition (recruiter)

A Talent Acquisition professional, also known as a recruiter, organises the search for and assessment of candidates based on the company's needs. They help managers clarify the skills they need, handle discussions with candidates and prepare hiring decisions. Their work combines an understanding of different roles with the practical tracking of each recruitment process.

The role generally covers several activities: defining requirements, writing a job advert, choosing sourcing channels, reviewing applications and conducting interviews. The recruiter writes assessment reports, updates application records and prepares job offers. They work with operational managers and HR contacts. The organisation needs to clarify how independently they can work and which approvals are required.

Job titles alone do not establish the level of responsibility. A Talent Acquisition role may focus on hands-on recruitment, while a recruitment manager may supervise a team. Company size also influences the work assigned: a professional may cover the entire process or handle particular stages. Involvement in onboarding, relationships with educational institutions or employer branding is a possible extension of the role and should be made explicit in the job description.

Talent Acquisition, recruitment manager and HR generalist: who does what?

• A Talent Acquisition professional handles the recruitment assignments entrusted to them and coordinates the discussions needed to move them forward.
• A recruitment manager may supervise recruiters and organise their work. To explore a leadership role, see the Head of Talent profile, while checking the responsibilities actually expected.
• An HR generalist supports employees and managers on broader matters, including training, professional development and HR administration. Recruitment may be part of their work.

This profile focuses primarily on in-house recruitment. It distinguishes handling recruitment assignments from managing a team and from generalist HR responsibilities.

The first challenge is to make the manager's requirements precise enough to guide the search. A request expressed solely as a job title or a list of qualities leaves too much room for interpretation. The recruiter needs to understand the role's activities and the skills required to turn that request into criteria that can be used in a job advert and then in an interview.

The quality of assessment is a second challenge. Reports should enable operational managers to understand what a candidate can do and what still needs to be explored. A favourable impression is no substitute for an analysis of skills. Equally, collecting information without relating it to the role does not make the decision easier.

Fictional example: a manager asks for a recruiter who is “able to work independently”, but actually expects them to choose sourcing channels, conduct initial interviews and prepare a recommendation. If these expectations remain implicit, the company risks assessing candidates against different types of experience. Clarifying the activities assigned makes the comparison more useful.

Coordination also matters. Tracking applications makes it possible to distinguish between an ongoing search, an interview that needs arranging and an offer that still needs to be approved. For a business leader or HR professional, the challenge is to know what action to take and whom to involve. For the candidate, it is about receiving clear information on the next steps.

Finally, recruitment involves processing personal data. Rules need to govern the relevance of the data, access to it, the information given to candidates and data retention. Collecting publicly available information online also falls within this framework. Assessment tools must remain relevant to the professional abilities being examined and comply with non-discrimination requirements. These requirements concern how recruitment is organised and do not automatically make the recruiter legally responsible for all data processing.

• Clarify the role's activities and required skills with managers to establish selection criteria.
• Choose sourcing channels and approach candidates through talent pools, CV databases or professional networks.
• Write and publish job adverts that reflect the agreed requirements and comply with the rules applicable to recruitment.
• Review applications against the role's criteria to prepare for interviews.
• Conduct interviews and write assessment reports that are useful to operational managers.
• Coordinate discussions with candidates, managers and the HR team through to the required approvals.
• Prepare job offers and follow up on discussions with selected candidates.
• Update application records and activity reports to make current stages and pending decisions visible.
• Contribute to onboarding new recruits where this forms part of the role.
• Help maintain relationships with educational institutions and present the company to candidates, according to the responsibilities assigned.

Several educational backgrounds can lead to recruitment: human resources, business, occupational psychology or employment law. The HR routes cited by France Travail include the French BUT in management with an HR focus, licences professionnelles in human resources management, the bachelor RH and the master RH. None of these routes alone establishes a candidate's ability to work independently.

Useful learning includes analysing a hiring need, writing a compliant job advert, choosing sourcing channels and preparing an interview. Training can help develop these capabilities, which should be considered in relation to the activities of the role being filled.

Junior roles are open to beginners, with support for the activities assigned and decisions subject to approval. For a role requiring greater independence, the responsibilities already held matter: handling discussions with managers, choosing channels, assessing applications and preparing offers. The number of years alone does not describe the range of this experience.

Moving from a recruitment agency to an in-house role requires adapting to internal stakeholders and approval processes. Understanding the roles being recruited for and tracking internal decisions are useful skills in this context. Depending on the position, additional knowledge and skills may be needed to contribute to onboarding, relationships with educational institutions or employer branding.

GetPro structures assessment around a search criteria grid that distinguishes criteria verifiable from a candidate's background from those to explore further in an interview. Each criterion has an assessment method. Open questions and concrete examples help examine priority skills. Reference checks complement this analysis by placing observations in the context of the working relationship and asking for examples on points that need further exploration.

For a Talent Acquisition role, the stages below suggest an application of this framework to adapt to the recruitment assignments and level of independence involved. The exercises are suggestions for the employer and do not constitute a specific GetPro protocol.

1. Define the role's criteria

Clarify the expected activities before the interview: defining requirements, sourcing, assessment, tracking and discussions with managers. Distinguish tasks carried out independently from those requiring approval.

Build an assessment grid based on these activities. For each criterion, indicate what a convincing response should explain and which points still need to be explored. Only include English or additional duties where the role requires them.

Involve the HR lead and a relevant manager. If no one has expertise in assessing recruitment skills, seek support from an experienced professional to design the exercise and interpret the results.

2. Reconstruct a recruitment assignment the candidate actually handled

Ask the candidate to describe a recruitment assignment, from the initial request through to the job offer. Have them clarify the requirements, the channels chosen, the difficulties encountered and the decisions they helped prepare for.

Distinguish their actions from those of the manager and other team members. Ask what they decided, what they recommended and what they submitted for approval.

A strong response links choices to the characteristics of the role. A warning sign arises when the candidate describes only collective actions without explaining their own contribution. Do not draw a conclusion from this impression alone: explore further with another example.

3. Examine how they define requirements and approach sourcing

Fictional example: provide a deliberately incomplete hiring request and a few anonymised applications. Ask the candidate what information they would gather before starting the search.

Then invite them to suggest selection criteria and suitable channels. Examine how they distinguish necessary skills from the manager's preferences.

A positive sign is an approach the candidate can explain, connecting the requirements to their sourcing choices. A list of channels without justification calls for further questions about their usefulness for this role.

4. Observe interviewing and reporting

Ask for a short interview guide, then simulate a discussion about one skill required for the role. Observe the quality of the questions and how the candidate explores an imprecise answer further.

Have them write a summary for the manager. Examine the distinction between observed evidence, its interpretation and points that remain uncertain. A conclusion should be understandable without having attended the interview.

Check that the questions and information retained concern professional abilities. Also examine how the candidate controls access to reports and respects confidentiality.

5. Test tracking and cooperation

Ask for an anonymised recruitment tracker or have the candidate create a simple tracking document. Examine whether current stages, next actions and pending approvals are identifiable.

Have the candidate explain how they communicate with a manager who has not provided feedback. Look for a precise response about the information to share and the decisions needed, without attributing every delay to the same person.

If the role includes management, examine team management experience separately. Handling recruitment assignments independently is not enough to demonstrate this skill.

6. Cross-check relevant information

If you take references, agree how to conduct them with your HR contact and limit discussions to information relevant to the role.

Seek to clarify the responsibilities held and the circumstances in which people worked together. Use this information to shed light on points that remain uncertain, then compare it against the criteria defined at the outset.