1.
The Business Case for Investing
in Talent Acquisition
Planning Ahead

2.
Your Presenters
Jenifer Kihm, PhD
Talent Acquisition Executive, Operant Consulting
Jenifer Kihm is an experienced leader with strong expertise in human capital
management. She has designed/re-engineered and implemented large and small talent
acquisition functions with positive business results. She approaches the process of
talent acquisition from a holistic perspective, beginning with good job design, and
moving through the candidate sourcing, screening, selection and onboarding phases
with proven methods. She incorporates key principles from the field of industrial
organizational psychology and lean process, making her unique in the industry.
Tim Oyer
VP RPO Solutions, Advanced RPO
Tim is an RPO veteran. For more than 20 years Tim has worked directly with clients to
diagnose their talent acquisition programs and create a variety of long-term solutions
to improve their talent acquisition strategies.

3.
Today’s Objectives
Understanding the Labor Market
Advice
Key Takeaways
Indicators of and Ways to Build an
Optimized TA Function
1
4
3
2

4.
The Labor Market

5.
What Does the Labor Market Tell Us
Most prospective
employees are currently
employed
Our recruiting functions need
to have tools for finding
individuals with target skills
and experiences
Most hires will come from
direct pull strategies vs.
push strategies (i.e., direct
sourcing vs. posting)

6.
What Does the Labor Market Tell Us (cont.)
Extracting talent from
other organizations will
push salaries upward
Employment brand matters
─ Glassdoor & Indeed
Hiring more junior
individuals and developing
talent can be a competitive
advantage

7.
Key Indicators of
TA Function Optimization

8.
Hiring managers/
leaders have positive views
1

9.
2
Recruiters and hiring
managers are colleagues

10.
Manager interview-
to-hire ratio is low
3

11.
Offers extended get accepted
4

12.
Positive interview ratings on
Glassdoor and Indeed
5

13.
Appropriate cost-per-hire
OPTION 2
6
COST-PER-HIRE

14.
7Appropriate time-to-fill

15.
OUR
COMPANY BENCHMARK COMPARISON
ThroughputRatios
Throughput information is
accurate and utilized
8

16.
Ways to Optimize
• Have well developed job descriptions
• Establish launch calls as business
discussions
• Track candidate opt-out at every stage of the
hiring process ⎼ share the info
• Present candidates “live” and reduce reliance
on resumes alone
• Educate hiring managers on their complete
role ⎼ decision-maker AND ambassador
• Establish the optimal requisition load per
recruiter and maintain it

17.
Questions?
Key Takeaways

18.
Advice
Do not consider talent acquisition
to be a support function
Do not under spend (and don’t over spend)
DON’T
DO
Expect full partnership between
managers and recruiters
Consider RPO

19.
Lamees Abourahma
President
Office: 804.897.1310
Mobile: 804.638.4448
lamees@rpoassociation.org
Hiring is one of the most important things a company does ⎼
make a commitment to be great at it
Tim Oyer
Vice President
Office: 312.632.6160
Mobile: 419.672.9053
toyer@advancedrpo.com
Jenifer Kihm
Managing Director
Operant Consulting, LLC
Direct: 713.560.7780
jenifer.kihm@operant.net
Contact Us: