10 Talent Acquisition Smart Goals for 2025

Today’s job seekers have high expectations that go above and beyond a competitive salary and "cool" company culture. They’re looking for a streamlined application and interview process, consistent communication, and a company they can trust and grow in — among many other things.

To hire, grow, and retain talent, TA teams must embrace new strategies aimed at creating a better overall talent experience for candidates and employees. Here are 10 talent acquisition goals your teams can set to improve your recruitment marketing efforts in the new year:

1. Focus on skills

Everyone is talking about skills. How to capture them, how to hone them, and how to use them. And skills are just as important for TA as they are for talent management. Skills-based hiring can provide a way to address talent shortages and future-proof organizations by aligning their workforce with the real-world skills that drive success.

When TA teams create job requisitions, job descriptions, or review candidates, they need to consider the skills they’re looking for that will fill the role best. They’re also necessary to consider when deciding whether to look internally or externally to fill an open role. If the skills already exist internally — or they can offer employees opportunities to upskill them in order to gain those skills — recruiters can help employees who are looking to stay at the company find their next best opportunity.

The problem with skills, however, is that many companies don’t have the right technology to truly take advantage of all they have to offer. As we look toward 2025 for our talent acquisition goals, organizations must consider how to bring skills technology to the forefront in order to attract, grow, and retain their workforce.

A few ways to do that include:

• Appraising your tech stack: Are your systems deeply integrated to deliver precision in matching candidates to roles?

• Adopting AI-powered technology: Invest in AI-driven tools that analyze vast data sets to uncover skills gaps and predict future needs with accuracy.

• Analyzing your skills data: Identify gaps and areas for growth to continuously refine your strategy and outpace competitors.

Check out how Excellus BCBS is using skills to transform internal mobility here.

Related reading: The Biggest Highlights from Skills Day 2023

2. Leverage generative AI for personalized engagement & recruitment

As much as everyone’s talking about skills, they’re also talking about Generative AI. It’s transforming how recruiting teams screen, schedule, interview and hire employees — while still keeping humans in the loop.

You can transform your candidate engagement and recruitment strategies using GenAI. How?

• Create dynamic, personalized landing pages that adapt to each candidate's background and interests

• Develop tailored email campaigns that speak directly to individual candidate experiences and career aspirations

• Generate tailored, comprehensive job descriptions that attract best-fit candidates

• Automate the process of analyzing resumes, cover letters, and comparing job seekers' skills and profiles

• Develop customized interview questions and provide real-time feedback during interviews
  Provide timely feedback and status updates to candidates throughout the recruitment process

And the list goes on!

This technology can help create scalable, authentic connections while maintaining your brand voice.

Related reading: Introducing Phenom X+ — Generative AI for HR

3. Implement hiring assessment technology

With AI-generated resumes becoming more prevalent, traditional screening methods are no longer sufficient for organizations aiming to stay competitive in the talent market. Implementing comprehensive assessment tools that evaluate real skills, problem-solving abilities, and job-specific competencies is a game-changer for TA teams.

To effectively evaluate candidates in this new era, consider incorporating the following assessment tools:

• Technical assessments for role-specific skills: These assessments can verify a candidate's proficiency in required skills, from coding languages to software proficiency. They provide objective data on a candidate's actual capabilities, cutting through potential resume embellishments.

• Cognitive ability tests for problem-solving capabilities: They measure a candidate's problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and ability to learn new concepts quickly. They're excellent predictors of job performance across various roles and industries.

• Situational judgment tests for behavioral competencies: By presenting candidates with realistic work scenarios, these tests evaluate their decision-making skills and alignment with company values. They offer insights into how a candidate might handle real-world challenges in the role.

• Video assessments for communication skills: These allow recruiters to evaluate a candidate's communication skills, presentation abilities, and cultural fit. They can be particularly useful for customer-facing roles or positions requiring strong interpersonal skills.

• Project-based assessments for hands-on evaluation: By assigning real-world tasks or mini-projects, recruiters can gain valuable insights into a candidate's practical skills, creativity, and ability to deliver results. These assessments are particularly effective for roles requiring hands-on expertise.

4. Partner with marketing to build your employer brand

A company's employer brand is incredibly important. Why? You want to grow your employee base with people who align with your company’s vision and purpose.

When your employer brand is firmly established and accurately reflected on your career site, through email campaigns, and during recruiting events, applicants that resonate with it will come pouring in — providing phenomenal talent who turn into long-term employees.

The common denominator of companies with a stellar employer brand? A strong partnership between their HR and marketing teams, creating a unified force that’s focused on achieving your recruitment goals. Recruitment marketing is your first shout-out to your next employees. By collaborating with marketing-savvy colleagues across your organization, you can better target candidates, create compelling content, and hone in on the best channel for active and ongoing engagement.

Related resource: How DHL Delivers an Irresistible Employer Brand That Drives Results

5. Nurture relationships with “silver medal” candidates

Candidates who don’t make the first cut for a particular req are often a great fit for another role. Yet many recruiters are quick to move on to other opportunities without re-engaging “silver medalists” in their Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) system. This is a big mistake.

These job seekers are just as valuable as the rest of your candidate pipeline. Why?

• They are already familiar with your organization, reducing time and resources needed for initial outreach and screening.

• They've demonstrated interest in your company, increasing the likelihood of engagement and acceptance.

• Having gone through part of your process, you already have valuable insights into their skills and potential fit.

Don’t let them slip away — connect with them through hyper-personalized email and SMS campaigns to keep the lines of communication open and use AI-powered matching tools to present relevant opportunities based on their skill set, job experience, and location..

If you feature dynamic content like video job descriptions and employee testimonials you can enhance your outreach and give candidates a better feel for the role and company culture.

Read more about how Yelp is using video to boost their candidate experience.

6. Diversify your candidate pipeline

It’s important to ensure your candidate pool is diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity — the last thing you want is to lose an entire demographic off the bat with biased content. If there’s a pattern of attracting only men aged 30-35 or women aged 22-32, for example, it’s time to take a closer look at your hiring strategy and recruitment goals for 2025.

But now is also the time to consider the diversity of sources for acquiring skills. Badges, proficiency certificates, internships, skills, and apprenticeships can provide today's job seekers with qualifications for hybrid or net-new job roles.

Job descriptions and employer branding are strong indicators of who will apply to your roles. Make sure all content is unbiased and loop in your marketing team to compose compelling content that attracts instead of ostracizes.

Related resource: Uncovering Hidden Bias in Recruiting

7. Hone your employee referral program

Attraction and retention must be high on the priority list for your talent acquisition goals — especially in today's labor market. If the only focus is on getting career site traffic to job postings, you’re losing half the battle.

New hires may envision themselves at a company long-term — but only if they connect with its purpose, feel valued and challenged, see room for career growth, and are fairly compensated. Today's candidates and employees want it all, so give it to them.

You can leverage your employee networks by asking coworkers if they have anyone in mind who’s ready for a career move that’s suitable for the role you’re filling. They have first-hand knowledge regarding company culture, after all.

With the right tech to support an employee referral program, it's easy for employees to refer their professional networks to open roles. A good tool will let employees link directly to open positions on your career site, and enable them to post to social media.

With tracking capabilities, you can also keep everyone in the loop regarding hiring status — and recognize employees for their contribution to getting new talent in the door.

Apply the same candidate experience ideology to your employee experience to improve retention and foster loyal brand advocates.

Related reading: The Sky’s the Limit: Inside Southwest’s Employee Referral Program

8. Improve internal sourcing and mobility with a talent marketplace

The best-fit candidate for an open position might already be part of your organization. Upskilling existing talent is a great way to support internal mobility and employee development while meeting company needs.

Career pathing powered by artificial intelligence can highlight skills gaps, identify internal talent for future openings, and help TA teams determine when they should look externally to fill critical positions.

Once internal employees are identified, managers can recommend learning courses or gigs — short-term projects within an organization — so they can get hands-on experience and acquire new skills. Gigs also enable employers to reallocate talent to in-demand or critical areas of the business.

A talent marketplace can also help track and measure employee engagement, and managers can use that data to identify gaps in growth or retention. It not only powers career pathing and internal mobility, but it can also match employees to the right learning and development opportunities, gigs or short-term projects, mentors, and networking groups.

Related resource: How Kuehne+Nagel Empowers Employees To Own & Grow Their Careers

9. Implement automation technology to remove repetitive admin work

The definition of recruiting is to enroll someone in an organization for a cause. As a recruiter, this is your job, along with all the repetitive work that comes with it. But we live in the age where AI and recruitment automation tools can handle the bulk of the administrative workload so recruiters can focus on high-level tasks and building candidate relationships.

Scheduling a single candidate interview, let alone multiple interviews, can be a recruiter’s most time-consuming responsibility. Automated screening and scheduling, however, can help you book interviews at scale, coordinate with internal teams, provide a remarkable candidate experience, and win back your day.

With additional technology like one-way interviews, TA teams can streamline the screening process for recruiters, save time for hiring managers, and deliver great first impressions for candidates via video, audio, and text responses. One-way interviews are able to be completed by candidates and reviewed by hiring teams on their own time, giving everyone time back in their day.

Related reading: 4 Ways to Improve the Interview Experience

10. Enable hiring managers as recruiting partners

The ability to quickly acquire best-fit talent — and deliver an amazing candidate experience — hinges on the relationship between recruiters and managers. Friction between the two can decrease productivity, increase costs, and hinder progress toward your talent acquisition goals.

Here are a few ways to improve communication between both parties:

• Establish regular check-ins between recruiters and hiring managers to discuss ongoing recruitment efforts, challenges, and successes.

• Ensure both parties are aligned on the skills, experience, and qualities required for each role.

• Implement tools and processes that facilitate quick feedback and decisions, reducing bottlenecks in the hiring process.

It’s important that recruiters accept input from on-site facility managers in terms of coordinated interview scheduling, criteria listed in job descriptions, candidate evaluation and feedback, industry-specific insights, and more. Doing this will accelerate how these key stakeholders work together to achieve recruitment goals.

Related reading: How To Improve How Recruiters & Managers Hire Together

See what an AI-powered candidate experience can do for your company: Check out our Definitive Guide to Candidate Experience.