Cambridge
Academy
In London

Introduction

Talent Acquisition (TA) leaders must align hiring with business strategy, anticipate workforce needs, and build scalable pipelines that deliver quality hires efficiently. This advanced program equips TA leads with practical tools to design TA strategy, execute workforce planning, optimize sourcing channels, and govern the end-to-end hiring system with measurable performance and strong candidate experience.

 Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

·        Build a TA strategy aligned to organizational goals, growth plans, and workforce priorities

·        Apply workforce planning methods to forecast demand, supply, and skills gaps

·        Design role segmentation, hiring priorities, and pipeline strategies for critical roles

·        Optimize sourcing channels, TA capacity, and recruitment operating rhythms

·        Implement TA governance, SLAs, controls, and quality assurance across hiring

·        Use TA analytics to improve funnel conversion, cycle time, quality-of-hire, and cost-to-hire

Target Audience

This course is designed for:

·        TA leads, recruitment managers, and senior recruiters

·        HR business partners and workforce planning professionals

·        Recruitment operations and TA analytics professionals

·        Hiring managers and functional leaders involved in strategic hiring

·        Employer branding and recruitment marketing professionals supporting TA

Course Outlines

Day 1: TA Strategy & Business Alignment

·        The strategic role of TA: enabling growth, capability, and performance

·        Aligning TA to business strategy: objectives, workforce priorities, and success measures

·        Talent segmentation: critical roles, scarce skills, high-volume vs. specialist hiring

·        TA value proposition: speed, quality, experience, diversity, and cost discipline

·        Activity: Build a TA strategy map (priorities, role segments, KPIs, risks)

Day 2: Workforce Planning, Demand Forecasting & Skills Gaps

·        Workforce planning basics: demand, supply, and productivity drivers

·        Demand forecasting: hiring plans, attrition, backfills, growth, and scenario planning

·        Skills-based planning: capability frameworks and future skills identification

·        Talent supply analysis: internal mobility, build/buy/borrow decisions

·        Workshop: Create a workforce plan for a function (demand scenarios + gap analysis)

Day 3: Pipeline Design, Sourcing Strategy & Market Intelligence

·        Pipeline architecture: stages, conversion goals, and service levels

·        Sourcing strategy: direct sourcing, referrals, agencies, campus, and communities

·        Talent market intelligence: mapping competitors, pay signals, and availability

·        Building talent pools: nurturing, CRM concepts, and engagement content

·        Practical activity: Design a sourcing plan and talent pipeline for 2 critical roles 

Day 4: TA Operating Model, Governance & Candidate Experience

·        TA operating models: centralized, embedded, RPO, hybrid—when to use each

·        Process governance: intake, requisition quality, approvals, and SLA management

·        Selection governance: structured interviews, assessments, and consistency controls

·        Candidate experience: communication cadence, transparency, and service recovery

·        Case study: Fixing a broken hiring process (bottlenecks, drop-offs, and stakeholder conflict)

Day 5: TA Analytics, Performance Cadence & Improvement Roadmap

·        TA metrics that matter: time-to-fill, time-to-hire, funnel conversion, quality-of-hire, cost, DEI indicators

·        Dashboards and reporting: executive insights, root-cause, and action recommendations

·        Performance cadence: weekly hiring huddles, monthly reviews, QBRs with business leaders

·        Continuous improvement: experiments, playbooks, and capability building for recruiters