A smiling man with dark hair and a beard. He is standing in the Liberty IT offices.
Stephen Killilea, Liberty IT. Image: Connor McKenna

How has talent acquisition changed in recent years?

17 Jan 2019

HR and talent acquisition have gone through some major changes over the years, and it seems there are more to come.

As we settle into a new year, we’ve examined some of the HR and employment law changes that employers can expect in the year ahead.

But the HR industry has been going through such massive changes over the past number of years and, within this sector, there are some major trends already coming down the line.

Stephen Killilea is a senior talent acquisition specialist at Liberty IT. We spoke to him about some of the key changes he has noticed during his time in the industry.

“Initially when I started, attracting and acquiring the best people for your organisation would have been seen as a HR task,” he said. “But now, it’s very much seen as a shared organisational approach.”

This is also clear from other HR leaders, whose job involves less recruitment and more forward-thinking organisational plans from a HR perspective.

Killilea also pointed out that, specifically in the tech industry, HR and talent acquisition leads are facing the challenges that come with the tech skills shortage.

“The demand for technical talent outstrips the supply. As a result, you need to have a real impactful way of telling your story.” He added that Liberty IT encourages its people to attend meet-ups and engage with their wider social network to talk about what the company is doing.

“One of the trends I’m most excited about from a talent acquisition perspective is simplifying the recruitment and selection processes for both hiring managers and candidates.”

Killilea also spoke about a recruitment centre that helped simplify the process for Liberty IT. “Not only have we identified a great pool of candidates for our placement and graduate opportunities for 2019, we have also potentially pipelined a wider pool of talent for experienced hires at software engineer grade in two to three years’ time.”

Jenny Darmody
By Jenny Darmody

Jenny Darmody became the editor of Silicon Republic in 2023, having worked as the deputy editor since February 2020. When she’s not writing about the science and tech industry, she’s writing short stories and attempting novels. She continuously buys more books than she can read in a lifetime and pretty stationery is her kryptonite. She also believes seagulls to be the root of all evil and her baking is the stuff of legends.

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