Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition
This section covers Workforce Planning and Talent Acquisition. The exam tests forecasting, gap analysis, job analysis, sourcing, selection validity, adverse impact, and recruiting metrics. Expect questions that convert business growth and attrition into hiring targets.
Core rules
- Strategic workforce planning: define business strategy, forecast demand by volume, mix, skills, and location; forecast supply from internal moves, attrition, retirements, and external availability; quantify gaps; choose levers; monitor.
- Levers are build (develop), buy (hire), borrow (contract or agency), bot (automate), and bounce (redeploy or exit).
- Use FTE and headcount separately. FTE reflects hours; headcount counts people.
- Job analysis produces the job description (tasks, duties, responsibilities) and job specification (knowledge, skills, abilities, other).
- Selection should be valid and reliable. Structured interviews, work samples, and job-related tests beat unstructured chats. Check adverse impact with the four-fifths rule: a protected group's selection rate divided by the highest group's rate below 0.80 signals risk.
- Recruiting funnel yield ratios convert hiring needs into sourcing targets.
Worked example
A 500-person company plans 10% growth (50 roles) and expects 8% attrition (40). Internal mobility fills 15. External need = 50 + 40 − 15 = 75 hires. With 80% offer acceptance, offers = 75 / 0.80 = 94. With 25% interview-to-offer, interviews = 94 / 0.25 = 376. With 50% screen-to-interview, screens = 752. With 20% applicant-to-screen, applicants = 3,760.
Traps
Planning with headcount only; ignoring attrition; inverting yield ratios; checking adverse impact only at the hire stage; relying on unstructured interviews; and treating "cultural fit" as a criterion without defining it.