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Before you begin to scream, give me a few minutes here. I promise it’s worth it.
There are several phrases that send our industry into huffy-puffy overdrive and cause undue stress. However, no concept, idea, phrase, or whatever draws more scrutiny and frustration than “total talent management.”
Way back in 2012 (which seems like forever ago), I co-authored the industry’s very first paper on total talent management. Back then, with wide eyes and a dreamy attitude, I concluded that “total talent management should not just be a pipe dream for enterprises, but rather an accepted future state that will eventually become the foundation of all recruitment and talent acquisition strategies.”
Yeah, that “eventually” in there…let’s ignore it for a second.
Back then, the extended workforce comprised, on average, 25% of the average company’s total talent pool. Back then, solutions like RPO, MSP, VMS, etc. weren’t evolving or innovating as quickly as they are today. And, back then, we weren’t awash in new and exciting talent acquisition strategies (like skills-based hiring) that are representative of the changing times of a post-pandemic labor market.
So, flash-forward to 2025. Half of our workforce is contingent. We have a wide-ranging talent technology ecosystem that traverses beyond a handful of solution types. Artificial intelligence is omnipresent in both the consumer and professional worlds. We are reimaging how we hire and how we address how work is done.
What’s the reality of total talent management today?
Well, to be brutally honest, we’re still not at that point that I dreamed of all of those years ago. Procurement and HR/talent acquisition collaboration has come such a long way, but the vast majority of businesses haven’t yet instituted the level of cross-functional coordination that is required for true total talent management.
There’s a wondrous range of integration between platforms, services, and solutions within the greater workforce and HR technology ecosystem, however, again, the majority of businesses leveraging these offerings either aren’t actively “converging” these solutions (i.e., RPO and VMS) or aren’t even aware of the possibilities of integrations.
While complete total talent management remains elusive (a win for the “Hey! It’s still just theory!” folks), we’re seeing exciting evolutionary steps that suggest we’re at least moving in the right direction. The rise of skills-based hiring, for instance, naturally bridges the traditional divide between permanent and contingent talent by focusing on capabilities and expertise rather than worker classification or role-based hiring. AI-powered talent platforms like Opptly are actively revolutionizing hiring by enabling businesses with powerful capabilities that catalyze skills taxonomies and drive true skills intelligence through next-generation artificial intelligence.
Direct sourcing initiatives are proving that organizations can build talent communities that seamlessly blend full-time, extended, and freelance/independent candidates for a deeper hiring strategy that leverages company branding, culture, and marketing tactics to engage top-tier talent. Back in 2012, the “art” of direct sourcing wasn’t even a thought when thinking about total talent; today, businesses can kickstart their own in-house recruitment agencies, involve marketing in reimagining talent attraction, and develop direct sourcing programs that blend talent acquisition prowess, marketing expertise, and talent sustainability. Solutions like HireGenics (through its TalentFusion offering) are robust examples of just how far direct sourcing has come and the potential of the strategy in today’s candidate-driven market.
On the direct sourcing automation side, platforms like LiveHire (recently acquired by HCM platform Humanforce) have long included “total talent” in their messaging and reflect the possibilities of such an effort through a blend of ATS and direct sourcing functionality (both of which are considered pioneers in their respective solutions arenas) and powerful talent mobility enablement. Curately, a relatively newer player in the direct sourcing technology arena, boasts an impressive arsenal of not just foundational automation for talent community development, talent curation, and digital recruitment, but also unique takes on “talent nurture” that reflect the next era of talent management automation.
While artificial intelligence and direct sourcing are premier avenues of total-talent-like evolution, there is an additional layer to the conversation that ultimately leads us to a remarkable conclusion about the “theory vs. reality” argument for total talent. In 2025, the conversation should not be centered around total talent management as an achievable program, but rather a focus on the output, delivery, and value of progressive talent strategies that effectively blend “pieces” of TTM.
What does that mean? It’s something that the Future of Work Exchange stated years ago: total talent intelligence is the future of workforce management and talent acquisition, not total talent management.
The ability to harness comprehensive workforce, candidate, and skills data, derive actionable insights across all talent types (FTE, services, freelancer, contingent), and make informed decisions about how work gets done represent a more practical and valuable approach than pursuing the elusive goal of complete, end-to-end programmatic adoption of total talent management.
An “intelligence-first” mindset is not only more achievable (and realistic), it aligns perfectly with the talent acquisition strategies that represent the Future of Work, such as skills-based hiring, digital recruitment, and candidate centricity. Rather than force unnatural functional relationships, total talent intelligence enables business leaders, recruiters, hiring managers, CW program owners, HR, and talent acquisition execs with the necessary insights to drive more educated hiring decisions, reevaluate current long-term hiring roadmaps, pinpoint skills gaps, and identify growing areas across the business that will require reskilling or upskilling. And, in regards to AI’s influence: the ability to develop deep skills taxonomies translates into the long-term enablement of on-demand skills intelligence, which should, from now on, be considered the foundation of total talent intelligence.
Focusing on total talent intelligence not only moves the conversation away from forced functional relationships or complex systems integrations and places emphasis on a more valuable, more realistic transformation that will pay long-term dividends through advanced talent and skills data. When we begin to realize that the discussion around total talent management needs to accentuate the value of total talent intelligence rather than the nuanced innerworkings linked to collaboration, complex integrations, etc., we move towards a future (of work) that revolutionizes the many ways we think about not only talent acquisition, but the very ways we get work done.
