Episode 87
Why TA leaders need to care more about onboarding, compensation and internal mobility | with John Vlastelica
TA’s remit has expanded far beyond hiring. John Vlastelica argues that compensation decisions, onboarding quality, and internal mobility directly impact recruitment success—and TA leaders must have a voice in all three.
Episode Key Takeaways
The ‘not my job’ mindset costs real money. One client paying 30% below market had to build a recruiting team 50% larger than necessary because their funnel was so leaky—candidates couldn’t reach offer stage. Compensation decisions have downstream effects on hiring efficiency that dwarf the cost of strategic pay adjustments.
Onboarding quality shapes who you can hire. Poor onboarding makes hiring managers reluctant to widen the aperture or consider non-traditional talent pools. When onboarding is excellent, TA leaders can confidently pitch underqualified-on-paper candidates because the organisation has the infrastructure to bring them up to speed.
Internal mobility is a massive, under-leveraged talent source. John points to a mature company where 40% of annual hires came from internal moves—yet most TA teams treat this ad hoc, at the recruiter level. Strategic organisations pre-identify which roles should be filled internally, build separate interview tracks, and use internal promotion as an EVP story.
Compensation benchmarking is broken for modern hiring. Years of experience and degrees no longer predict on-the-job success, yet comp systems still rely on those metrics. This creates a translation gap between TA (who knows the market) and comp (who can’t benchmark a 3-year engineer against a 20-year engineer fairly).
Show up to the meetings that suck. TA leaders often self-exclude from HR strategy conversations, then complain about decisions made without them. The business wants holistic talent thinking; executives are pulling for this. Staying silent positions TA as an order-taker, not a strategic partner.
Frequently
Asked
Questions
Should TA leaders own onboarding?
Not necessarily own it, but ensure it’s excellent. What matters is that someone leads onboarding with real investment. Strong onboarding expands the talent pools TA can confidently target and reduces hiring manager pressure to ‘hit the ground running.’ It’s a force multiplier for recruitment strategy.
How does compensation impact hiring metrics?
Significantly. When pay lags market by 30%, candidates drop out at offer stage, forcing TA to build larger sourcing funnels to compensate. This inflates recruiting headcount and cost-per-hire. TA leaders should quantify this trade-off and push comp to align with market reality, not just internal equity.
What's the business case for internal mobility programs?
Internal moves are easier to fill than external roles, reduce backfill churn, and deliver on EVP promises around development. One mature company sourced 40% of hires internally. Strategic organisations pre-identify which roles should be filled internally, build dedicated interview processes, and communicate promotion pathways upfront.
How can TA influence compensation decisions?
Build relationships with comp teams, understand their constraints (internal equity, budget limits), and educate them on market reality and hiring manager expectations. Share exit interview data and candidate feedback. Frame comp gaps as a recruiting efficiency problem, not a comp problem—this shifts the conversation from defensive to strategic.
How do I break out of time-to-hire metrics?
Reframe the metric to include ramp time. One Intel VP measured from rec open to full productivity, not just hire date. This forces onboarding and L&D into the conversation and aligns TA with business outcomes. Have an honest conversation with leadership about the cost of speed obsession on diversity, retention, and manager capacity.