Talent Acquisition involves the identification, attraction, sourcing and on-boarding of talent. A competitive talent acquisition programme is crucial to attract and retain skilled workers.

Organisations are experiencing several challenges with regards to the acquisition of talent, for example:

o The lack of workforce planning makes it difficult to do pro-active talent acquisition

o The quality of the available labour pools does not always meet the requirements

o The inability to reach (or connect with) ideal candidates

Social Talent Management involves the use of social media as an integral part of the organisation’s Talent Management practices. Jaco du Plessis from BCore defines social media as all forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content.

Some of the characteristics of the use of social media according to Josh Bersin are:

• Employees are all peers

• Information is transparent

• People have rich profiles

The Corporate Leadership Council (2008) has done extensive research on the role of the line manager in talent management. It was found that the business leader’s commitment and effectiveness with regarding talent management determines his/her mindset with regard to talent management. Based on this, four talent mind-sets for business leaders were identified. Those who are both effective and committed represent 19% of the business leader population (Talent Champions). < /o:p>