Talent Acquisition and Workforce Planning

Talent Acquisition and Workforce Planning is a five-day senior resourcing course delivered by Mars Training Centre across its international training centres — including London, Dubai, Amsterdam, and Kuala Lumpur — designed for heads of talent acquisition, resourcing directors, and senior HR leaders responsible for the supply of people to the business.

The market for senior talent has tightened in ways that few resourcing functions are structured for. Critical skills are scarce, hiring costs have risen, employer-brand expectations have changed, and workforce planning has had to become a quarterly conversation rather than an annual one. Boards now ask resourcing leaders for forecasts, scenarios, and skill gaps with the same precision they ask of finance.

Across five focused days, you will work through the full talent-acquisition value chain — from strategic workforce planning and demand forecasting, through sourcing strategy, assessment, offer, and onboarding — and the metrics that prove it is working. The programme is delivered by senior practitioners who have run resourcing functions through growth, restructuring, and skill-shortage cycles.

What You Will Learn

• Build a strategic workforce plan that translates the business plan into a hiring plan.
• Forecast demand and supply for critical roles using structured workforce-planning methods.
• Design a sourcing strategy that fits the role, the market, and the budget.
• Evaluate assessment methods against validity, fairness, and candidate experience.
• Lead structured interview processes that reduce hiring bias.
• Build employer-brand and value-proposition messaging that attracts senior candidates.
• Design onboarding programmes that improve early-tenure performance.
• Apply the core metrics of talent acquisition — quality of hire, time, cost, retention.
• Make a credible business case for resourcing investment to the executive committee.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a complete, defensible playbook for senior talent acquisition and workforce planning, and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a resourcing leader who can connect the workforce plan to the business plan, defend the resourcing budget with evidence, and reduce the cost and risk of critical hires.

Who This Programme Is For

This programme is designed for:

• Heads of Talent Acquisition and Heads of Resourcing
• Recruitment Directors and Senior Resourcing Managers
• HR Directors with talent acquisition reporting in
• Senior Workforce Planning leads
• Talent Strategy and Talent Operations leaders
• Senior HR Business Partners with resourcing accountability
• Public-sector resourcing leaders

The seniority floor is head of department and above. The programme is delivered in person over five consecutive days, and delegates receive a Mars Certificate of Completion.