To my way of thinking there are really only two ways to improve a company's performance; nurture your existing talent or hire in new talent. It's that simple!

All too often, however, recruitment = filling a vacancy. That's it. No more, no less. But in my experience successful companies don't just fill vacancies - they hire talent.

Now, for many companies this way of thinking is way "off-piste" - for them it's much more about filling vacancies quickly and cheaply. The talent thing may be a nice to have but "cloud cuckoo land" in practice. And one should perhaps sympathise (a little bit) with where they're coming from.

Nevertheless a really important attitude shift takes place when an employer thinks in terms of hiring talent rather than simply filling vacancies.

I've worked with companies (very few mind!) that really do appear to have it sussed. In these companies, everyone I've come into contact with - from first impressions of the receptionist onwards - all have had a visible passion for the company and are respectful of the value and contribution each other brings. And this impression hits you every time you come into contact with any one of their people.

Now it should be possible for companies to make a start in this direction by at least identifying and then separating those roles where they should be thinking solely in terms of hiring talent, as opposed to simply filling a vacancy. An interesting debate amongst colleagues should thus follow as to where the cut off point or threshold presently is and where it should be in the future?!

Once employers' start to think in terms of hiring talent rather than simply filling vacancies, two things should happen:

1. Hiring should become more strategic and specific; recognising the wider skills and experience necessary to make a lasting rather than just an immediate, short term contribution, should now be given higher priority. Hiring managers should recognise more clearly the overall value to the business of getting it right and (just as importantly) the cost of getting it wrong.

2. How and where a company attracts talent and the recruitment methods employed - these are key decisions which will almost certainly affect the calibre of person ultimately hired. Does an organisation do it itself, or get someone external in to do it for them? The quality of the recruitment process; the time, resource and cost implications; the impression given to candidates (and if an external solution is used, the impression they make!) All these considerations should be discussed and their importance agreed beforehand in order to decide the best recruitment method to hire the best candidate.

Whereas previously "filling vacancies" often meant simply recruiting in the cheapest way possible - "hiring talent" should encourage proper consideration of these wider aspects, taking a more holistic view of the hiring process chosen.

Once it becomes widely accepted that sourcing talent is absolutely key to a company's success; how an employer goes about recruiting talent and the impression the recruitment method adopted makes on candidates - these are key considerations which need to take precedence over simply doing it in the cheapest way possible.

In my experience the employer offering the highest salary doesn't necessarily have the pick of the best candidates. Far more important from the candidates' point of view is how well they're managed. Starting from the first moment of contact, the quality of care and attention (or lack of) and the speed of service ("Why are companies/agencies always so slow to get back to me - or never at all?" must be the most frequent complaint candidates make) will impact there ultimate decision far more than salary, company name, job title or location.

So, deciding beforehand the right balance between quality (of the hiring process) and value for money (cost) is absolutely paramount in my not so humble opinion. For to paraphrase Aldo Gucci, son of the founder of the House of Gucci: "Quality [of service] will be remembered long after the price has been forgotten."

It's a simple truth... companies aren't successful; the people within them are.

Liam Dowds is a Director of CIRCLe, the Executive Search & Selection firm behind CIRCLeRecruiter: the online executive selection service which combines the service principles of traditional Search & Selection with the power of the Internet to provide a professional yet low cost alternative to agencies, search & selections firms or recruiting direct.