Want to Be a Talent Leader? Here's How 600,000 Others Got There

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you work in talent acquisition (TA) or learning and development (L&D). And if you’re not already a TA or L&D leader yourself, you almost certainly report to one. In either case, you’ve probably wondered about what it takes to reach these leadership roles — and how your own career path compares. 

To learn more about these leaders and their journeys, we analyzed the LinkedIn profiles of roughly 500,000 TA leaders and 100,000 L&D leaders around the world. 

The findings might surprise you: For example, in both disciplines, women hold a significant majority of leadership roles. 

That majority holds across virtually all industries, albeit to different degrees. In healthcare, women represent 74% of TA leaders and 70% of L&D leaders. On the other end of the spectrum, in the oil, gas, and mining industry, about 52% of TA leaders and 46% of L&D leaders are women. 

Read on to learn more about the career paths of 600,000 talent leaders in recruiting and learning — from the jobs they held earlier in their careers to the way they moved into their leadership roles to the years of work experience under their collective belts.

Whether you’re already in a leadership position, you’re an aspiring leader, or you’ve just begun your career in recruiting or learning, here are the most interesting and helpful insights to inform your own leadership journey. 

For leaders, career ladders often look more like jungle gyms 

Here’s a fun tidbit for your next HR trivia night: While Sheryl Sandberg may have popularized that jungle gym metaphor in her book Lean In, she credits Pattie Sellers, former editor-at-large at Fortune magazine, with coining it. In any case, it’s certainly a more apt model for most people’s careers — including those of talent leaders.

Only 44% of current TA leaders and 20% of L&D leaders began their careers in the HR function where they eventually landed. That is to say, the first role listed on most leaders’ LinkedIn profiles fall into a non-HR function; for instance, 7% of TA and 17% of L&D leaders started in an education job. 

Now let’s fast-forward a bit and take a closer look at what function leaders were in immediately before they moved into their current leadership role. 

Between TA and L&D, recruiting leaders tend to have a more ladder-like path up through the HR function, with just over two-thirds (68%) of TA pros sitting in HR immediately before moving into their leadership role. 

Conversely, most learning leaders were not in an HR job right before their current role — just 38% were. Education is the next most common at 11%, a natural path given the similarity between education in an academic setting and L&D in a professional context. 

In general, learning seems to have embraced a more jungle gym approach to leadership: There is significantly more diversity among the functional backgrounds of leaders in learning compared with those in hiring. 

Learning leaders are often developed internally, though most are hired externally

Internal mobility has been a rising trend for both recruiting and L&D professionals over the last few years, as many companies facing talent shortages have stepped up their efforts to “build” talent (developing existing employees for new roles), rather than just “buying” talent (hiring new external candidates). 

Modeling the change they wish to see in the world, a significant portion of talent leaders moved into their own roles via internal promotions: 36% of recruiting leaders and 41% of learning leaders were already at their company immediately prior to starting their current role. 

Appropriately, a good number of learning leaders — typically tasked with upskilling employees and preparing them to take on new roles — can point to their own journey as an example of growing one’s career within the company. 

Putting in the time: 80% of talent leaders have over a decade of experience

If your career just began but you’re already eyeing a leadership role in recruiting or learning, take heart. While LinkedIn data suggests that it’s a steep climb that typically takes at least a decade of experience, reaching the rank of leader sooner isn’t unheard of. 

About 20% of TA and L&D leaders have less than a decade of experience, while the majority — about 60% — fall between 10 and 25 years, and another 20% can boast over a quarter century of work behind them. 

No matter your experience, it’s encouraging to see that leadership isn’t solely a matter of time: Great talent leaders are defined by their vision, guidance, and actions, not just a long track record.

Final thoughts 

Tracing the threads of roughly 600,000 careers in talent leadership reveals a rich, varied tapestry. There’s no single path or straight line: from seasoned vets to scrappy newcomers; from home-grown talent to external hires; from those who rose through the ranks of HR to those in the function for the first time. 

Whether you’re already a talent leader or aspire to be one, these insights serve as a testament to the myriad paths to leadership, offering reassurance that there’s no one-size-fits-all mold and encouraging all of us to embrace our unique career journeys. 

Methodology

This analysis is based on global data from June 2013 to June 2023, and only considers LinkedIn members who stepped into their talent acquisition (TA) or learning and development (L&D) leadership position in the last 10 years; all member data is aggregated and anonymized. TA and L&D leaders are defined as those in TA or L&D at director+ seniority levels (i.e., director, VP, C-suite, partner, or owner). 

Gender identity isn’t binary and we recognize that some LinkedIn members identify beyond the traditional gender constructs of “male” and “female.” If not explicitly self-identified, we have inferred the gender of members included in this analysis by classifying their first names as either male or female or by pronouns used on their LinkedIn profiles. Members whose gender could not be inferred as either male or female were excluded from that particular stat.

Functions where TA and L&D leaders began their careers refers to the first function on record while excluding managerial roles. The function a member was in before becoming a TA or L&D leader considers the function of the previous role they held before their current TA or L&D leader position. Internal hires refer to members who have transitioned into a TA or L&D leader role while staying within the same company. Years of experience is based on a members’ total professional experience listed on LinkedIn, before stepping into their leadership role.

Photo by Luca Micheli on Unsplash.