While 'Strategy' is a word that is usually associated with the future, its link to the past is no less central. Noted Danish philosopher Kierkegaard once observed, " life is lived forward but understood backward." His wisdom finds an echo in Henry Mintzberg' seminal piece on "Crafting Strategy', where he writes that " Like potters at the wheel, organizations must make sense of the past if they hope to manage the future. Only by coming to recognize the patterns that form in their own behavior do they get to know their capabilities and their potential. Thus crafting strategy, like managing a craft, requires a natural synthesis of the future, present, and the past." What, then, does it mean to craft 'strategy' nigh a ' game -changing strategy' ? This eBook titled "A Strategic Approach to Talent Acquisition," chronicles the interesting journey of an Organization aka ABC group, as it goes about crafting a 'Game - Changing Talent Acquisition Strategy', re-orienting its focus from a tactical, reactive process to a strategic program capable of consistently sourcing, recruiting and on-boarding the best talent. ABC' success of its TA optimization effort, in large measure, hinged around its ability to synthesize, identify, and leverage dispersed capabilities within the organization. This path to a truly game-changing TA strategy was rife with complexity and ambiguity. How can both strategy and execution be consistently superior? How can they support a culture of "one" yet enable high potentials to thrive as individuals? How can the strategy be global and local at the same time? And how can its processes endure yet be agile and constantly open to revitalization? Too many organizations end up making zero-sum decisions when faced with such challenges. ABC group didn't look at these issues as trade-offs. Rather, they saw them as inherent tensions that had to be carefully managed and reconciled: A strategic orientation to be balanced by operational excellence; a sense of collective passion and purpose to be balanced by the need of individuals to build their careers; a global perspective to be balanced by local relevance; enduring commitments to leave room for renewal and regeneration. Skillfully managing all four of these tensions together helped them navigate the shift to a high - impact talent acquisition function. Recruitment has not changed in terms of a process - a vacancy needs a suitable hire. However, the landscape, tools, technology, behaviors, expectations and generations are changing all around us and continue to accelerate how organizations approach their ability to source and acquire talent. Forward looking companies such as ABC have been seizing this opportunity to move their capabilities forward and creating true competitive advantage in talent sourcing and acquisition. They are focusing on fine-tuning the fundamentals, while devoting increased time and planning to the more strategic areas of talent acquisition, including workforce planning and strategic sourcing. Their standout recruiting results comes from Blue Ocean Recruiting - game-changing strategies that elevate recruitment from a transactional, short-term focused activity to a strategic, integrated, long-term approach that optimizes their investments in people in a way that makes the competition irrelevant.