What is Talent Development?
Within learning and development, talent development is the specific subfield concerned with building new skills and competencies. Typically, this is done with an eye toward motivating the employees who access these additional developmental resources toward career paths that make use of them, nurturing expertise from within the organization. Strategies for developing these skills include formal instruction via online or in-seat classroom settings, mentorship, and sponsorship for participation in professional development events like conferences and seminars.
Talent development is distinct from recruitment and retention, with different goals but an overlapping mission to bring in and then hold on to top tier employees. The difference is that the motivation goals of retention programs are based on engaging employees and investing them in the organization, where the goals of developmental motivation are to aspire to gain new skills and then put them to use in a practical way.
About eThink
eThink is an eLearning provider that offers fully-managed learning management solutions for open-source Moodle™ and Totara Learn. eThink provides a dynamic and customizable LMS solution that makes meeting eLearning goals easy.



