As a long-term state policy, talent strategy is of great significance to national development and regional construction. The key to the construction of a high-quality talent system is to optimize the development environment for scientific and technological innovation, so as to achieve an increase in the sustainable efficiency of talent introduction. Based on this, the DPSIR-DEA-Malmquist index model was built. The 31 Chinese provincial (Due to the lack of data, the statistical data mentioned here do not include the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region and Taiwan Province. ) talent introduction activities from 2014 to 2020 were taken as the research object, and the sustainable efficiency of talent introduction was analyzed. Further, considering the practical significance of the technological innovation climate for talent introduction activities, the threshold regression was then used to analyze its impact mechanism. The results show that the sustainable efficiency of provincial talent introduction in China has been steadily demonstrated and continuously enhanced, and the regional differences have been significantly narrowed in both the geographical and spatial and temporal levels. The decomposition of Malmquist index in the level of technical efficiency shows an “ N-shaped ” trend, which is basically relatively consistent with the trend of Malmquist index. However, the index of technological progress shows a trend of “M-shaped”, indicating that it is not the upward driving force for the improvement of the sustainable efficiency of talent introduction. The role of technological innovation climate in talent introduction of all stages has been tested by the threshold effect of technical efficiency. When the technical efficiency crosses the threshold of 1. 775, scientific research service personnel, national policy-based education funds and continuous funds all have a significant and positive impact on the sustainable efficiency of talent introduction. Therefore, the current situation of emphasizing talent recruitment over utilization should be changed. The construction of the scientific-tech innovation atmosphere should be intensified. The sustainable efficiency of talent introduction should be given full play. These are regarded as the keys to reversing the Matthew effect of the talent strategy and promoting the regional scientific development.