How Talent Acquisition Leaders Can Navigate the Peaks and Valleys of Hiring Cycles

BY Jessica Swenson | May 22, 2025

By 2030, four in ten workers will have moved on from the jobs they hold today, according to a recent World Economic Forum report, underscoring just how rapidly the world of work is transforming.

Paul Phillips, global head of business HR, talent acquisition, and onboarding for Avanade, believes that one of the biggest talent acquisition (TA) issues in his industry is attempting to hire for immediate performance rather than potential. To maximize longevity and value, it’s important to prioritize learning agility, adaptability, and courage to take calculated risks. These nuanced soft skills can be more challenging and time-consuming to teach than technical skills, so prioritizing them in the hiring process is key to building a resilient workforce, he says. 

In a business environment marked by economic and political uncertainty, growth for many companies has plateaued following significant post-Covid peaks. Avanade alone has seen a 50% global drop in hiring, with the U.S. market slowing more significantly than others. Phillips’ TA team has halved within the last 18–24 months, he said during a fireside chat moderated by Business Insider senior correspondent Emily Stewart at From Day One’s NYC half-day TA conference.

“It’s the hardest part of being a leader,” said Phillips. “It’s really easy to be a leader when everything’s growing. The hardest part [of being a leader] is when you have to make some of those tougher decisions around the size and shape of the team.” He has since adopted more strategic hiring practices to better navigate these changes in demand. He keeps a core recruitment team in place to handle forecasted annual growth, and hiring needs beyond that are supported through scalable recruiting partnerships grounded in an on-demand recruiting model.

Emily Stewart of Business Insider interviewed Paul Phillips of Avanade 

To effectively use TA team resources during those lower-demand periods, he redirects the team’s focus to increase billable hours by supporting client-facing teams through CV reviews, scheduling, and workforce planning. It is imperative to stay ahead of the curve and be positioned for future growth, says Phillips.

While many organizations are being more prudent about their direct investments in technology and internal transformation, this leads them to partner with third-party companies like Avanade. To prepare for those peaks, his team embraces what he calls opportunistic conversations, which connect prospective candidates with recruiters and business leaders to discuss speculative roles. This proactively gauges mutual interest and capability, and creates an internal candidate pipeline to fuel future business growth.

Phillips has established a team of talent pool managers to facilitate a regular communication cadence and cultivate relationships with external candidates. This helps eliminate candidate frustration and accelerates conversion once demand increases. “I always say ‘Clarity is kindness.’ I think it’s really important that you, up front, are very clear and set expectations about what this is and what it isn’t.” he said. 

Supporting relationships with around 2,000 candidates, this team helps create those ground rules and keeps both parties informed about progress until hiring ramps back up. Once it does, Phillips estimates that 30% of this pool will be interested in working with Avanade, greatly reducing the company’s time-to-hire.

Fluctuations in economic and political conditions impact the candidate side of the labor market as well. While compensation pressure has eased for employers, he says, it can be harder to attract the talent they need or want because of reduced attrition and mobility.

Additional coaching for TA teams may be needed to offset candidate uncertainty and job security concerns, and companies should look at any differentiators they can offer. For example, Phillips shared that since Avanade is a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture, the company can offer technologists early access to emerging Microsoft technologies as well as exposure to interesting, complex projects at Fortune 500 organizations.

Adaptability is always top of mind when managing a large global TA portfolio, says Phillips. Avanade offers multiple routes into the organization, as well as flexible, culturally sensitive hiring models. Its internal Avanade Academy invests in non-traditional talent to reskill them for the technology workforce, and then adjusts their exact entry path based on the customs and norms of their specific country or region.

The company also embraces the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for its annual recruiting portfolio of nearly 300,000 candidates. Prospects can opt in or out of an AI-assisted experience, and Phillips says that nearly 80% of them opt in. Recruiters use AI to rate candidates on a letter-based system; humans still review the files and make the decisions, but AI insights help them prioritize candidates who may be better suited for specific roles. This platform has accelerated the recruiting process and freed up valuable time for the TA team, ensuring timely communication and an award-winning candidate experience.

Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at https://www.jmswensonllc.com.

(Photo by Hason Castell for From Day One)

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“How do you stay productive?” It’s a burning question in our hectic modern culture, and one that moderator Alexa Reed, digital editor at Dallas Business Journal, posed to speakers during a panel discussion at From Day One’s Dallas conference. The varied answers were both practical and philosophical, everything from staying hydrated and responding to emails within three hours, to taking extreme ownership and finding purpose in your work every day. If you’re noticing disengagement within your workplace, it’s best to turn to the source before launching any new initiatives. “Have you addressed the factors in your organization that caused disengagement in the first place? Because if you’re not careful, you could drop your people back into the exact same environment,” said Jonathan Thorp, chief learning officer at Quantum Connections.“Make sure you take stock: Are the objectives of the work at hand clearly defined? Are the resources clearly articulated? And most importantly, is the culture aligned with what you're trying to do and what you’re [seeing] in your workspace?” he said. Once you better understand the cause you can then create a strategy to re-engage. And don’t view disengagement as a bad thing, he says, instead, use it as a signal to know when it’s time to act. Regular leadership communication with employees can help them better understand the meaning and impact of their work, says Anitha Ramesh, head of HR at Tech Mahindra. But don’t just talk. Listen to your employees to understand what best motivates them, then invest in their answers. “It may be developing in a new area [or] giving them a stretch opportunity. For some, it may be compensation,” said Lisa Jennings, global head of HR, news and media at Bloomberg. Leaders and managers should carve out one-on-one time for authentic employee listening in addition to surveys, says Je’Mone Smith, VP, HR and diversity at Agiliti HealthCare. “[Make it] about the employee: What’s working, what’s challenging, and how can I help you?” Smith said. “And if [leaders] stick to that consistently, studies show that’s probably the number one driver of engagement in terms of the tools that are afforded to a manager conducting those one on ones.” EAPs (Employee Assistance Programs) not only provide benefits but can also offer insight into where employees need the most support, helping you better direct resources to where they are needed most. “Engaging with your EAP vendor or your insurance vendor a little more than what you do currently [helps with] understanding the underlying issues. Ask ‘What are the top trends you are seeing from our workforce?’” Ramesh said. “Then roll out specific programs.” The Impact of Employee Well-being on ProductivityEmployees’ mental well-being is top-of-mind, especially in the post-pandemic era, and can have a marked impact on productivity and engagement: happier workers are better workers. Bloomberg has developed an interesting strategy that makes well-being itself a way to engage with the workplace through its Mental Health Advocate program.“We give all our employees the [optional] opportunity to be trained and certified in mental health awareness. We bring in an outside provider [that offers] a half -day rigorous training and an exam,” Jennings said. Then they can be the “eyes and ears” in the office to notice when someone might be exhibiting signs of needing professional mental health support.Alexa Reed, digital editor at Dallas Business Journal, moderated the discussion among leadersIt’s also crucial to help employees feel connected to their work, no matter how scattered they might be due to hybrid or remote circumstances. Ramesh says employees feel more connected when they know that their company cares about them. Tech Mahindra accomplishes this through a program that incorporates all different types of personal well-being, including mental, physical, emotional, financial, spiritual, occupational, and social. And location councils help to recreate larger programs from the corporate level in a more localized way for a distributed workforce. Happy, engaged, and productive employees are a boon to talent acquisition and attention. “If you have engaged employees, they’re proud of what they do, they’re proud of where they work. So they’re the best recruiters for the company,” Smith said. “About 20% of our jobs that we [at Agiliti HealthCare] fill are based on referrals, and typically, retention is improved when people are referred. Turnover is reduced when people are referred to the company by someone that they know,” he said. The Role of Technology in Productivity Technological advances such as AI have the power to greatly increase employee productivity when used effectively. Panelists suggest careful check-ins with employees throughout the product implementation process to understand exactly how new technologies are working—or not.“We want to make sure that when we communicate what the new technology, the tool, [or] the training is, we have a two-way dialogue to ask the users, ‘What’s your expected outcome and what you need in terms of resources, training and time to actually pull off a successful launch?’” Thorp said. “It’s not just about utility. It’s about the entire UX range. It’s about the holistic experience.” Cultivating the Next Generation of Leaders Employers should be looking to the future not only in terms of technological advancements but also workforce development, priming the next generation of leaders for success. Smith strongly recommends hiring from within whenever possible, not only to save on the cost during the hiring process but also because those employees already have “buy in” with the company culture. Smith identifies two key qualities of great potential leaders: those who can communicate effectively with colleagues at all levels (“from peers to direct reports to the C suite”), and those who can listen and be fully present despite all the usual modern distractions. To encourage internal growth and mobility, Bloomberg offers its Embed Program, which allows employees to try out different teams or departments. “It’s a way for us to drive retention, drive people to feel like we’re investing in them,” Jennings said. “We’re giving them an opportunity to explore something internally, and it also leads to internal mobility opportunities. It’s been a great motivator and a great way for people to explore different internal roles, instead of us losing people to the market.” The program is open to employees starting in their fourth year, the time when the company has noticed people often get ready to move on. Similarly, Agiliti Healthcare offers Talent Tuesdays, which let hiring managers present internal career opportunities to current employees to spark their interest in moving within the organization. Leaders are so important, not only for the company’s longevity but for encouraging culture and inspiring workers within. Supervisors, Thorp says, should make their team members feel seen, heard, welcomed, and appreciated as the unique individuals they are. “It’s making sure people feel valued, and that you see them as a human being that has issues, that they need flexibility one day, or they need support in another way. It’s about making people feel that you care about them,” Jennings said. “That you’re not just here to churn out work, but that you're viewed as a person, and that you're being invested in by the organization.”Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photos by Steve Bither for From Day One)

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Culture That’s Real: Translating Company Values into Everyday Reality

What makes a company culture stick? It's simple enough to create a set of values, hang them on a wall, or tout them on a careers page. But how do you turn those ideals into lived experiences—something employees feel in their day-to-day interactions, not just during onboarding?That was the focus of a panel at From Day One’s Dallas conference, where experts explored how to turn company values into everyday practices. The discussion, titled “Culture That’s Real: Translating Company Values Into Everyday Reality,” was moderated by Will Maddox, senior editor at D CEO Magazine.When Jim D’Amico became VP of talent acquisition at Caliber Collision, the largest collision repair operator in the country with over 30,000 employees, he knew culture couldn’t be an afterthought. 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When they don’t, leaders must act with intention.Embed Values into Daily SystemsCulture must be part of day-to-day systems, says Prisca Anuolam, VP of HR at Entegris. Early in her career, she saw how mergers often focused on structure, systems, and reporting lines, while sidelining culture. “We quickly learned you can’t just look at typical HR metrics,” she said. “We had to flip it—to put culture at the forefront.”That shift began with cultural assessments to understand how both acquiring and acquired companies worked. The goal wasn’t to enforce uniformity, but to help teams recognize differences and collaborate more effectively.When interviewing for her current role, Anuolam used culture as her litmus test. 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Balancing Cost Efficiency and Positive Outcomes in Employee Benefits

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Menopause care in particular, Widell notes, is more accessible in the U.S. but does not yet have prominent global solutions available in other countries. Ultimately, benefits programs are meant to do just that: provide benefits. “Everything that we are doing we need to ensure that we have a very happy and engaged workforce,” Islam said. “Our annual survey has a big section on how employees are feeling valued, and benefits are a big component of that.”Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photos by Rick Friedman for From Day One)

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