The year 2025 has marked a change in the way companies have recently thought about workforce growth. Companies are laying off workers, shrinking management layers, and slowing down hiring to hedge their bets against an unpredictable economy. As employer caution changes the job market, it’s also changing workforce development.

At From Day One’s NYC TA conference, leaders talked about how companies are handling a ballooning number of applications, making the best use of internal talent, and introducing “positive friction.”

“Mobility is becoming more and more part of the recruitment conversation versus part of the retention conversation,” said Linda Marioni, head of US recruitment solutions at HR consulting firm LHH, who sat on an executive panel about how to improve the talent pipeline from end to end.

“While it’s still a very important retention tool, companies are coming to us saying, ‘If we’re going through a transformation, how can you help us assess our internal talent and mobilize our internal talent so that we don’t lose that talent to the market,” she said.

There are other ways to save on labor costs, of course. Previously companies used contract labor to patch holes in the workforce, hiring freelancers and part-timers for interim roles and non-core work, but that’s changing, says Marioni. Leaning on contract employees is financially more efficient for companies, and helps the firm stay more agile, able to dip into the market and pluck out niche skills when needed.

Serena Hutton, talent acquisition manager at Publicis Media says internal mobility is core to her company’s operations. Internal candidates go through the same process external candidates do, though current talent is given priority. The policy is still relevant when recruiting, though. Recruiters pitch Publicis to candidates as a place for employees who want to grow and move. “It’s about the growth that they can achieve while at the company.” And Hutton said it works–very well.

When companies do hire from the outside, the number of applications is a consistent problem. Tom Brunskill, VP and general manager at Forge, which facilitates job simulations, says it’s especially a problem for those seeking early career applicants. “We’re seeing companies that typically receive two, three, or four hundred thousand applications increase by 50% over the last 12 months because of what AI has enabled early talent to do in terms of the sheer number of applications that they can send out.” The applications look remarkably tailored to the job, but the candidate behind them is often unserious. Finding applicants that are truly interested in the company is the old needle-in-a-haystack problem.

Brunskill described the importance of what he calls “positive friction.” One-click applications make it all too easy for job seekers, whether serious or not, to apply to open roles. And thanks to AI, job seekers can easily and rapidly produce lots of applications that appear to be high quality. The result is piles of irrelevant resumes. Positive friction can slow down bad actors or lazy applicants. Job simulations are one way to do this.

The number of applications is growing, but the number of recruiters to read those applications is not, Marioni noted. Hiring teams are being asked to do more with less.

Tech is sometimes able to fill in the gaps where recruiters need help. Steve Koepp, From Day One’s co-founder and editor in chief, noted during the discussion that employers are electing for devices like asynchronous interviewing platforms and scheduling tools to manage application volume. Even though they’re simple to use, they can slow down hiring in ways it’s needed most, generating the positive friction that gives recruiters time to find the gems. “There are plenty of choices,” Koepp said. “That’s the cutting edge.”

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.

(Photos by Hason Castell for From Day One)