Nobody reasonably wishes for an economic downturn. But in business, difficult times also provide opportunities for positive change. Besides, as Maria Culbertson, senior manager of talent planning and acquisition at the hiring software company, Greenhouse, recently pointed out, the economy always bounces back.

“The U.S. alone has endured 13 recessions since the Great Depression, and that includes four global recessions,” she said during a From Day One virtual conference thought leadership spotlight titled, “Three Ways Hiring Teams Create Value During Economic Uncertainty.” “Albeit painful, these corrections are part of the economic process.”

Sticking most closely to her area of expertise, Culbertson highlighted how within the past two years alone there was a stretch of hiring freezes. First during the initial spread of COVID-19 and then a time of rampant rehiring during the Great Resignation. She advised company leaders not to panic over the current economic forecasts, and urged them to instead identify ways their organization can make some tweaks during the slowdown, while preparing itself for a new period of growth that will inevitably arrive.

“A slowdown provides all of us the much needed opportunity to prioritize the things that are ‘important’ and not just ‘urgent,’” Culbertson noted. “Periods of low hiring present an opportunity for you to build a strong foundation for when things pick back up.”

Hiring teams, she added, can help a company “thrive” instead of simply “survive” a challenging handful of financial quarters. Seeking quick savings by canceling technology that helps workers in this area is a no-no.

“Strategic leaders know that short term fixes like this are rarely supportive of a long-term strategy for success,” said Culbertson. “The analogy that comes to mind for me is: you don’t throw away your umbrella when it stops raining, you simply store it away in a safe place that’s easy to access for the future.”

In the long run, she said companies that remove key hiring software spend more—qualitatively and quantitatively—when they begin hiring again. Re-implementing hiring tools to support that effort will require resources that would not have been needed if leaders exercised some patience.

When there’s a hiring slowdown or a freeze, hiring teams can shift focus toward a number of areas. In practicing what Culbertson called “data hygiene,” hiring teams should “prune” their pipeline “to mitigate future sourcing clutter.” They can also build a recruiting analytics team to “find and fix process bottlenecks,” as well as data inefficiencies. An examination of pipeline metrics, capacity modeling and hiring manager satisfaction may also be in order.

“With a little extra breathing room, I encourage all of you to take this time to focus on evolving [your] structured hiring process, and in doing so, create equitable and fair hiring experiences for your candidates,” said Culbertson. This can be done, she continued, by “revisiting your interview kits and templates, and reviewing your questions to ensure that they’re thoughtful and inclusive.” She advised that this initiative’s focus would be best applied to the roles that hiring team members believe will reopen first.  

“One of the things that our team is working on right now is more standardization of our interview kits, particularly for roles that share common skills and attributes,” Culbertson said. “This will make less work for our recruiters when they begin building out roles in the future. And that will create more consistency for interviewers and candidates ultimately, leading to less bias in the process.”

Any training that might be required to better execute this initiative, or any others, down the road should be deployed now, before the next hiring frenzy.

Hiring teams can also devote more time to, as Culbertson said, “making sure you’re doing the work to add representation to the teams that you support.” She urged teams to set inclusion goals and measure the state of the company’s inclusive sourcing strategy, its diversity and to locate where there’s opportunity for increased representation throughout the organization.

The value of diversity to a company has been well-documented.

“If you’re going to focus on long term strategies to diversify your talent,” Culbertson added, “it’s important to spend this time building long-term partnerships with communities and organizations that represent underrepresented groups, and incorporating DEI into your company brand and continuously using data to track your goals when it comes to increasing representation in your pipeline.”

Finally, she advised hiring teams to sure-up their targeted talent pools to make sourcing more efficient once the company needs new recruits again. They can even engage with candidates before getting the green light to hire to “increase the likelihood they’ll remember your employer brand,” she said. And, if there isn’t one already in place, organizations should build an internal mobility program to help develop existing employee talent.

“The decisions that you make right now,” Culbertson said, “can be the equivalent to either taking 10 steps back from the starting line of that crucial next race, or if you’re keeping your end goals in mind, it can be the equivalent of taking 10 steps forward and creating a vast competitive advantage.”

Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Greenhouse, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. 

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.