Competition for talent is fierce. How can companies rethink their hiring strategies?

At From Day One’s Houston conference, panelists shared insights for organizations to better attract and retain the right talent. Moderated by Jennifer Vardeman, director and associate professor at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston, the discussion highlighted the future of hiring and what organizations can do to build stronger, more engaged workforces.

Harnessing AI for Hiring

Artificial intelligence is transforming talent acquisition by making the hiring process efficient, says Naga Krishna Kadiyala, associate vice president of HR innovation and analytics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. “AI is really making hiring faster, smarter, and easier,” he said.

One key area where AI has made an impact is structured interviews. Kadiyala’s team recently experimented with AI-powered interview guides. They removed sensitive information from resumes, fed the anonymized data into their enterprise AI tool, and let the system generate personalized interview questions. This approach streamlined the process for the hiring team, who often lack the time to create customized interview questions. 

Meanwhile, an AI-powered scheduling agent negotiates interview times between candidates and hiring managers, reducing the scheduling process from weeks to days. “Our design principle is to have a frictionless experience, and technology should play a major role in reducing the burden in that process,” he said. By leveraging AI to handle repetitive tasks, the institution has seen an increase in highly qualified candidates applying and more candidates being presented to hiring teams.

Looking ahead, Kadiyala advocates for broader AI learning across the workforce. “I’ll say, go bold with AI learning for all,” he said. “At the baseline, there should be training on how to use AI. It helps with future-proofing skills, and also with retention. And I think retention helps in attracting talent.”

Look at Your Internal Talent

Organizations often focus on external hiring, but panelist Amber Rabo, vice president of learning and talent development at ABM Industries, encourages companies to tap into their existing workforce. 

“Look at your current workforce as your talent pool,” she said. While not every organization has sophisticated internal job marketplaces, ABM found success with a simple yet effective approach—sending out a newsletter with newly posted job openings. “It was just putting new jobs being posted into a little newsletter and sending it out to all employees so that they can see what opportunities are available for themselves,” Rabo said. “You never know what’s going to come out of it.”

Beyond internal mobility, AI has opened new possibilities for workforce development and candidate engagement at ABM. Rabo’s team of instructional designers embraced AI early on, leveraging innovative tools to enhance training and job readiness. One standout initiative involves using AI-driven realistic job previews to address the high turnover rates in frontline roles.

“Our core business is very much around janitorial services and buildings, stadiums, airports—you name it,” she said. “And it’s an extremely high turnover rate oftentimes because there’s not a real understanding of what the job’s going to entail on day one.”

To bridge that gap, ABM is developing AI-powered job previews that give candidates an immersive look at what a typical day on the job is like.

“It’s amazing to be able to literally depict what it’s like—a day on the job, say, at an airport, doing janitorial work at an Amazon facility, cleaning it up,” Rabo said. Providing candidates with this level of transparency helps set expectations from the start, leading to better retention and a more prepared workforce.

Authentically Tell Your Story

Employer branding is as much about education as it is about attraction. Panelist Holly Strople, global head of talent acquisition at Noble Corporation, understands this challenge firsthand.

“I think Noble is a perfect example. Offshore drilling, right? We run into a lot of perceptions about our industry—what we do, how we do it—dangerous, dirty, you know, all these different things,” she said.

One of Noble’s biggest hurdles is simply getting people to recognize the company. “We’ve been around for more than 100 years. We are the only player in the industry that has kept the same name for over 100 years. That’s a beautiful story from an employer branding perspective,” Strople said. “Yet, the fact that we’re headquartered here in Houston and less than half this room has ever heard of us—that’s a challenge we’re up against all the time.”

They launched an internship program as an early careers talent program. Now, Strople and her team are revamping their careers page, but she keeps pushing for the human element.

“We’re sitting in meetings, talking about our fleet status report and doing profiles on our rigs,” she said. “And I continue to say, ‘Where are the people’s stories? When are we going to fly out to the rigs and interview these people?’”

She added: “The only way we’re going to allow you all to envision yourself in our organization is if we show people who look like you, who have the same experiences as you, who come from the same places you do—and then tell their stories.”

That authenticity must also extend to the hiring process itself. Details as small as whether a hiring manager keeps their camera on during a virtual interview or whether they’re distracted by their phone can make or break a candidate’s experience. “All of that contributes to whether or not somebody is going to want to come and work for you.”

Research Potential Employee Populations

Many employers struggle with hiring because they rely on outdated recruitment strategies, says panelist Dave Harrison, executive director of workforce development and government relations at Fastport.

“The biggest problem most hiring efforts have is bad research and analysis on populations,” Harrison said. “We don’t understand the people we’re going after, and we’re trying to steal the same talent from the same competitors over and over again.” Compounding the challenge, companies are no longer just competing within their own industries, something that changed before Covid. “Hiring was already tough because every industry was competing for the same talent,” Harrison said. “And now, the talent pool and their attitudes have changed.”

To attract and retain employees, organizations need to do a better job articulating career paths. Harrison shared how they helped one company do just that. “We helped UPS rebuild their registered apprenticeship program a few years ago. They had amazing jobs, great benefits, but still struggled to find enough people,” he said. “The biggest shift we made? We got them to change how they articulated career paths.”

Rather than just listing job openings, UPS started sharing real success stories—employees who started in one position and climbed to VP roles. “We helped them frame it as a lattice, not just a ladder,” Harrison said. “They weren’t guaranteeing outcomes, but they were showing employees that they weren’t stuck in one role forever.”

This approach is vital, especially for companies trying to expand into new talent pools. He gave an example of a rail yard near an urban area where not a single high school student from the surrounding schools had ever considered working there. “They completely changed their marketing strategy. Now, students are engaging with them online, and the first thing they’re introduced to is career pathway opportunities—told by people they can relate to.”

At Fastport’s annual Veteran Ready Summit in Washington, D.C., they coach employers on effective veteran recruitment and retention strategies. “One of the first things we do is review their online presence. And they’ll show stock photos of some model in a uniform that’s completely unrealistic,” Harrison said. “Anyone who has ever served, even in a different branch, can spot the inaccuracy immediately. And at that point, you’ve lost them.”

Instead, Harrison advises companies to be upfront. “You don’t have to know every military occupation code or the phonetic alphabet. Just listen. Veterans will tell you their skill sets—leadership, management, overcoming obstacles, soft skills. The exact skills you need all the time.”

Successful hiring is all about building meaningful connections, offering clear career paths, and creating workplaces where employees see a future. By taking a more strategic and inclusive approach to talent acquisition, organizations can position themselves for long-term success in an increasingly competitive market.

Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

(Photos by Annie Mulligan for From Day One)