ISE caught up with Hayley Bowd, ISE Board Director and Global Emerging Talent Leader at Expedia Group, to find out how they are approaching always-on hiring.
With approaches to early talent changing year on year, many companies are exploring ways to complement the traditional hiring season window.
For the team at Expedia Group, they work to these hiring seasons for key markets around the world, but have implemented ‘always on’ hiring to accommodate any additional roles that come up outside the core intake.
Why employers are adopting an always-on approach:
- Secure talent ahead of competitors – Attract top talent when they’re actively looking, not just during a fixed campaign.
- Respond to business needs faster – Fill vacancies as they arise, rather than waiting months for the next intake cycle.
- Access wider talent pools – Include candidates from varying academic calendars, career changers, and those outside traditional recruitment channels.
- Smooth operational workload – Avoid the resource strain of handling thousands of applications in a compressed timeframe.
- Improve diversity and inclusion – Remove rigid application deadlines that may disadvantage underrepresented groups.
Stafford Long explained more about how employers can get ahead with always-on recruitment.
Expedia Group’s shift to always-on recruitment
Hayley Bowd is Global Emerging Talent Leader at Expedia Group. They recruit a large volume of intern and graduate roles globally each year, predominantly in technical positions but also in commercial, finance and marketing.
At the start of the year Expedia introduced always-on hiring to complement its existing seasonal model. Hayley explained:
“While cohort-hiring remains the cornerstone of our early careers recruitment approach, we’ve introduced an always-on recruitment model to complement it, allowing entry level roles to be hired and join outside our more traditional periods.
“This decision came from a recognised need for greater flexibility - committing to graduate hires a full year in advance doesn’t always align with the realities of our business, or with the number of roles we need at the right time.
“Always-on hiring now applies for our technology profiles. When a junior tech role is opened and meets the criteria to be filled outside of a cohort, it’s then assigned to our team, who draw on our talent pools. These are often former interns or graduate candidates we’ve previously engaged with. Where necessary, we source externally to find the right fit.”
Key considerations
When introducing this model, it’s been important to find the right happy medium to ensure it is complementing the team’s approach and not competing against it. “Balancing this model with our strategic approach to demand planning has been an important consideration,” said Hayley.
“There’s a risk that always-on hiring could disrupt the broader strategic view of workforce planning, so we’ve built tracking and transparency into the process. For example, we share with business areas how many always-on hires they’ve had and explore how to account for those numbers differently in our emerging talent plans.
“We also recognise that hires joining outside a cohort may not have the exact same onboarding and development experience as those who join in our structured intakes. Setting the right expectations early has been essential, and we continue to explore ways to ensure every joiner receives a strong start.
“The benefits are already clear: whilst the numbers are small in comparison to our cohorts, we’re seeing increased intern conversion, greater agility in meeting business needs, and more flexibility for our leaders to hire the right talent at the right time.”