The Hidden Holiday Advantage in Talent Strategy: 4 Proven Strategies to Build a Stronger Talent Engine in 2026

November 20, 2025

Most firms think the hiring season starts in January, but the real race begins long before that. While most teams are coasting toward the holidays, high-performing TA leaders are quietly setting the stage for their biggest wins of the year. The late-year slowdown is actually a built-in competitive advantage… if you choose to use it.

There is a strategic window that directly impacts Q1 hiring success but is often missed. While candidates tend to go dormant in November and December, this period is actually one of the best times for TA teams to regroup, recalibrate, and prepare for the surge of candidate activity that always hits in January and February. This seasonality should shape how AEC firms plan their workforce, optimize processes, and prepare to compete for top talent.

This guidance comes from a recent session with Deborah Casaubon and the Thrivence Talent Accelerator Cohort, a group of AEC executives focused on improving their recruiting, retention, and workforce planning practices. During the cohort connect, she walked participants through four practical moves to prepare their talent acquisition teams for 2026. The insights below reflect the core themes she shared with the group.

1. Finalize Workforce Planning for 2026

Year-end is the critical moment to convert business and financial plans into a precise, prioritized hiring roadmap. This includes:

Closing out workforce planning activities

Converting financial and business plans into headcount requirements

Identifying needed roles, job titles, leveling, compensation, and skills

Reconciling current requisitions with next year’s projected hiring needs

Early alignment with department leaders ensures TA doesn’t spend time in Q1 on outdated requisitions, misaligned roles, or unapproved hiring plans. Doing this now gives TA teams a running start when candidate activity spikes in Q1.

2. Refresh and Repost Job Ads Before the New Year

Candidates become significantly more active right after the holidays. Many spend downtime browsing LinkedIn and career sites. To compete effectively for the wave of early Q1 candidates:

Refresh active requisitions

Update job postings so they’re compelling, candidate-centric, and search-optimized

Tighten the first line of each posting to capture attention

Ensure LinkedIn and Glassdoor pages reflect current culture, projects, and employee stories

Highlight real employees, real projects, and real growth opportunities

This quick lift can improve search performance and positions your roles to capture the first wave of active Q1 candidates.

3. Launch a Referral Campaign in Q1

Referrals remain the highest-performing and lowest-cost source of hire in the AEC industry — yet many firms tap only a fraction of the potential.

A first-quarter “referral blitz” can produce outsized results, such as:

Department competitions with prizes

Rewards not only for successful hires but for qualified applications

Posting weekly referral leaderboards

Featuring referral mentions in internal communications and team meetings

Tiered referral bonuses based on role criticality

Leader-sponsored messages encouraging participation

Even when a referred applicant isn’t the right fit for a role, their profile can fuel future talent pools. Referral activity tends to be especially strong after the holidays, making early Q1 the ideal launch point.

4. Complete Your 2026 TA Initiatives and Build Scorecards

This season is also the right moment to finalize strategic TA priorities for 2026 and strengthen operational discipline. This includes:

Setting refreshed goals for the TA team

Establishing or expanding internal talent pools

Exploring new funnel strategies (veterans, military spouses, university partnerships, etc.)

Building out TA metric scorecards

Investing in recruiter training

Moving beyond efficiency-only metrics to include quality-of-hire indicators is essential for executives to understand whether hiring is actually improving outcomes. Examples include:

Hiring manager satisfaction

New hire satisfaction and NPS

First-year retention

Offer acceptance rates

Source-of-hire effectiveness

Moving beyond efficiency-only metrics to include quality-of-hire indicators is essential for executives to understand whether hiring is actually improving outcomes. Even basic tracking creates visibility into strengths, gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Need a Better Talent Strategy? Connect with Our Team

If you’re ready to strengthen your recruiting culture or need support building a talent strategy that actually works, our team at Thrivence can help. Our team comprises former senior executives who have led major transformations in large organizations. We understand the pressures you face and the complexity of leading large-scale strategies.

Overseen 66,000 hires annually for over 100 sites across the country
Directed significant HR transformations for large organizations with over 400 recruiters and 100 executives
Led the talent acquisition market intelligence for a global operation with over 80,000 employees

We blend AEC experience, proven processes, and practical coaching to move your firm forward with confidence. Learn More

About the Author

Deborah Casaubon is deeply passionate about talent acquisition. By aligning individuals with their ideal roles, she empowers organizations to fulfill their aspirations and achieve exceptional results. Her experience includes serving companies such as Cisco, HCA, and Wellpath, where she has consistently driven growth and innovation. Deborah believes that innovation is most potent at the peripheries of an organization—where teams directly interact with customers. It is this diversity in thought, experience, and background that cultivates truly effective teams. Her enthusiasm is most evident when leading high-performing teams, particularly within Engineering and Healthcare sectors. Deborah thrives in both expansive and turnaround scenarios, known for her ability to drive scalable business outcomes and provide pertinent solutions. Her professional approach is characterized by a strong collaborative spirit. Deborah excels in bringing clarity to complex situations, delivering quick wins early, innovating, leading cross-functional teams, and exerting substantial influence to achieve strategic goals.