2024’s Hiring Recap, 2025 Predictions & The Rise of Consultative Recruiting

We’ve said it before: no two years in hiring are ever the same. But coming out of 2023’s uncertainty, 2024 gave us something we hadn’t seen in a while—traction.

In this episode of The Hirewell Update, we welcomed back our CEO and founder, Matt Masucci, to break down where we’ve been, where we’re going, and what the data (and real-world client work) is telling us about the recruiting landscape.

Let’s get into it.

A Mixed Bag: The Hiring Market in 2024

If 2023 was a stall-out, 2024 was a slow but steady push back into gear.

Overall, we saw 10% year-over-year growth. But that stat only scratches the surface. Some practices surged. Others struggled. And companies were laser-focused on efficiency, value, and intentionality.

Growth Highlights:

• Real Estate & Construction: Up 26%. Fueled by an early-year boom in development and property management roles, though things tapered mid-year.
• Go-To-Market: Up 24%. Sales hiring dominated. Customer success roles, dormant for nearly 18 months, spiked hard in Q4 and are still rising.
• Corporate Functions: Up 5%. Modest but encouraging, with HR specializations like L&D and total rewards starting to come back online.

Areas Still Catching Up:

• Tech: Down ~8–9%. Engineering roles in particular remain suppressed from 2022’s highs. But demand is shifting, not disappearing. More offshore/nearshore hiring (especially in APAC and South America) is helping companies scale with cost-conscious strategies.
• Industrial: Down ~5%. A mix of economic softness and boomer retirements is straining the talent pipeline.

Bottom line: whether you grew or stalled in 2024 came down to two factors: capital and adaptability.

The Recruiting Reset: RPOs, Exec Search & Efficiency Wins

If there’s one theme that defined our internal strategy and our clients’ in 2024, it’s rethinking recruiting.

Forget the old model of ramping big internal teams just to cut them six months later. The market demanded smarter, leaner, and more scalable approaches.

And that’s where RPO and executive search delivered:

• Executive Search: Up 71%. From near-record lows in 2023 to 45 leadership placements last year, companies are finally investing in the right leaders again.
• RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing): We sold over 20 custom engagements in 2024— four times the prior year’s total. And these weren’t small: most were 50+ hires over a few months, covering full hiring lifecycles.

These aren’t Band-Aids. They’re business solutions. More companies are realizing they don’t need full-time recruiting teams. They need on-demand, expert hiring partners who can flex with their needs.

2025: What’s Coming Next

Matt, Emily, and Ryan shared their top predictions for 2025. Here’s the big picture:

1. Turnover’s Coming

Quit rates may be low now, but employee satisfaction is slipping. Burnout is real. Once confidence returns to the job market, we expect a wave of talent movement.

2. Global Hiring Isn’t Optional Anymore

With pressure to reduce costs without sacrificing quality, companies are leaning into nearshore and offshore hiring. It’s not just tech-support roles, operations, and even sales functions are globalizing fast.

3. AI Will Keep Stirring the Pot

No, it hasn’t “replaced” recruiters. But it’s creating new headaches (spammy mass applications, anyone?) and new opportunities (smarter outreach, faster screening). It’s here to stay, but we’re still figuring out how to use it well.

4. The Era of the Consultative Recruiter

The market no longer rewards transactional recruiters who just check boxes. The winners? Recruiters who push back, educate hiring managers, bring strategy, not just résumés, to the table.

(And yes, that applies to salespeople too.)

5. RPOs Will Explode

We’re already seeing it: companies want hiring solutions that flex with demand, not internal teams they’ll have to unwind later. RPO is the smart, scalable answer and we’re doubling down.

Oh, and One More Thing…

Hirewell is hiring.

If you’re a full-desk recruiter who thrives in both retained search and RPO environments and wants to be part of a team that actually knows what it’s doing, get in touch.

We’re growing fast. Let’s talk.

Tune in to episode 29 of The Hirewell Update at talentinsights.hirewell.com or connect with us at hirewell.co.