Q2 Check-In: A Slower Start, Promising Momentum

[00:00:00] Hello, and thanks to everyone for tuning back into today’s episode of The Hirewell Update. I’m your host, Ryan Brown, vice President of our corporate functions team, and this is my co-host. I’m Emily Canna working on that. I am director on our go to market recruiting team. Before we kick off the show, you can find all of our content at talentinsights.hirewell.com

[00:00:21] Or if you’d like to learn more about Hirewell and our service offerings, check our website www.hirewall.com. Hey there, Em, how are ya? I’m doing well. How are you? I’m doing well too. I don’t think I’m quite used to the new countdown. So for everyone that’s watching, we utilize a platform called Stream Yard.

[00:00:40] And we have had the same countdown music for, what, five years maybe? And they recently switched it up and it throws me for a loop every time we record now, because of that. Every time you could see me probably giggling in the, in the waiting room. ’cause I was like, what is, every time it comes on, I’m like, oh, this is.

[00:00:56] This is new and fun. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, [00:01:00] it’s been a minute since we’ve jumped on and filled in an episode we’re excited about today because we have a special guest, which is rare for The Hirewell Update, nowadays, but we’re halfway through Q2, which is insane to think about. So what about our time to do a Q1 recap?

[00:01:15] I don’t know. What do you say? it’s rare we get to bring this person on, but what do you say we bring in Mr. Matt Massucci? Well, let’s bring him on in. Hey there, Matt. How are ya? I’m great. How you doing? How you ladies doing? We’re doing well. It’s great to have you on the show. You are one of our favorite guests and most of the time our only guests.

[00:01:34] I was gonna say, I think I’m your only guest, but I’ll also take favorite. So favorite, only It’s the same thing, right? All in honor. It’s nice to see you sitting. I kept my walking treadmill. Behind me as a reminder, we’re in a very intense walking competition and, Matt and I are early meeting today, just both walking along.

[00:01:52] So nice to see us not bobbing. Yeah, I know. I was, I was debating doing it just to prove a point, but I, you know, my vanity wouldn’t allow me [00:02:00] to walk and look like a doofus. I’m sure our viewers would actually probably really enjoy it. But, glad, glad to be sitting for a few minutes. it, it’s sort of silly that we even have you introduce yourself still at this point, but we introduce ourselves still every show.

[00:02:14] So we’d love maybe for you to start just by introducing yourself to the folks watching. Yep. Well, thanks for having me. I’m Matt Masucci, founder and CEO of who’s celebrating 24 years, by the way. It was, yeah, it was our 24th anniversary. It’s like right around May. Third, I believe so. Yeah. I said in the company meeting at this point, company anniversaries are sort of like birthdays and when they, when they hit a certain number, you know, you don’t like celebrating ’em quite as much as you used to.

[00:02:43] So, but you know, it’s monumental enough. And then next year, you know, God willing, it’ll be 25 years. So we’ll have to do something special for that. Absolutely. Well, we’re looking forward to celebrating that for sure. But we’re excited to have you on today. We’re excited we’ve made it 24 years but we really wanna cover things from an [00:03:00] organizational standpoint and just kind of like company wide trends that we’ve seen.

[00:03:03] So, Matt, fill us in and what’s been going on? Yeah. Yeah. It’s, you know, we talk a lot about our, what are we seeing in the market and, you know, as you said, we’re halfway through May and I feel like it’s been,two years in one, if not more. So it had some pretty grandiose plans going into the year and you know, and then quite honestly, January and February weren’t that good.

[00:03:22] Not terrible, but just a little soft. They’re down year, over a year, which is never a fun thing, especially when you’re forecasting some growth. You know, then March was good, right? I mean, I think we were kind of the first two months we were down, you know, whatever, 15% March, we made up almost all of that.

[00:03:39] We’re up 25%. So, you know, overall positive, I think we were down, you know, 5% year over year. So not, not great, but, we just did the amount of geopolitical and sort of random stuff we’ve had to deal with over the last few years. We had another one pop up with the liberation day and the, you know, tariffs and, it was, you know, the, the thought was terrifying. Obviously, when you see the [00:04:00] stock market drop 10% in two days, you know, you just sort of waiting for the shoe to drop when it comes to hiring. And, we did have like a week of just slowness. Like our new searches was like a third of what it usually was.

[00:04:11] We had a couple projects get paused and like, oh God, here we go again. But then interestingly enough, it sort of, even before the pauses and different things, it kind of quickly reverted to business as usual. So again, it’s still the same thing. It’s a little spotty, it’s a kind of company by company, but, you know, it wasn’t like, it was a massive change where, oh my God, the sky’s falling and nobody’s hiring.

[00:04:31] So all in all, you know, kind of where we’re at, May 14th or whatever day it is, I think. Okay. I think, you know, I guess I’ll save the, the future prediction for the end and keep our listeners and watchers tuned in. But again, I think it’s just, it’s been a little bit up and down, so, yeah, I guess, but, I’d like to talk about the high level stuff or kinda the big picture, but I’d love to hear from you both.

[00:04:51] What are you seeing kind of in your practices? I admit I’m a little bit more removed from that, so Ryan, let’s talk corporate functions. All things corporate [00:05:00] functions. My favorite thing to talk about, well, it’s been an interesting quarter plus. As you mentioned, Matt, it feels like every week is kind of a new experience.

[00:05:08] But what we’ve seen overall from the corporate function side is deal volume’s been up 60%, which is phenomenal. But interestingly enough, our billings have only gone up year over year 3%. And I think there’s a couple factors that contribute to that. One, we’ve seen more volume and more interim hiring and fewer higher level roles.

[00:05:27] And that’s definitely contributed to what, I just mentioned in terms of those metrics. What’s been exciting is we’ve, you know, put up some of the biggest numbers of new logos. Almost half of our new logos across the company have come from the corporate functions team, which has been really exciting.

[00:05:43] Yeah, that’s awesome. And I can kind of dig into, go to market things since I know those are our areas of expertise, but on the go to market side of things. Kind of similar actually, deal volume has been up, but our billings were slightly down in the first quarter. It’ll actually be interesting [00:06:00] to see what those numbers look like in quarter two, because I think we’ve been off to a really strong start.

[00:06:04] I know again, we’re bread crumbing a little bit. We’ll save the future predictions what’s happening in quarter two so far? But I think we’ve just seen a lot of like big volume. Hiring engagement. So less high level roles. I think honestly those numbers are probably due to like even one really huge, huge engagement that we’ve been working on.

[00:06:25] Hiring a ton of like retail associates, which is different for us, but alot just high volume, lower level positions. And I know you mentioned a lot of the, like most of the new logos came from corporate. I think actually the second number of new logos came from, the go to market. Side of things with like, it being like a third of all new logos at the company.

[00:06:45] Absolutely. For the industrial team, I’m excited to touch base on this one. One because I’ve actually partnered with this, practice quite a bit over the last couple of months, which has been fun. Overall deal volume has been a little bit lower for our industrial practice, [00:07:00] but our billings have been up quite a bit, which is super exciting.

[00:07:02] And I think the majority of the reason of, you know, why we’re seeing kind of those trends is that we’ve seen a lot of solutions type project projects within this space, and also higher level searches as well. So maybe, a contributing factor to kind of what we’ve seen across the board there.

[00:07:19] Interesting. And I can share what’s been going on with tech. I know. I’m certainly not the tech expert, but, don’t worry. Try to stay in tune for sure. I’d say overall, like probably not surprising to those watching, like volume and billings have been down year over year. It’s been a pretty soft tech market for the first quarter and a half.

[00:07:39] But kind of like you were alluding to at the beginning, Matt, like things. Like really seem to have stabilized, which is a good thing. You know, we like when things are not going down. So stabilization is good. That’s business owner 101 Em, but I appreciate it. Yeah. Like I think things are not going down.

[00:07:57] That’s how we like our metrics to look. Great. [00:08:00] Hundred percent agree. And yeah, I think that’s a good segue into like, you know, what are we seeing going forward, right? As I mentioned before, you know, like there were moments in time in April where I was definitely extremely nervous just thinking like, oh crap,we didn’t have an amazing Q1.

[00:08:15] And then what are these tariffs gonna do to us? And, and I still don’t think we know, and again, the last thing I wanna do is make this political and try to get into the, the mind of, of, you know, the person running our country. But I think there’s, you know, businesses hate uncertainty, you know, whether it be to do deals or to hire people.

[00:08:31] Clearly that’s what we are most, tied into. And so I think, you know, as I said, April, we don’t have our final numbers, but they’re looking good. I mean, they were bigger than March. March was solid for us. April appears to be bigger. But I think the interesting thing is, you know, when we’re kinda looking at the year over year stuff last year

[00:08:49] q1 was quite good. And then Q2 was soft, so like we started to get really strong and there’s a little bit of a lull and then things picked up in the back half of the year. And so I think, you know, I think Q2 and [00:09:00] Q1 are gonna be inverted, where Q1 was a little soft, but, you know, Q2 is looking much, much better.

[00:09:06] And you know, again, we’re obviously. April’s done. That was a big improvement. I think it’s gonna show we’re up 30, 35% from April 24. Obviously we’re only halfway through May. But you know, the two trends that I look at, and I’ve talked about a lot in the company, the best forward looking things for us are searches launched and then acceptances, right?

[00:09:23] Obviously, acceptances means, you know, somebody takes a job is going to be started. That means we, you know, we send an invoice, which is good. And then searches launch is something a little bit more early stage. We don’t, obviously we don’t fill everything we take on, but we fill a lot of ’em and that’s a, a good sign of what’s, what it’s looking like.

[00:09:36] As I mentioned, you know, we had a really low month, kinda that first week of April, and that had me nervous, but the last two weeks of the year have been our biggest of the year. So, you know, last week of April, first week of May,last week of April, I think it was 25% above target.

[00:09:52] First week of May was, you know, almost 50% above Target. So, you know, I guess we’re gonna just say that’s gonna be the trend going forward and everybody’s just [00:10:00] gonna blow their numbers up by 50%. Can I hold you to that? Totally, Matt. Yeah, no pressure at all. Yeah, no pressure. And I think the other indication too, you’re saying those kind of indicators of like, you know, new roles, launch and acceptances, I think you said were two big indicators.

[00:10:15] Other couple indicators. We’ve had a ton of new logos even recently in the past few weeks, andeven if I’m not looking at the quantitative data, we talk about them weekly in meetings and I’m like, wow. Recently there have been a lot of people talking about new logos. So I think that’s another good indication of the positive, trajectory.

[00:10:33] Another one, which is maybe a little bit more, subjective. We feel really busy. Like I just, I know that’s maybe sounds like not a great like data point, but there are days where I’m like, wow, I need to be finding things to do and getting out there and reaching out to people. And there are days where I’m like, I didn’t have time to eat lunch today.

[00:10:57] So. Might not be like the most, [00:11:00] concrete data point, but I’d like to, you know, put that one out there just in terms of overall busyness. What do you see and what do you think, Ryan? But I agree that’s, you know a hundred percent yeah. I mean that INTA intangible is definitely an indicator that things are moving in a positive direction, but I totally agree.

[00:11:18] And, you know, I think this year it’s gonna be up and down. I feel like with what we’re seeing right now, things are really positive and we’re. Certainly gonna ride that wave of momentum and capitalize on it as much as we can. If you’re a job seeker, now is definitely the time for you to be active in the market.

[00:11:33] And if you’re, an organization that’s looking to hire, now’s the time for sure. I think this is the type of year where you’re gonna make a hiring decision. I think you have to do it quickly and efficiently, because as we’ve seen so much has changed even week over week with, the economy and the job market.

[00:11:49] So I think, in terms of just any advice for organizations looking to hire, it’s to make those decisions quickly, effectively, efficiently, and, I’m excited to see what the rest of [00:12:00] the quarter has to offer. It’s, it’s definitely been a better Q2 than it has Q1. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we’ve other kind of big news, we’re switching over to a new CRM, so like, you know, hopefully we’ll have better data, Emily, to not just feel busy, but thethe data will support it.

[00:12:17] It all counts. It’s all, you know, you got your qualitative data, your quantitative, but, you know, count it. But no, we are excited about the new CRM too, and. Hopefully things continue to trend positively. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, good, well, great to see you both. I don’t know if there’s anything else.

[00:12:34] I feel like we nailed it all, but yeah, and again, for all those, I think you hit it well, Ryan, for anybody who’s looking to hire, get in touch. I mean, it’s important to have a plan. It’s important to have a great partner, and we think we can help with both of those. Absolutely. We definitely can. Well, Matt, it was great to see you.

[00:12:47] Thanks so much for joining us. We’ll see you for, the official Q2 wrap in Q3, so we’ll look forward to having you back then. Wonderful. All right. Good to see you both. Thanks, Matt. [00:13:00] Well, an exciting show as always. Whenever Matt Masucci drops by, we love to do those recaps and just kind of assess where things are at and light predictions.

[00:13:08] I think we used to be a little bit more bold in our predictions in previous years. Maybe now we’re too scared to be Yeah, we learned our lessons or it’s just, it’s been a wild ride so far in 2025, but an exciting one none the less. I think we’ve been saying that for a couple of years now.

[00:13:24] Yeah. Five years at this point. Who knows. Yeah. We’ll still try to make the predictions. We don’t have a crystal ball. We’re not always gonna be right. But we’ll still throw some things out there and excited to have Matt on next quarter to talk about how we did with our predictions and Absolutely.

[00:13:38] Make some new ones. Absolutely Em. Well, I think that wraps us up for today. Do you wanna take us home? I would be happy to take us home. That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of The Hirewell Update. Thank you all so much for joining us. As a reminder, you can find all of our content at talentinsights.hirewell.com.

[00:13:56] Or if you’d like to learn more about Hirewell and our service [00:14:00] offerings, check out our website. It’s www.hirewell.com. We appreciate you joining and we hope you tune in next time. We’ll see you then. See you then.