Preparing For The Rebound:
Creating Leadership Hiring Success In 2025
Looking ahead to 2025, we can see that the focus for many businesses is shifting from resilience to resurgence. While 2024 was a year marked by hiring freezes, market uncertainty, and widespread restructuring, 2025 holds the promise of a rebound. All our market insights point towards 2025 being a year where strategic leadership and hiring can redefine success for organisations.
For companies looking to thrive in this new landscape, it’s clear that a new type of leader is needed. In 2025, organisational leaders and figureheads will need to be more engaged, passionate and adaptable than ever before to help lead their businesses to achieving lofty goals and growth.
Gone are the days when leaders just needed to make big decisions in boardrooms. Successful leaders in 2025 will need to inspire and engage workers at all levels of their organisation, articulate the “why” behind the business’s mission, and enable their teams to achieve the goals set out for them.
With 2025 looking to be a bounce-back year, ensuring that your business has the right leaders in place to capitalise on the opportunities 2025 has to offer is essential. Whether you’re building a leadership team from the ground up, filling vacant leadership positions or expanding leadership for new capabilities, this report offers actionable insights to ensure success in recruiting top-tier leadership talent in the year of the rebound!
All our market insights point towards 2025 being a year where strategic leadership and hiring can redefine success for organisations.
The Hiring Landscape At The End of 2024
In 2024, the Solutions Driven team made over 600 successful placements, across 27 countries and 11 key sectors, with a 97% first time success rate, giving our teams an unparalleled understanding of how Executive Hiring changed in 2024 and where the market is heading in 2025.
As our consultants have seen global hiring trends develop in real time, we have uncovered several key trends and lessons that organisations must carry forward into 2025 to ensure they have the right leadership in place.
40% of business leaders plan to increase company headcount in the coming months.
46% of companies plan to increase salaries in 2025 to stay competitive in the hunt for skilled talent.
44% of hiring professionals expect their hiring and recruiting budget to increase next year.
The Impact of Long-Term Hiring Freezes
The presence of extended hiring freezes in 2024 reshaped the strategies and structures of many organisations. With TA and hiring teams being restructured or downsized, existing processes were scrutinised and revaluated, and engagement with existing talent pipelines was de-prioritised during this period.
However, as organisations move away from their hiring freeze mandates and begin to re-enter the hiring market, they’re left playing catch up: trying to gain a foothold in what will be a competitive 2025 market with reduced TA resources, unengaged talent pools, and unproven new processes. This highlights the importance of engaging with reliable hiring partners to provide agility and the ability to quickly scale.
Multi-Generational Engagement Is Essential
Having the right leader at the helm of an organisation has never been more essential, and this won’t change anytime soon, which highlights that talent pipelines for leadership positions need future-proofing. It’s not enough to just engage with talent that can lead your company to success today – you need to think ahead and engage with the leaders of tomorrow.
Building rapport with the next generation of leaders is essential for future proofing leadership pipelines. Engaging with and nurturing the talent working their way up the ladder to executive positions today gives you a headstart on recruiting the next generation of leaders when they’re ready to move into the C-Suite.
Demand for Flexible Hiring Models
The economic uncertainty of 2024 – combined with the long-term freezes of non-essential hiring for many companies – created a market where flexible hiring models were in demand. This push to flexible models allowed teams to quickly fill essential vacant positions, without overextending or overscaling their internal TA functions.
Our teams noted a push towards flexible outsourced hiring models that provide organisations with the flexibility and agility to quickly fill essential positions. These models allowed companies to achieve their short and medium term hiring goals, without the need for long-term commitments or inflating the overheads tied to their internal TA and hiring teams.
Succession Planning Is A Must Have
Succession planning emerged as an indispensable tool for maintaining leadership continuity in 2024. Organisations that had robust succession plans for their key leadership positions managed to maintain continuity and minimise disruption caused by surprise departures of key leadership figures, avoiding extended vacancies, and lengthy onboarding processes.
Not only does succession planning provide a safety net to maintain agility in the face of disruption, but it also creates a pathway for internal mobility within an organisation. Having a clear internal path to key positions feeds into staff retention, incentivising your top performers to work their way up through the ranks, rather than seek promotions elsewhere.
"Succession planning and internal mobility are areas needing improvement, companies struggle to identify and develop internal talent ready for the next step"
Gavin Speirs, CEO, Solutions Driven
Competition For Top Talent Candidate Led
While the hiring market in 2024 was stifled by hiring freezes and uncertainty, the competition for top leadership talent was intensified. Top leaders with successful track records often had multiple opportunities when they entered the hiring market, creating a layer of tough competition in an otherwise muted market.
With a limited number of top-tier executives and leaders on the market, organisations had to do more than ever to attract them. This included offering compelling value propositions, salary packages and benefits to lure the top talent away from the competition.
AI & Data’s Rising Importance
Selecting a new leader or executive for your organisation is not a decision that should be left to ‘gut-feel’, especially when a change in leadership can make or break an organisation’s future. Hiring decisions for key leadership positions should be informed, data-driven, and most importantly – predictable.
AI and Data Analytics provide TA and hiring teams with the tools needed to make hiring decisions that lead to better outcomes. 41% of hiring teams reported improvements in their overall processes due to AI adoption.By taking a more data-driven and informed approach to leadership hires, businesses are making hiring decisions that result in predictable outcomes to minimise disruption.
2025 Is Poised To Be A Bounce-Back Year
Our market intelligence is showing that the hiring market for top leadership talent is heating up, and ready for a rebound in 2025. The business landscape is finding itself on more stable footing; while in 2024 global elections and a post-COVID realignment created uncertainty, there is a clear path ahead for businesses in 2025.
Internally at Solutions Driven, we’ve noticed hiring increased confidence amongst our partners since the outcome of the US Elections in November, with our Chief Growth Officer Nicki Paterson noting at a recent event:
“November & December are by far our busiest months of the year… it seems that caution has turned to driving business performance & growth in 2025, which relates to needing the right leaders and adding the right talent”
This observation is backed up by data from recently released studies, with 44% of hiring professionals reporting that they expect their hiring and recruiting budget to increase in 2025, and two in five business leaders reporting plans to increase headcount in 2025.
All factors are indicating that 2025 is going to be a dynamic bounce-back year for hiring and businesses at large, further highlighting the need to ensure that your company has leaders who are well equipped to take advantage of 2025’s dynamic business environment.
2025 Will Be a Bounce Back Year, With New Growth Opportunities and Unique Hiring Challenges.
Challenges You’ll Face Hiring Leaders In 2025
While 2025 is poised to be a bounce-back year, where hiring quality leaders once again becomes a priority for organisations, that doesn’t mean it will be a year without challenges for TA teams.
TA teams will need to shake off the rust that built up over a slow 2024, to get their processes and pipelines working effectively, while also dealing with increased competition for top leadership talent as other players re-enter the hiring market. These factors compound to create a bevy of hiring challenges that TA & HR teams will need to combat in the new year.
Adopting A Skills-First Hiring Approach
Taking a skills-first approach to hiring leadership talent in 2025 will be essential. Our data shows that taking a skill-first approach leads to more predictable and successful hiring decisions. However, a recent study shows only 20% of executives feel adequately prepared to implement skills-first strategies effectively, which highlights a barrier to adoption for skills-first hiring.
Inclusive Hiring Is Stalling Out
Despite inclusive hiring being a top talking point for firms with 65% of executives prioritising inclusive hiring, action for inclusive hiring often doesn't go much further than training schemes. This creates a challenge for hiring teams to put evidence behind their claims of inclusivity, and follow-through on initiatives by making diverse hiring choices for leadership roles.
Building Resilient Succession Plans
Ensuring succession planning for key leadership roles will be a challenge for HR & TA teams in 2025 to minimise the impact of turnover. Teams will need to implement internal talent evaluations to identify which leadership roles can be filled internally in the case of surprise departures, while overseeing robust succession & handover plans for key roles to ensure continuity at all levels.
Balancing Flexibility and Agility
Coming out of 2024, most internal TA and HR teams will be constructed with flexibility in mind, with many departments being scaled back in 2024. However, the ability to be agile - quickly respond to developing needs without disrupting hiring strategies or overextending resources - will be necessary for teams in 2025.
Overcoming Organisational Brain Drain
Across 2024, TA teams were de-prioritised as organisations implemented long-term hiring freezes. Going into 2025, many businesses are re-entering the hiring market but have not restocked their internal TA team’s capabilities. This has caused a “brain drain” in talent acquisition, as organisations are entering the hiring market with skills gaps after parting ways with key team members.
Identifying Leaders With Emerging Skills
Emerging technical skill sets are becoming must-haves for leadership roles. 72% of HR leaders cite analytics, automation, and cybersecurity as key future needs for leadership. This creates a challenge, as TA teams must understand how to identify talent with these skill sets, evaluate proficiency, and create KPIs to effectively measure success.
Rebuilding Processes and Pipelines
As companies roll-back long-term hiring freezes and re-prioritise growth in 2025, TA teams that have been restructured or downsized will need to quickly re-implement their processes and re-engage talent pipelines. Teams that have lost key members to restructuring or left talent pipelines unengaged too long will find challenges in returning to “business as normal”.
Choosing The Right Hiring Partner
In 2025, finding the right hiring partner will be more important than ever before, especially when hiring for leadership roles. TA teams will need to need a clear vision of what is needed from partners - whether it’s internal support, flexibility scaling solutions, or targeted search for key roles. This will require a hiring partner like Solutions Driven to help them exceed their hiring goals for 2025.
Preparing For Leadership Hiring Success In 2025
As organisations gear up for a bounce-back year in 2025, ensuring that TA and HR teams are prepared will be crucial to successfully hiring leaders who can engage with, and inspire the workforce in 2025. To navigate the challenges of a fast-paced hiring market and meet increasing demands for top-tier talent, TA teams must adopt proactive, strategic approaches to hiring.
Adopt a “Ready, Aim, Hire” Strategy
The “Ready, Aim, Hire” strategy is a structured approach to recruiting, which translates incredibly well to hiring for leadership and executive positions. The “Ready, Aim, Hire” approach emphasises setting clear hiring goals, defining role requirements, targeting the right candidates, and having clear metrics for success.
This approach to hiring aligns every step of the process with strategic objectives, providing clear parameters for TA teams to follow. By operating with a “Ready, Aim, Hire” approach, TA teams can ensure that candidates will be well suited to the role and aligned with the organisation’s objectives, leading to more efficient onboarding and reduced time-to-hire.
Implement Frequent Workforce Planning
Conducting regular workforce planning audits for all key leadership positions allows TA and HR team to identify skills gaps in leadership, predict vacancies before they arise, and create strategic hiring goals. This allows teams to plan past immediate needs and create longer term hiring strategies that can align with long-term goals.
By having a complete understanding of the capabilities and capacity of an organisation’s leadership team, hiring strategies can shift from reactive (filling roles as they become vacant) and instead become proactive, thinking multiple hires ahead and creating space to nurture pipelines for future candidates.
Re-Develop Internal TA Capabilities
Restructuring and downsizing of internal TA departments has caused a “brain drain” for many teams, as experienced team members with specialised skills have left the department. It will be important to re-develop the capabilities of TA teams, whether through upskilling initiatives, hiring specialists, or engaging with a hiring partner.
Our insights show that skills-first hiring, use of AI systems, and big data will be key to making successful leadership hires in 2025. However, those same insights also show that only 20% of executives feel prepared to implement skills-first strategies, and 80% of organisations have not provided any AI training to HR or TA teams.
Identify Internal Leadership Talent
Identifying internal talent that has the skills required to succeed in leadership positions will be essential for HR and TA teams in 2025. By engaging with internal talent (in addition to external talent) teams can create robust succession plans for leadership roles, from middle-management to the C-Suite.
Furthermore, by identifying top performers with leadership potential, companies can improve the retention of top performers by outlining pathways to career progression. Additionally, having an internal pipeline of candidates for key positions shifts external hiring needs to easier-to-fill positions that won’t cause organisational disruption when vacancies occur.
Future-Proof Leadership Talent Pipelines
Curating talent pools of mature candidates (talent ready to fill leadership positions immediately) and maturing candidates (talent that will be able to fill leadership positions in the future) allows TA teams to effectively future-proof pipelines of leadership talent.
Engaging and nurturing these separate pipelines ensures that TA teams will have access to ready-now and ready-soon candidates, minimising time to hire and allowing for seamless onboarding when key roles open – for 2025 and years to come.
Leverage Key Partnerships For Flexibility
In 2025’s hiring market, having a suite of strategic partnerships will continue to be essential for TA teams, especially those who must fill skills gaps or meet increased hiring goals – all without a significant increase in internal resources.
Especially when hiring for key leadership roles, engaging a specialist hiring partner with proven processes and capabilities will drastically improve hiring efficiency. Having an external hiring partner on-hand allows teams to bolster their capabilities without compromising financial flexibility.
Solutions Driven: Your Proven Leadership Hiring Partner
If your organisation is going into 2025 with a clear need for new C-Suite leaders with the passion needed to drive success at every level, Solutions Driven are perfectly positioned to help you exceed your hiring needs in 2025 and beyond.
Our Executive Search team are experts in finding top-tier C-suite and leadership talent, with proven frameworks for successful leadership hires. We’ll give your teams access to unparalleled industry specialists – without compromising on internal flexibility and agility.
With a 97% success rate for our placements in 2024, Solutions Driven delivers exceptional results and exceeds expectations. We ensure accurate, efficient, and successful executive hiring with seamless onboarding and an unbeatable 18-month guarantee on our C-Suite hires.
Beyond just providing a world-class executive search service, the Solutions Driven team offers additional value with free employer value proposition (EVP) to candidate value proposition (CVP) research, hiring manager training and market intelligence as part of services to help get internal teams back up to speed after extended hiring freezes.
Final Thoughts Ahead Of 2025
Looking ahead to 2025, it is clear to see that while this coming year is poised to be a year with plenty of growth opportunities, it won’t be without challenges – which is why it is more important than ever to have the right leadership at the helm of your organisation. In 2025, good leaders will need to engage with the workforce, articulate the “why” behind an organisation’s goals, and set their teams up to perform.
Successfully recruiting top-tier leaders that can weather storms, unite departments, and lead an organisation to success will be no easy feat in 2025. As businesses across sectors are showing a real desire for a new type of leader (one that is passionate, experienced, and can connect with their workforce), the competition for top leadership talent will be fierce.
Don’t leave your leadership hiring to chance. Partnering with Solutions Driven gives you access to a world-class executive search service that delivers exceptional results, time and time again. Whether you’re building new leadership capabilities, filling critical vacancies, or future-proofing your talent pipeline, our proven frameworks and expert consultants are here to help.
Let us help you secure the visionary leaders your business needs to make 2025 a year of success and growth. Get in touch with Solutions Driven today to start your journey toward unparalleled leadership excellence.
