Written by
January 12, 2026

2025 Year-End Hiring Review

The 2025 job market brought a year of clarity for small businesses and remote-first employers. Instead of the turbulence seen earlier in the decade, this year delivered a more stable, predictable hiring landscape shaped by specialization, smarter screening, and a maturing remote-work culture. Both employers and job seekers leaned into roles that offer long-term alignment, sustainable workloads, and opportunities to grow without sacrificing flexibility.

Across this evolving landscape, HireMyMom helped connect hundreds of small businesses with talented remote job seekers in industries ranging from accounting to administration, customer service, marketing, writing, tech, project coordination, and virtual assistance. The shift toward intentional, skills-matched hiring defined much of the year, and the success stories we saw across these industries reflected those broader market trends.

Here’s a deeper look at the major shifts in the 2025 hiring world and what they mean for the year ahead.

Precision Hiring Became the New Standard

One of the most defining shifts of 2025 was the move away from broad, high-volume job postings and toward precision hiring. Instead of measuring success by the number of applicants, small businesses focused on attracting the right applicants.

This shift is supported by a late-2025 Entrepreneur article, which emphasizes that small businesses are increasingly leaning on data-backed, structured hiring methods rather than instinct or trial-and-error. Intentional processes reduce mis-hires, speed up decision-making, and improve team stability which are trends we saw consistently among the employers who used our platform this year.

Instead of managing overflowing inboxes or juggling dozens of interviews, business owners prioritized curated candidate pools, targeted skill-matching, and deeper evaluations of communication style and reliability.

Remote Work Fully Matured And Strengthened

By 2025, remote work wasn’t a trend, it was a norm. Instead of debating office vs. hybrid vs. remote, businesses settled into remote-first structures that simply worked better for their needs.

Demand remained especially strong for:

  • Virtual assistants and operations support
  • Accounting and bookkeeping services
  • Content creators and copywriters
  • Customer service and client-facing roles
  • Social media and digital marketing
  • Tech support and web development
  • Project coordination and administrative roles

Skilled moms and remote professionals offered a blend of flexibility, accountability, and professionalism that small teams depended on throughout the year.

Fractional Talent Became a Strategic Advantage

Another standout trend in 2025: the rise of fractional specialists. Businesses that didn’t need full-time employees increasingly turned to part-time or project-based experts.

Fractional workers proved especially valuable in:

  • Marketing strategy and ads management
  • Financial operations and accounting
  • Systems setup, automation, and SOP building
  • Operations and project management
  • Tech, troubleshooting, and development support

This model allowed small businesses to scale intelligently, accessing high-level expertise without increasing long-term payroll pressure.

Soft Skills Became the Real Hiring Differentiator

While technical skills remained important, 2025 was the year employers realized how much soft skills determine remote success. Across hundreds of matches this year, the strongest performers consistently showed:

  • Clear, proactive communication
  • Ownership of tasks and timelines
  • Consistency and follow-through
  • Problem-solving initiative
  • Reliability without supervision

These traits became essential for small teams, where every role carries weight and every person shapes workflow efficiency.

Small Businesses Invested More in Stability and Retention

With the job market stabilizing, many small businesses shifted their focus from constant hiring to building long-term stability. We saw more companies improve:

  • Onboarding processes
  • Task documentation and SOPs
  • Communication systems
  • Team culture rituals
  • Flexibility policies

Remote workers responded in kind, showing higher loyalty and staying in roles longer. Better alignment on expectations and workload contributed to this increased retention.

What to Expect in 2026 For Remote Hiring Predictions

Based on the trends we saw in 2025, here are the hiring patterns small businesses should expect to grow in 2026:

1. Faster Hiring Cycles

Businesses will turn to trusted talent pools and supportive hiring platforms to reduce time-to-hire and avoid screening fatigue.

2. AI-Skilled Remote Workers

AI literacy will become a must-have skill for VAs, writers, marketers, and admin professionals. Employers will look for candidates who know how to use AI tools to streamline workflows, not replace human work, but enhance it.

3. More Operations & Systems Roles

As small businesses refine the behind-the-scenes side of remote work, demand will grow for digital operations managers, automation experts, and systems-focused virtual assistants.

4. Culture Fit Will Carry More Weight

Communication style, work habits, and problem-solving approaches will play a bigger role in final hiring decisions for remote teams that rely heavily on trust and clarity.

5. Continued Prioritization of Flexibility

Professionals, especially parents and caregivers, will expect flexible hours, and businesses that offer it will continue attracting the strongest talent.

Looking Ahead

2025 proved that small businesses thrive when they hire intentionally, communicate clearly, and build teams designed for sustainable growth. We’re grateful to have helped hundreds of employers find reliable, professional remote talent this year, and we’re excited to support even more connections in 2026.

If you’re a small business owner and want to hear from other owners what HireMyMom did for them this year, check out our business testimonials page!

If you’re a job seeker wondering how HireMyMom helped other candidates find jobs, check out our job seeker testimonials page!

Continue Reading

Written by
November 12, 2023

How to Conduct an Effective End-of-Year Employee Review

Your end-of-year employee review can be crucial to ensuring your company’s success in the upcoming year, but it can also be quite daunting if you’re not sure what to ask your employees or what your expectations are for them. Just as you should ask an important set of questions when hiring someone, you should also be specific during their yearly reviews. Here are some questions you should consider asking during your next end-of-year review, along with key performance indicators that will help you make necessary changes to help your team succeed in the future.

What goals were accomplished this year?

This is a tricky question because many employees take on new tasks and responsibilities at the end of the year. If you want to know what they accomplished, ask them what tasks they completed that were related to their original job description. You could also ask them about how they overcame any challenges, or what skills they picked up this year. Finally, you can let them know your expectations for next year and see if they are open to achieving those goals as well.

What goals were not accomplished this year, and why?

Ask your employees why they did not accomplish certain goals and how they could overcome that in the future. For example, if you ask a salesperson why they did not meet their quarterly goals and they say I don’t know, then you should spend some time diving deeper into that question. Did they place all the calls they were supposed to? Did they follow up? Was there a procedure in place to help them handle difficult contacts or onboard new ones?

By getting to the root of any issues that arise, you can better prepare your team to meet those goals in the future. If the employee’s answer is different from what you expected, it might be a sign that something needs to change. It’s important to remember that your end-of-year review should always be constructive – there should never be any negative feedback because ultimately this meeting is about improvement and growth. This does not mean you should not address negatives such as someone who does not follow the daily check-in schedule; it just means you should bring that up and try to address it positively, pointing out what is happening and asking for a change.

What did the employee do well this year?

This is the perfect place to give praise and highlight any good that the employee has done this year. They deserve it! 

What could the employee have done better this year?

Employees should be able to articulate what they could have done better this year and be specific so they are able to improve upon the points you mention. Be sure to ask questions that will allow them to reflect on the items you want them to improve upon. Make sure that you ask them what they think they could have done better first. Just as you let employees ask questions and provide comments during the interview process, allowing room for a conversation on both ends during reviews not only gives both parties a chance to speak, but it should help improve your team’s performance. Then, if your employee does not mention something that you have noticed, address that. Remember, be specific so they are able to improve upon that point next year. Just saying something like “your turn time wasn’t fast enough” won’t help. Tell them they turned in projects two days late every time and that needs to be fixed moving forward, as an example.

What are the employee’s goals for next year?

One of the best questions to ask during an end of year review is what goals employees have for next year. Goals are important because they give employees a sense of purpose and help them better understand how their work impacts the business. Setting measurable goals will also allow you as a manager, or company owner, to set clear expectations. For example, “I want you to increase sales by 20%, or I want you to reduce customer complaints by 10%.” This will make it easier for managers and employees alike to understand what’s expected in order to achieve success. Make sure that all goals are measurable so that there is no confusion about what needs done and how progress can be measured along the way. Just saying “get more sales” helps no one.

What are some key performance indicators that can be used to measure progress towards those goals?

In order to evaluate performance, ask employees what key performance indicators they want to measure. Goals and objectives should be set in advance. This will allow you to see how the employee is performing in relation to their goals and objectives. It will also give them a chance to talk about what obstacles they are facing, so that you can work with them on solutions. After employees have mentioned what they want to measure, it is then your turn to share what items you want to measure and how much you want to improve them.

For example, maybe your employee points out that their customers respond better to emails versus phone calls. You should take that feedback and focus more on KPIs (key performance indicators) around emails instead. Then, you can say that you want to see more new customers brought in via email, so you will also be measuring new leads to conversions via email.

What questions do you ask at your end of year reviews? Let us know so we can share them with the HireMyMom family!

 

 

Stay up to date on work from home opportunities!

* indicates required






 

Please wait a few seconds after clicking subscribe to complete the captcha.


Continue Reading

Written by
December 26, 2022

A New Year, a New Look: Exciting Projects on the Horizon

As we enter into a new year, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the successes of the past year and to look forward to exciting projects that are on the horizon. We are eager to continue building on our past successes and strive to take on even more ambitious projects in 2023. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the exciting projects that we have lined up for the coming year.

2022: A Year in Review

What a crazy year it has been! Does anyone else feel like they blinked and it was over? Lots of new projects came and went that were front and center — and some that were behind the scenes! 

At the beginning of the year, we started off by offering two master classes for small business owners and job seekers. We quickly realized that it’s hard to coordinate classes with everyone’s schedules! That’s when we converted it to Cultivate, an online course that you learn on your own time which includes a one-on-one coaching session with HireMyMom founder Lesley Pyle!

We worked with some wonderful moms to create video testimonials that we just added to the website, perfect to start off the new year with!

Our own team changed with a few long-time friends switching to full-time moms and a few new friends that we onboarded. We also implemented a program to help you get to know our team by sharing information about them on our social channels to commemorate work anniversaries, new additions, and just fun bios for you to better get to know the folks behind HMM.

We started a brand new TikTok channel — check it out and give us a follow! We will share tips, highlight some available jobs, and throw in a fun video or two with popular trends (you might even catch us dancing!).

What’s Ahead for the New Year

Coming soon we will be…

…AND LOTS MORE!

Your Suggestions

Thank you so much for being part of the HireMyMom family for the past year — we can’t wait to continue with you into 2023. As always, we value your feedback! What should we update? What should we add? What should we remove? Reach out and let us know! We would love to hear how we can offer more classes, tweak current services, and expand our offerings to grow with you; let us know what resolutions you’re setting and how we can help you achieve those. Happy New Year!

 

 

Stay up to date on work from home opportunities!

* indicates required






 

Please wait a few seconds after clicking subscribe to complete the captcha.


Continue Reading