A big change for me (and how I publish)

After 20 years, I’m ceasing recruitment training and moving my blog and my weekly newsletter to the online publishing platform Substack.

Today I sent the last issue of my weekly newsletter, InSight, 18 years and 10 months after issue 1 was circulated to 17 subscribers on 26 September 2007

Recently, I’ve had more reason than usual to pause: The completion of my youngest child’s secondary schooling, the recent passing of a friend of four and a half decades, and a big birthday in mid-June have all given me more reasons than usual to think carefully about the trajectory of my life, both professionally and personally.

What I am stopping

Although I have no intention of stopping work, I want to devote more time to the things that have the greatest impact.

After a lot of consideration, the first decision I reached was to cease offering recruitment training.

Training recruiters, firstly in workshops and then since 2011 via my webinar programs, Rookie Recruiter Training Program (RRTP) and the Advanced Recruiter Program (ARP), has been the foundation of my business.

In closing this part of my business, I especially want to thank a handful of loyal clients whose repeat custom has made a huge difference. These include the RCSA, Optimum Recruitment (Vic), Kingfisher Recruitment, On The Ball Personnel, Rusher Rogers, people2people, Cox Purtell, and Beyond Recruitment.

Over the past decade and a half, there have been many, many owners of small agencies who have ensured all their new hires have completed the RRTP and then the ARP – thank you for your trust and support.

When I started, there were only a handful of independent trainers in our industry, people like David Carman, John White, and Gaynor Lowndes. Today, there are many. That’s a good thing. It reflects an industry more willing to invest in developing capability and performance.

It seems appropriate that a person who reflects the new era of recruitment trainers, Michael Jones, won the 2026 RCSA Recruitment Professional of the Year.

 What I’m not stopping

I continue to offer my team leader coaching program,Leadership Coaching for High Performance as a public program and an inhouse program.

I also still offer individual coaching and conference speaking.

Doubling down on what I enjoy most

The second decision I made was to double down on my writing.

Since September 2007, I’ve published almost every week – close to 1,000 posts, which aggregate to over 1.2 million words.

I wanted to be a journalist when I realised, as a 14-year-old, that I was never going to be good enough to play test cricket. I had a week of work experience at ABC TV news in Hobart when I was 15, and after completing my economics degree, I applied for a cadetship with ABC Radio Sport. I made the shortlist for an interview (one of 90 selected from 3,500 applications, I was told). I made it no further, so, disappointed, I decided to go travelling.

Fate intervened, and while in London, I was offered a recruitment agency job at the age of 22.

My original ambition never left me. I started contributing to Lesley Horsburgh’s publication, Recruitment Extra, during its decade-plus existence (my first article was in April 2001- How to Find and Keep Top Clients) and I also contributed material to Jo Knox’s Recruiter Daily when it was publishing.

Moving to paid content on Substack

My aim now is to earn a majority of my income as a writer.

I am moving from Active Campaign (which publishes InSight) and WordPress (which hosts this blog) to Substack with paid subscription options.

My plan is to:

• Publish more frequently
• Go deeper with analysis
• Produce more interview and investigative pieces
• Write about topics relevant to the local recruitment industry that you won’t find elsewhere
• Publish ebooks on specific topics (eg The most high-profile collapses in the Australian recruitment industry, is the first title in the works)

The future  

The current format of InSight of six or seven pieces of curated news and a link to a new blog post has ceased.

Curated news items will continue to be published once or twice a week on Ross Clennett’s Substack, and a new weekly blog post will be published in a separate Substack post.

One of the big advantages of moving to Substack is that the curated news and blog posts are accessible and searchable on the one site. InSight has not been published online, so each issue had to be manually archived if a subscriber wanted ongoing access to an ‘InSight library’.

A paid subscription to Ross Clennett’s Substack will give you access to all my content, every time it is published, and access to the entire archive of posts, whether it be news or an opinion piece.

A free subscription provides access to a complete post twice a month, with a ‘taste’ of the new content every time it is published (and with the option to convert to a paid subscription at any time.

How you can help

When Shortlist closed last year after more than 25 years as Australia’s premier independent online news service for the recruitment industry, we lost something important. I miss its output, and our industry is poorer for its demise. I know many others feel the same way.

Unlike training, where my exit creates no supply problems for owners seeking an external recruitment trainer, alternative sources of local recruitment industry news and analysis are much harder to come by.

If you’ve read my work over the years and found it useful, insightful and, at times, challenging, I hope you’ll continue to support it with a paid subscription.  If enough readers do, I’ll be able to produce more valuable content.

I do not describe myself as a journalist, as I am not formally trained and have never been employed as a journalist. I think of myself as practising journalism.

The subscription options (please note, prices are quoted GST inclusive as this is the only way Substack and its payment system Stripe, display pricing)

1. Founding Member (includes up to 12 annual subscriptions) – $4,675 total: Includes complete access for up to 12 people for twelve months (same domain name), plus a live webinar delivery of the keynote Why I am Optimistic About the Future of the Recruitment Industry(in-person delivery available for a conference or training day, subject to availability and expenses). Only 18 Founding Member subscriptions are available. This offer is ideal for a larger company to cover the leadership team.
2. Annual subscription for 1 or 2 people – $495 per person: Includes complete access for twelve months. An annual subscription represents a 20% discount on the monthly pay-as-you-go rate
3. Annual subscription for 3 or more people – $396 per person: Includes complete access for three or more subscribers (same domain name) for twelve months, e.g. $1,188 for 3 annual subscriptions, $1,584 for 4 annual subscriptions, etc. This represents a 33% discount on the monthly pay-as-you-go rate. Select the ‘Group’ option on the Substack subscription page, for this pricing.
4. Monthly subscription – $49.50 per person: Includes complete access on a pay-as-you-go basis (cancel anytime).
5. Free subscription – $0: Includes partial access to all posts and full access to two posts a month (upgrade to paid anytime).

Oh…and I am taking a break

On Sunday, 16 August, my wife and I fly to Ho Chi Minh City to begin a nine-week holiday in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. It’s the longest break I have had from work since the four-month break between leaving London in early September 1990 and starting at Recruitment Solutions in mid-January 1991.

I intend to write and publish pieces on my Substack, about our trip as I go. I am not promising any number of pieces, nor am I promising any recruitment-specific content.

Business-as-usual re recruitment industry news and recruitment-specific blog content will resume after my return on 18 October.

In summary

• New blog posts on this WordPress site have ceased, as has publication of my weekly newsletter, InSight.
• Paid subscribers receive full access to all new posts at the time of publication (become a paid subscriber here).
• I am on holidays between 16 August and 18 October, which will impact output quantity and topic selection.

Thanks for your support, and I look forward to it continuing.