Posts by Ross Clennett
How the Anzac grandfather I never met helped me this past week
(L to R, Alfred, Clennett, Jim Clennett, Guy Clennett, circa early 1916) I’ve been in hospital over the past seven days. Last Wednesday I had surgery to remove a lesion in my large bowel. The lesion was discovered, via a colonoscopy, after I had collapsed in agony at home on the morning of Valentine’s Day.…
Read MoreLinks to useful resources for business owners and leaders responding to COVID-19’s impact
There’s been plenty written about the impact, economic-wise and health-wise, of COVID-19. I don’t intend to add to it, merely to point you to the useful resources I have discovered. I will update this page regularly: Recruiters, this is our time to step up! (Greg Savage’s excellent new blog post on how you might take…
Read MoreHays Aus/NZ results flatten out yet deliver spectacular growth in a forgotten sector
Hays plc has long been a benchmark company for our industry both globally and locally. I pay close attention to what they are doing and delivering not just because my first job in recruitment was with Hays (in London) but because I continue to learn from the way the Hays effectively executes its global growth…
Read MoreJack Welch: how he justified his famous ‘fire the bottom 10%”
Last week saw the passing of one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated CEOs, Jack Welch, at the age of 84. Welch joined General Electric (GE) in 1960 as a junior electrical engineer and progressed rapidly through the organisation reaching the top job in 1981. He served as CEO and Executive Chairman of GE until…
Read MoreForeign buyers continue local shopping as USA’s Express buys Frontline
This week Australia and New Zealand’s most successful recruitment agency franchisor, Frontline Recruitment Group (FRG), announced the sale of its operations to US-based Express Employment Professionals. FRG origins go way back to 1994, when Deb Davis, a former Retail Manager and Trainer started her own retail training business. The demand from her clients to help…
Read MoreThe candidate experience: mostly rubbish and no improvement in sight
Last year I wrote about the ghosting experience my wife had received from SMS Global in Melbourne, subsequent to her three interviews for the GM- HR role that the company had advertised. Local Talent Acquisition professional, Stan Rolfe, wrote about his job-seeking experiences in July 2019 (his post was the most-viewed of 2019 on the…
Read MoreRubicor liquidators (for $1.75 million) wade through a clusterpuck
Two weeks’ ago the Rubicor administrators, FTI Consulting, released their sixth public circular to creditors. FTI’s statutory report provides little comfort for the Group’s creditors, including many former employees. It’s a brief insight into the clusterpuck that Rubicor became under the incompetence, self-serving hypocrisy, obfuscation, lying and withholding of material information of Angus Mason, David…
Read MoreThe permanent long weekend (on full pay): February 2020 update
It was only in July last year that I wrote about the emergence of the four-days-work-for-five-days-pay employment model. I highlighted Melbourne recruitment agency Rusher Rogers as a local pioneer in this trend. The RCSA also wrote about the issue in the November 2019 issue of The Brief. In December, Finland’s new Prime Minister, Sanna Marin,…
Read MoreHow a leader’s EQ declines the more senior they become
Watching the performance of this country’s Prime Minister go from bad to worse to a surely-it-can’t-be-happening level of terrible has been one of the lowlights of my summer break. Political blogger, Andrew Street summarises the whole mess as well as anybody in his post from earlier this week; Let’s Be Honest, Scott Morrison is a…
Read MoreThe Hits and Misses of 2019: a reflection on the year that was
February marked the 30th anniversary of my first job in recruitment. I shared some extracts from my 1989 journal about my first few months as an agency recruiter at Accountancy Personnel (now Hays) in London. State-based labour licensing is now a reality around Australia. It marks a new elevation in the compliance obligations of recruitment…
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