Recruitment

Even after 32 years in the recruitment industry I am still slightly bewildered by the ignorance, or worse, lack of interest in educating themselves, which some very highly paid and senior people can demonstrate when it comes to understanding the realities of modern-day recruitment. This week another disappointing (depressing?) example was brought to my attention.…

I started my recruitment career when I was 22 years old. In my early twenties I experienced many consequences of the slow development of my prefrontal cortex. In other words, I did some dumb shit (DS). Some of that DS was at work where the consequences were greater than the DS I did outside of…

The appalling performance of Ignite (formerly Clarius, formerly Candle) across the past 8 years has been well documented by me over the years (most recently in 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017). The 2021 financial year results produced, yet another, operating loss at Ignite in a year that the Australian recruitment industry roared back into profit…

Martina McDermott, left – circa 2006,                           below – November 2021 An occasional feature that I am introducing this week is called Once was an agency recruiter in which I interview a former agency recruiter who has taken another career path. To kick off…

Tomorrow marks the twenty-fifth month anniversary of the collapse of the Rubicor Group. I first wrote about Rubicor in March 2018 after the directors released the company’s underwhelming six-month performance update for July 2017 – December 2017. Over the subsequent fifteen months, I wrote a further four blogs detailing the litany of incompetence and delusion…

Have you noticed that there is no ‘labour shortage’ of professional footballers? Have you also noticed that there seem to be few obstacles to talented players remaining employable despite setbacks, such as a criminal conviction, that would significantly derail the job prospects of lesser mortals? Ever wondered why? One word: money. It’s hard to grasp…

Hays has long been the bellwether of the Australian recruitment sector because their presence is omnipresent across the nation in both temporary and permanent recruitment and, as a public company, they release quarterly and half-yearly trading updates, along with comprehensive annual reports. The 1 July to 30 September (2022 Q1 for Hays plc) quarterly trading…

Everywhere you turn the projected looming ‘great resignation’ is a news site headline or the subject of a blog post; not just in Australia but all over the developed world. Surveys and official data both offer compelling evidence that the projected wave of employee resignations is both here and likely to increase as we move…

It’s hard to overstate how disappointed, frustrated, angry and I felt when I read ABC journalist David Taylor’s article Former recruiters tell of their industry’s dark side, as more Australians are likely to need their help on the ABC news website last Thursday. I thought hit-jobs on our industry from ill-informed journalists were a relic…

L-R, My grade 6 teacher, George Kwong (1977); my last day of school in Fiji (1978) On the evening of 30 November 1976 my ten-year-old self, my three younger sisters, and my parents disembarked at Nadi International Airport, after a ten-hour journey from Hobart, via Sydney. My father, having been granted leave without pay from…