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Employment in Australia: Don’t generalise
Last week the ABS released its job vacancy data which gave a picture of what’s changed state-by-state in the past twelve months with respect to what we might loosely called the ‘candidate shortage’, or more specifically the ratio of unemployed job seekers to vacant positions. Here’s the data, with the comparative period of twelve…
Read MoreRPOs: agency threat or opportunity?
The Recruiters’ Hub Conference (Rhub), held two weeks ago, provided lots of food for thought for the recruiters who attended. I was especially interested in the presentations by the respective representatives of Telstra , Lend Lease and Sanofi-aventis . Each of these companies has undertaken a complete shift in the way…
Read MoreLTVC > CCA: How much do your customers cost you?
I spent two very worthwhile days at the Recruiters Hub Conference in Sydney last week. Again, I was astonished at how few agency recruiters bothered to attend an event that was full of content specifically aimed at them. Those that did attend walked away with a significant competitive advantage, thanks to the generous sharing of…
Read MoreHow to turn a customer into a DIY enthusiast
Nearly two years ago, I moved from a townhouse complex in the ‘burbs’ to a big block in a sea change town 60 kms out of Melbourne. I went from having no lawn to worrying about a big grassy backyard (snakes? fire? rats? weeds?). As I didn’t possess a lawn mower, I took the easy…
Read MoreBenchmarking: what you need to know, and why
At the RCSA International Conference last year, the theme was Targeting Innovation for Productivity and as I wrote about in InSight 197 it was an excellent conference. One of the aspects that was mentioned by more than one speaker was the importance of benchmarking. The point being that there is little benefit in going down…
Read MoreMore powerful lessons from The Rare Find: Think through the assignment
After writing last week’s article summarising the lessons from George Anders’s fabulous bookThe Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else (Portfolio/Penguin, 2011), I re-read my favourite chapter of the book and I thought the lessons of that chapter were worthy of further analysis in these pages. I am referring to Chapter 2: The Talent Problem. This is such…
Read MoreBreast cancer awareness and fundraising: my commitments
My sister, Mary, died in London (UK) on 18th of January 2012 at the age of 44. Four years previously, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite the best medical advice and care and Mary’s optimism and fighting spirit, she lost the battle with this terrible disease that claimed her life. Mary’s…
Read MoreHow to spot exceptional talent before everyone else
Insight 210 carried a Ross Recommends that featured The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else by George Anders (Portfolio/Penguin, 2011). I gave the book my highest recommendation and since then I’ve been trying to work out how to expand about the book for a lead article. The reality is that…
Read MoreDefensive recruitment skills: overlooked and underrated
The stereotype agency recruiter is a fast-talking, cold calling, aggressive hunter. They make things happen by finding vacancies and filling them quickly. These skills are what I would call ‘offensive’ skills and activities. These are the skills of attack, where a recruiter is focused on finding opportunities, leveraging those opportunities and closing those…
Read MoreAustralian employment – still going strong (despite what you might read)
You would think the economic sky was about to fall in if you only read the front page of the daily newspapers and watched the free-to-air news. All the doom and gloom about job losses surely must mean the economy is collapsing. Err, no. Embarrassingly for the popular press, the official jobs data,…
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