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Why are recruitment ads so average? Part 1
This article was originally published in InSight Issue 7 on 7 November 2007 Flying back from Sydney last Friday, I was reading the Australian Financial Review (AFR). Friday’s AFR is the number 1 ‘old media’ outlet for executive recruitment advertising in Australia. The news stories were fairly mundane so I spent the flight reading the…
Read MoreInterviewing Preparation
This article originally appeared in Issue 55 of InSight Published 22 October 2008 This weekend I had one of those all-too frequent embarrassing conversations with a friend about experiences with recruiters. She mentioned she had been to an interview last week with a recruiter and, of course, I asked how it went. She said…
Read MoreRecruitment Database Crimes – Chapters 1 to 14
I am a true veteran of the recruitment industry. This is demonstrated by the fact that the only database I used for my first three years as a recruiter was a manual filing card system. At Hays (or Accountancy Personnel as it was then called in the UK), there wasn’t even a card system. There…
Read MoreKeeping your temp margins and gross profit healthy
This article originally appeared in Issue 53 of InSight Published 8 October 2008 Last month ShortList reported the latest findings of the most recent MDB TWO Recruitment Industry Benchmarking report. I found the following information the most interesting: Top performing companies achieved a temp gross margin of 28% or more, with the best performer converting…
Read More15 unwise assumptions for recruiters to make
I always knew that when one of my recruiters started a sentence with ‘I assumed…” that it was going to be a story with an unhappy ending. Assumptions are for the unskilled, the lazy or the unthinking. The Macquarie definition of assume is “to take for granted or without proof, suppose as a fact”. To…
Read MoreA champion’s work ethic
This article originally appeared in Issue 51 of InSight Published 24 September 2008 Two weeks ago there was a huge announcement in world sport – Lance Armstrong was making a comeback to cycling. For those of you unaware of Lance Armstrong, he’s the only man in history to have won 7 Tour…
Read MoreLessons from Andrew Banks
This article originally appeared in Issue 50 of InSight Published 17 September 2008 When Paul McCartney continued his music career after The Beatles broke up, he formed a band called Wings. Wings had a number of hits in the 1970’s before Macca realised less is more and went solo. One of the Wings’…
Read MoreClichés, tautologies, vagueness and other rubbish found in recruitment advertising
Recruiters are in the recruitment game because (presumably) they are more interested in working in a competitive, results-focused, people-oriented environment than in working in a placid and predictable environment. Amongst the many great skills that recruiters do possess, it appears advertisement writing is not one of them. There is no excuse for poor literacy and…
Read MoreHow to identify a marketable candidate
This article appeared in Issue 48 of InSight Published 3rd September 2008 I attend RCSA breakfasts and other functions as much as I can. Even though I have been in the recruitment industry since 1989, I am always hungry to learn more about makes a recruiter successful. Late last year I went…
Read MoreThe 8 Deadly Marketing Sins in Recruitment
This article originally appeared in Issue 47 of InSight Published 27th August 2008 During my under-graduate days at the University of Tasmania in the mid-1980s, I was more diligent in my pursuit of on-campus extra-curricular activities than I was in the pursuit of good grades. My overall academic record was what you might…
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