Posts Tagged ‘ross clennett’

How hiring mistakes are made

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

For those of us who follow the AFL version of football in this country, you couldn’t help but know that last week, perennial bad boy Brendan Fevola was in trouble, yet again. Fevola is alleged to have exposed himself to a Brisbane mother at a Club Family Day. Fevola’s club, the Brisbane Lions, responding by indefinitely suspending its star forward and asking the police to investigate the allegations.

Almost all AFL media commentators are predicting the demise of the Lion’s very expensive recruit, secured in the most recent off-season via a trade from his previous club, Carlton.

Carlton had tolerated Fevola’s many indiscretions until he went a step too far at the 2009 Brownlow Medal count with a very drunken stint while in charge of a microphone for his media employer, Channel Nine’s The Footy Show.

New Brisbane coach, Michael Voss, raised many eyebrows with his decision to recruit Fevola, which lead to the departure of Lions favourite son, Daniel Bradshaw, to the Sydney Swans.

Voss, not known for harbouring any self-doubt, went against the opinion of the masses (fans and media hacks) to hire Fevola, believing that his off-field behaviour could be managed and was worth a risk, given his view that Fevola could help the Lions become a serious contender for the 2010 Premiership.

The result?

The Lions went from being a Top 6 side last year to a bottom 4 side this year, winning six fewer games. Fevola, although useful on the field with 48 goals, was far short of last year’s goal tally of 86 and was distracted by his disintegrating marriage and forced to admit that he was in debt due to a gambling addiction.

All-in-all, by season’s end, the recruitment of Brendan Fevola by Michael Voss and the Brisbane Lions brains trust was looking like a rolled-gold disaster.

Of course, it’s easy to criticise a football club – their hiring decisions are very public and subsequent outcomes are completely transparent.

Hiring managers inside organisations make hiring mistakes all the time, yet the reasons for these mistakes being made are rarely investigated because it’s far too easy to say 訴t’s the candidate’s fault’.

Here are a dozen reasons I came up with as to how and why hiring mistakes are made:

  1. The job description is non-existent or incomplete.
  2. The critical success factors of the job are not correctly identified.
  3. The interviewer is insufficiently qualified, not prepared or is rushed.
  4. The interview questions are not constructed so as to elicit a full understanding of the candidate’s skills, competencies and motivation.
  5. Insufficient probing is undertaken when vague or incomplete answers are provided by the candidate.
  6. The interview questions used, only elicit theoretical or opinion-based answers (eg  could do, would do, should do rather than behavioural based answers (eg have done etc).
  7. Each candidate for the same job is asked different questions.
  8. Answers to questions are not graded or rated to enable comparisons to occur across competing candidates.
  9. Too much emphasis is put on existing skills rather than understanding what the candidate’s behavioural competencies (or transferable skills) and motivations are.
  10. Too much emphasis is put on hiring people who are just like everyone else in the team or organisaton.
  11. Insufficient or inadequate background checking is undertaken or the results of these checks are minimised or ignored (hello, Brisbane Lions!).
  12. The way a candidate performs at an interview is taken as a reliable indication of how they will perform in the job. (Tip: Interviewing is a skill that can be learned by people who then, at the interview, dazzle hiring managers who are unskilled at recruiting).

The Fevola saga still has some days to run, but regardless of what the outcome is, you can be sure that the Brisbane Lions will now be taking a more cautious and thorough approach to their hiring processes.

What potential gaps are there in your company’s hiring processes?

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-hiring-mistakes-are-made.html

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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15 things that you might not know about the Australian job market

Monday, August 30th, 2010

In InSight Issue 82 (20 May, 2009), I wrote about the various interesting labour market facts that I had discovered in reading the DEEWR publication, Australian Jobs 2008.

Earlier this month, the most recent edition, Australian Jobs 2010 was released, so I thought it was opportune to provide an updated list of various facts that recruiters might be interested in. All figures quoted are as at February 2010 unless otherwise stated.

In the past 5 years the fastest % state or territory employment growth was recorded in the NT (24.6%), followed by WA (15.8%), then Qld (13.8%).

Tasmania has the oldest workforce with 43% of workers aged 45 or older. Next is SA (41%) then NSW (39%).

Over the past 5 years the largest employment growth (by raw numbers) was in Health Care and Social Assistance (up by 210,300), Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (189,500), Education and Training (136,000), Construction (135,800) and Mining (64,900).

The three largest employers of part-time workers, by sector, were Accommodation and Food Services (58% of the total workforce working part-time), Retail Trade (48%) and Arts & Recreational Services (45%).

The most female-dominated sectors were Health Care & Social Assistance (79% of the workforce are female), Education (69%), Accommodation & Food Services (56%) and Retail Trade (56%).

By industry, the most new jobs in the next 5 years are projected to be created in Health Care & Social Assistance (211,500), Construction (120,100) and Education and Training (119,000).

Mining gains plenty of publicity due to the wages, conditions and skills shortages but it only employs 2% of Australia’s workforce (172,500 people), which has it 17th out of 19 sectors in terms of workforce size. However in terms of projected percentage employment growth over the next five years, Mining (17.5%) ranks second to Health Care & Social Assistance (17.6%).

Employment declined in four industries over the past five years. These industries being Manufacturing (down by 47,400), Information Media and Telecommunications (25,800), Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (3,500) and Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services (1,200).

In the next five years the Top 10 growth occupations are predicted to be Registered Nurses (35,800), Accountants (30,800), Aged and Disabled Carers (29,600), Sales Assistants, General (29,400), Child Carers (25,300), Retail Managers (25,000), Nursing Support and Personal Care Workers (23,100), Accounting Clerks (20,500), Electricians (20,500) and Waiters (20,400).

At the more disaggregated industry level, the top 6 industry subdivisions projected to provide the most new jobs in the next 5 years are expected to be Hospitals (70,500), School Education (65,300), Cafés, Restaurants and Takeaway Food Services (64,700), Supermarket and Grocery Stores (46,400), Building Installation Services (44,300) and Residential Care Services (38,000).

Apprentices in training has increased only 6% (400,000 to 425,00) in the past five years. This is half the rate of increase in tertiary study enrolments over the same period (11.7%).

In the 10 years between 1998 and 2008 the number of students enrolled in tertiary study has increased 37% from 675,000 to 925,000. The gender difference in the student population is almost unchanged with female enrolments increasing slightly from 54.3% in 1998 to 55.6% in 2008. Non-Australian residents comprise 16.5% of the tertiary student population.

Mature age apprentices-in-training have shown a dramatic increase in numbers between 1999 (80,000 aged 25 and over) and 2009 (182,000 aged 25 or over). These mature age apprentices represented 55.8% of all apprentices-in-training in 2009, up from 35.5% in 1999.

By qualification level, no Post-School qualification is held by 38.6% of the total workforce, followed by Bachelor Degree (18.6%), Certificate III/IV (18.4%), Advanced Diploma/Diploma (9.6%), Post Graduate Degree (4.7%), Certificate I/II (4.3%), Graduate Diploma/Cert (2.9%) and Certificate Undefined (1.6%). In the past ten years the proportion of the workforce holding any form of post-school qualification has grown from 51% to 61%.

In 2009, the median annual starting salary for all Bachelor degree graduates aged less than 25 years and in their first full-time job in Australia was $48,000, up by $3,000 from 2008. The five highest starting salaries were for Dentistry ($70,000), Optometry ($64,500), Engineering ($57,500), Earth Sciences ($54,000) and Medicine ($54,000).

Oh, and in case you go looking for any mention of our profession in Australian Jobs 2010, don’t bother. Apparently recruiters aren’t significant enough to have their own job category in the 9 pages devoted to rating the ‘future prospects’ of hundreds of individual occupation job categories.

Nurserypersons, Boat Builders, Caravan Park Managers, Stock & Station Agents, Indigenous Health Workers and Upholsterers, all manage to claim their own category but Recruiters, along with Sex Workers are left to lobby for their own stand-alone category in the next edition of Australian Jobs.

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/08/fifteen-things-about-australian-job.html

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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Skills Shortages: The Sequel (Part II)

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

In last week’s InSight lead article, ‘Skills Shortage: The Sequel’, I highlighted the recent flurry of publicity in the mainstream media about the skills shortage. Contrary stories have also made the news. Recruitment industry veteran, Bob Olivier, made headlines in the AFR (Friday 23 July, 2010, page 46) by stating he believed the skills shortage was ‘overplayed’ due to ‘quality candidates being unwilling to move jobs’  and industry news service, ShortList quoted ICT Training Executive Clinton in’t Veld as saying;

“Generally speaking, when an environment starts to pick up economically, there is this sort of knee-jerk reaction to think that given the increase in economic activity, we don’t have enough skills.”

But many companies were only considering the primary, formal skills of their IT staff – in essence their current job title – rather than looking at all of the other skill sets they had picked up along the way, he said.”So who is right? Is there a skills shortage or not?

As you would expect, the answer is not definitive. It depends upon who you are and what you are measuring.

Let’s look at some typical reasons why a skills shortage might exist.

One dimensional sourcing: If you are an employer and all you do is run a job ad in the local paper or online and from that process you aren’t able to hire the ‘ideal candidate’, then you are likely to scream ‘skills shortage’.

No development of employees: If you are an employer who doesn’t invest in building the skills and motivation of their employees because ‘all that happens is that people leave to get a better job, with more money, elsewhere’, then you are likely to believe there is a skills shortage.

Geographically isolated: If you are a Council in a regional or rural area, desperate to find a doctor for your area, then you know there is a skills shortage. This topic was recently given excellent coverage in the SBS documentary Desperately Seeking Doctors.

Low pay: The maximum base pay for classroom teachers in any state of Australia does not exceed $85,000 p.a. The baby boomer wave of teachers are now retiring, creating concerns about the likelihood of the higher paying careers in the technology, finance and resources sectors, luring away potential teachers from undertaking (arguably) the most important paid job in any community.

Unsociable hours: Would you like a job whose core hours are when 99% of your friends and family are asleep? Try a career as a baker.

Dangerous and dysfunctional work environment: Forget all the faux glamour of Masterchef. The reality of life as a chef is a combination of unsocial hours and a work environment combining flames, heat, sharp knives, slippery surfaces and ‘tired and emotional’ colleagues. No wonder the most recent Clarius Skills Index rated chefs as the #1 ranked job where demand exceeded supply in Australia. Let’s hope all those Masterchef-inspired enrolments in hospitality colleges around the country stick with their choice.

A skills shortage is not just a function of the things I have listed above, it’s a function of expectations; the expectations of employers of being able to hire exactly what they are looking for at the price they want to pay.

Training of employees has traditionally been seen as a function of the education system, funded and supplied by the government. Once a ‘trained’ employee started their job, the typical employer took little, if any, responsibility for the further development of that employee. If the employee somehow managed to pick things up as they went along then they were a ‘good’ employee and if they didn’t, they were ‘no good’.

Unfortunately, investing in the ongoing training and development of employees has not been a key feature in the history of Australian organisational life. Too often, training and development has been provided only to those employees who are not meeting performance expectations and therefore needed ‘fixing’.

High performing organisations understand how important a culture of ongoing learning and development is in avoiding the worst of a skills shortage by:

  • Not having to purchase ready-to-go skills at a premium from the open  employment market
  • Lower staff turnover costs
  • Higher innovation
  • Higher morale
  • High productivity
  • Better bottom line results

I wrote in detail about this sort of high performance culture in March 2009 in a feature article What Australia’s Champion Cricket Coach Can Teach Recruiters for recruitment extra.

I think an excellent corporate example of what is possible, is evident at Australian publicly listed travel company, Flight Centre.

Travel agencies were commonly regarded as a dying sector and choosing a career as a travel agent was seen as a dead-end option, primarily due to the internet being able to provide instant self-service for travel bookings as well as  destination information and recommendations.

Flight Centre has been very pro-active about the recruitment and development of their people in an industry that has been traditionally characterised by low margins, low pay and high staff turnover.

Flight Centre own 50% of high-volume recruiter, Employment Office. They invest heavily in training and development, reward their staff with many non-monetary benefits and provide many opportunities for career advancement, both domestically and internationally.

The result? Flight Centre are consistently listed in the Hewitt Associates list of Best Australian Employers To Work For (four of the past five years) and earlier this year, Flight Centre forecast a pre-tax profit for the 09/10 financial year of between $180 million to $200 million, representing a doubling of the 08/09 full year profit result.

Clearly, Flight Centre has taken responsibility for their own supply of required skills and they are reaping huge benefits, culturally and financially, from this approach.

Yes, there is demonstrably a skills shortage in this country in many areas but before too many employer groups start bleating at the Federal Government to issue more Class 457 Visas, they might want to look at their own industry’s record of providing high quality, ongoing training and development programs for all their employees.

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/08/skills-shortage-sequel-part-2.html

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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Skills Shortages in Australia – the sequel…

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

The June 2010 unemployment rate in the United States was 9.5%. In the UK the ‘headline’ unemployment was 7.9% and two weeks ago, the OECD reported that the unemployment rate in the world’s 31 leading industrialised economies averaged fell to 8.6% in May, 2010.

These rather bleak figures from elsewhere around the globe (although improving from earlier in the year), compare starkly with the very sunny outlook in this part of the world. Falling unemployment figures coming out of Australia (5.1%) and New Zealand (6%) are predicted to maintain their downward momentum.

Although the new (Australian) financial year is not yet a month old, we are already seeing the unmistakable signs of a very quick return to the desperate times of 2007 when the words ‘skills shortage’ seemed to appear as regularly as ‘NRL in crisis’ or ‘Wallabies optimistic for new season ahead’.

On 6 July in the SMH article ‘Unqualified used to fill persistent job vacancies’, the Australian Government admitted that jobs were being filled by unqualified candidates simply because there were not sufficient skilled applicants available to fill the vacant roles.

This was most often the case with special needs teachers. The SMH reported that teachers with no expertise in teaching special needs children were being hired because teachers with the necessary specialised skills were not being trained quickly enough to meet demand.

On 7 July ABC1′s 7.30 Report ran a segment on how the acute shortage of doctors for rural and regional areas in Australia is being somewhat overcome by New Zealand locum doctors flying across the Tasman to plug the gaps, sometimes just for a weekend.

On 9 July, in The Australian article ‘If you want work, the west wants you’, it was reported that in response to the West Australian unemployment rate plummeting to 4%, the State Government announced that they are, next month, launching a massive recruitment campaign aimed at luring skilled east coast workers to WA.

The WA State Training and Workforce Development Minister released a list of 348 priority occupations, including carpenters, vets, midwives, optometrists, social workers, lift mechanics, butchers, bakers, prison officers, plumbers, architects, pilots, accountants, nurses, chefs and locksmiths.

On 14 July the Victorian Premier launched a new $6 million dollar campaign to recruit nearly 1700 new police officers for the state over the coming five years. Accompanied by a slick TV commercial, the Premier and the Chief Commissioner of Police clearly recognise that to win the hearts and minds of the desired talent pool, you have to make policing both a sexy and genuine career option for skilled young Victorians.

The next day, 15 July, the Australian Industry Group-sponsored Deloitte survey of CEOs was released.

This survey reported that skills shortages were a high-to-extreme, business critical risk between now and 2015. The survey of 400 companies, employing over 30,000 people in the manufacturing, services and construction sector, reported the following research findings:

  • More than 4 in every 5 businesses believe there is a moderate-to-extreme risk that skills shortages will adversely affect them in 2010
  • 27.4% of all vacancies over the past 6 months remain unfilled
  • Almost two thirds of companies had difficulties filling vacancies over the past 6 months
  • As to the specific nature of these difficulties the reasons; ‘lack of specialised skills available’ was nominated by 59.3% of companies and ‘lack of applicants’ by 48.5% of companies
  • Companies are responding to the lack of skilled candidates by ‘upskilling existing staff’ (37.8%) and ‘outsourcing or subcontracting the work’ (31.2%)
  • 12.6% of companies report that the skills shortages are so significant as to ‘constrain production’
  • Over three quarters of the survey respondents expect to hire more staff in the next 12 months, including 53% nominating that they will be increasing their total number of staff

15 July also saw the Australian Computer Society release a report highlighting ageism as a prominent issue in the Australian IT employment market.

The conclusions of the report ‘Improving Age Diversity in the ICT Workforce’, were that ICT workers aged over 45 were more likely to be unemployed in Australia compared to their counterparts in Canada, the UK, New Zealand and the USA.

The unsaid implication being that the so-called ‘skills shortage’ of ICT workers was more accurately an ‘attitude issue’ of employers being reluctant to consider employing older workers and unwilling to invest time and money in providing the necessary training for the up-skilling to these workers.

The 15 July trifecta was completed when a Federal Government taskforce, set up to help secure the critically important resources sector, a skilled workforce for the future, handed down its final report.

The National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce Report, ‘Resourcing the Future’ recommends using skilled migrants to fill temporary shortages, graduating more engineers and geoscientists and increasing the number of skilled trade professionals.

All of these actions will need to be taken pronto as the Report predicts that the resources sector is heading for a projected shortage of 36,000 skilled trades professionals by 2015. The Report also concludes that the domestic supply of mining engineers and geoscientists will not be sufficient to meet demand over the next five years, with an expected shortfall of around 1,700 and 3,000 respectively.

So what does all this flurry of action mean for recruiters?

My view is that all these very clear signs point to the need, as trusted external recruitment advisors, to be assertive with our clients about the market for talent.

We need to be especially (respectfully) assertive to clients who are doggedly sticking to some outdated views such as ‘there’s plenty of candidates out there’, or ‘I’ll wait for the candidate who ticks all the boxes’, or ‘I can afford to take my time hiring’, or ‘I shouldn’t need to sell this job or my organisation to candidates, they should want to work here’.

Plainly put: Recruiters need to educate their clients about the current realities of the skilled employment market and that things will only get tougher in the months and years ahead.

Education of clients comes through various channels such as articles in email newsletters, blog posts on industry forum websites, sending relevant reports (such as the ones I have highlighted in this article) directly to clients, holding seminars on the issue and building it deliberately into face-to-face and telephone conversations with clients.

A single channel approach will not do the job. I recommend that you need to have a clear communication strategy about this issue across your whole organisation, no matter how big or small it is.

The consequences of not undertaking this continual education of your clients will be the inevitable frustration of attempting to find the ‘impossible’ candidate for your inflexible client. Also, the likelihood that you will be ‘out consulted’ by a competitor who is effective at educating the client and managing their expectations about candidates.

As recruitment professionals, I believe we have an obligation to undertake this education campaign with our clients because if we are not willing and able to do it, then who is?

This is a great opportunity to elevate our standing in the eyes of our clients. We may not be communicating a message that is popular or easy to deliver, but if we are effective at providing alternative ways of dealing with the skills shortage problem, then our future as an industry is more assured than ever.

What steps are you willing to take?

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/07/skills-shortage-sequel_27.html

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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The Power of Saying ‘No’

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

One of the many memorable (and valuable) conversations I had in my recruitment life, occurred when my recruitment career was a bare 2 months old.

I was a very ‘green’ 22 year old, living away from home for the first time, trying to make a go of working life in London. I was employed as a permanent accounting consultant in the Victoria office of Accountancy Personnel (now Hays).

As I retired with my colleagues, at the end of a working week, to the local watering hole (there were plenty to chose from – 1642 pubs within a 3 mile radius of Victoria station), I was a bit of a confused and deflated mess.

My fledging ‘career’ as a recruiter looked likely to come to a shuddering halt very soon. I was hardly making a placement and my manager’s comments about my lack of booked candidate-client interviews (the only KPI that mattered, outside of fees) seemed to indicate that her patience for my underwhelming performance wasn’t going to last much longer.

I chugged back pints of Carlsberg (my lager of choice in those days) and poured my heart out to a fellow Aussie from my team. As she listened to my tales of woe; ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for this sort of work’, ‘everything seems to be so much luck-based’, my colleague looked on impassively, not buying into my pathetic, alcohol-fuelled pity-party.

When I finally stopped whining, she looked me in the eye and said ‘Ross, you don’t have to work on everyone. You seem to treat every candidate as a personal crusade. Your problem is that you want to get every candidate a job as if you are a social worker, not a recruitment consultant.’
‘Huh?’ I said, slightly stunned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ross, it’s not your fault if your candidates don‘t have the skills that match the jobs we have. They’re just not suitable. Don’t worry about something you have no control over. All you can do is work on those candidates that do have the skills that we can place. Say ‘no’ to everyone else.’

A big light bulb seemed to switch on in my head at that moment.

I did have a choice! I could say ‘no’ to any candidate without feeling guilty. If I couldn’t place them quickly and easily, then I was wasting time trying to ‘help’ them when they couldn’t ‘help’ themselves or me by being equipped with the skills that were required by my clients.

After waking up with my usual Saturday morning hangover, the words of wisdom that had been imparted to me the night before, amongst the steady stream of Danish beer, remained.

On Monday I came into the office with a new attitude. I focused my attention on those candidates that I could help and said ‘sorry … no’ to everyone else.

I started generating more client-candidate interviews and I slowly made more placements. In my third month (still in my probationary period), I made 3 placements in the final two weeks and my manager was finally smiling at me. I had made it (that is, to the end of my first 3 months without being fired).

That very valuable lesson, 21 years ago, has stayed with me ever since – only devote your time to people (whether candidates or clients) that are worth it. By ‘worth it’ I don’t pass any judgement on them as human beings, I mean ‘worth it’ in the sense that I, along with all my competitors, have one common major input (time) and one common major output (fees).

I have to choose wisely where my major input will be spent because when the other person (either client or candidate) has ‘no skin in the game’ then they are happy for me to spend any amount of time on their candidate or job search because it doesn’t cost them anything while I invest that time.

The candidate never pays any money for my service and the client only signs off on an invoice once the job is filled (the output) rather than on my time invested (the input).

Of course, I still slipped up. I still made mistakes and poor decisions and yes, I have invested time on candidates and jobs that I shouldn’t have. But overall I have prided myself on (mostly) choosing wisely which candidates and clients were worth my time and which ones I should say ‘no’ to.

This contrasts with many recruiters whom I have coached and trained. Often I will ask ‘why are you working on that candidate (or client)?’ The responses are predictable; ‘I have to’ or ‘I need to’ or ‘I was told to’.

NO YOU DON’T! You have a choice.

You are totally accountable for your time. You are totally accountable for your fees. It is 100% your choice where and how you spend your time.

If you are spending time with a candidate or job that is not worth it, then STOP.

Throwing good time after bad is no way to build a profitable desk or your self-esteem. If you have a manager that is ‘forcing you’ to spend time with unprofitable (non-placeable) candidates or jobs, then make sure you gather some facts to support your case for why you are making the decision to dump these time-wasters.

You will not build a career in recruitment (or earn any decent money) by ‘being busy’ or ‘working on jobs’ or ‘interviewing candidates’. You make money by filling ‘fillable’ jobs. You do this by interviewing and placing ‘placeable’ candidates. All this takes time. Time you cannot get back. Time you are not financially compensated for by either clients or candidates. Remember – a financial return is made when a placement occurs.

So, please have the courage to say ‘no’. Say ‘no’ respectfully. Say ‘no’ often. ‘I won’t be working on your job (any more or at all)’. ‘I won’t be working on finding you a job.’ It’s not that hard to do. After you do it once, it gets easier every time after that.

Very soon, when you find a lot more of your time is freed up, and you are less stressed, you will wonder why you didn’t say ‘no’ to more candidates and clients a long time ago.

How much more time would you have available each day if you said ‘no’ more often?

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/07/power-of-saying.html

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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Meet the new CEO of the RCSA – Steve Granland

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

As most of you would know, the long serving CEO of the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (Australia & New Zealand), Julie Mills, resigned earlier this year and after a thorough search, the RCSA Board recently announced the appointment of Steve Granland to the CEO’s role.

I managed to meet Steve at the recent AHRI National Convention in Melbourne and he kindly took some time out from his schedule to answer a few of my questions.

Ross: Welcome Steve, tell me a little about your background prior to joining the workforce on a full time, permanent basis.

Steve: Thanks Ross. Appreciate the opportunity to chat.

My dad was in the Navy, so I spent much of my youth moving from location to location which I believe has given me a good level of comfort with change.  I completed both my undergraduate business degree and post-graduate marketing qualification on a part-time basis whilst working with the Gas & Fuel and then ANZ.

What has been your most recent role and what are you most proud of having accomplished in that role?

My most recent role was as National Manager, Membership and Corporate Sales with the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI).  In the 5 years I have been in this role, AHRI has been through significant positive change and I am very proud to have been part of that journey and to have played a role.

Strong member growth and positive relationship development with key stakeholders are stand outs for me.

What about prior to AHRI? Tell me a little about your previous positions and the organisations you worked for?

Prior to joining AHRI I was the Executive Manager, Business Development with the Australian New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) – a professional/industry body representing the insurance and finance industries.

Prior to ANZIIF I held business development and marketing roles with the Australian Postal Institute (API) and the Securities Institute of Australia (SIA now known as FINSIA).

Prior to joining the world of professional associations I had a 10 year stint with ANZ Bank working across areas such as Treasury, Marketing, International Credit (including a 1 year stint in China on an Austrade Fellowship) and International HR.

What personal philosophies drive you each day at work?

Honesty and integrity are key personal and professional philosophies for me.  These philosophies, I believe, provide the motivation to strive to produce the best individually and collectively.  I am a strong believer in leading by example.  I think it is important to enjoy coming to work and take pride in what you do.

Have you had personal experiences with the recruitment industry either as a client or candidate? If yes, what were those experiences like?

Yes from both sides.  Whilst sometimes the profession can get a bad rap, my experiences have generally been positive.  I have found the individuals I have worked with to be professional and responsive.

What do you see as the major challenge for you as the incoming RCSA CEO?

Whether it is a new role at the RCSA or any other association, the challenges, I think, are pretty similar.  I need to understand the needs of stakeholders; understand how the RCSA operates as a business and begin to roll out the key initiatives of the strategic plan.

The RCSA has many stakeholders, all of whom are demanding, vocal and rarely satisfied. How are you intending to get to know these stakeholders and understand their issues?

I have spent most of the last 15 years working in the world of professional associations/industry bodies across banking, finance, insurance & HR – all of which have their share of personalities.  The most important thing to remember is that associations exist for the good of the industry.

I do intend to get to know and listen to as many stakeholders as I can in my first 3 – 6 months via meetings, phone, emails, member surveys and whatever other channels are available.

The RCSA has a very important role to play in lobbying Federal Governments of both political persuasions. How do you intend to approach this part of your new role?

Firstly, I will need to understand, quite clearly, what the position of the RSCA is on the issues by working with all key stakeholders. I will then look to develop existing relationships and if required (via a process of gap analysis) develop new relationships.

It will also be very important to ensure that RCSA members are kept informed of all developments related to lobbying.  Listening skills and an understanding of sensitivities will be paramount.

In my experience there have not been any joint AHRI/RCSA initiatives of any description recently. Do you see this area as having any potential? If so, in what way?

I believe there are opportunities for RCSA and AHRI to collaborate on a range of activities/initiatives going forward.  Given my background with AHRI, clearly opportunities with AHRI may be a little easier to pursue, however, I have no issue with pursuing any opportunity with any association provided it is in the interests of the stakeholders of the RCSA.

Recruiters are now starting to understand and utilise social media and online networks to strengthen their business. What’s your view on how social media and online communities are being, or should be, utilised by businesses and member organisations?

I believe there is definitely a place for social media and online networking for businesses and member organisations. In the last 12 months, AHRI has become actively involved in using these mediums (including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) to communicate to its stakeholders.

Utilised the right way, these mediums can provide a range of stakeholders with access to information, tools and networks they may not have been able to access in the past.

Outside of work, what are you major hobbies or leisure pursuits?

I am married with 2 children (age 13 and 15).  Family is very important to me and they tend to take up much of my spare time.  I do enjoy food and wine and jog a little to try to counteract the effects of the food and wine. We have always tried to travel every couple of years to give the kids some broader life experiences.

Anything else you would like to say prior to ascending to the hot seat on Monday 7 June?

Many years ago I was presented with my membership certificate of the Australian Institute of Banking & Finance by a senior manager at the ANZ Bank.  This was my first introduction to the world of associations and I still recall that day with pride.

I am a strong believer in the value of associations to the individual and the industry the association represents.  I am looking forward to the fantastic opportunities and challenges provided via the role of CEO of the RCSA.

Thanks for your time, Steve and all the best for your new role.

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/05/meet-new-ceo-of-rcsa-aus-nz-steve.html

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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The 8 characteristics of great clients for recruitment firms

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

You might have gathered from last week’s lead article that I am not so keen on PSAs, especially the ‘panel provider’ variety. So, as a recruitment professional, what sort of client am I keen on?

I considered all the clients I had worked very successfully with over the long term, when I was a desk level recruiter and these are the common characteristics I came up with (in order) that distinguished them as ‘great clients’:

1. $ v time

Let’s not be romantic, touchy-feely or deluded here. I loved those clients that I was able to make the most amount of money from in the quickest amount of time. Sounds blunt? Greedy? Let’s get real. I was proud of my skills and proud of the candidates I represented and I wanted to generate the best return I could for those skills and candidates. To say anything else would be disingenuous. If the clients didn’t think my service represented value then there was nothing to stop them going elsewhere.

2. Exclusivity

Even if the relationship did not start as an exclusive one, I quickly won clients over to exclusivity once they saw how much better the candidate quality was and how time-effective it was for them to deal only with me.

3. Speed

My key clients understood that they were in a race to hire the best and they acted quickly to make a decision on an interview or an offer for an excellent candidate.

4. Feedback

My favourite clients provided specific reasons why they wanted to progress, or not, with a candidate. This helped me provide feedback to candidates who craved it as well as making my job much easier in identifying a more suitable candidate.

5. Advice

The client was the expert in their job and I was the expert in mine. They listened to my advice regarding the salary or rate on offer, skills sought and attitude desired and made adjustments to their expectations, based on this advice, that ensured a win all around.

6. Trust

Almost all temp jobs I filled were done so over the phone, without a resume being sent to the client or an interview taking place. When I was a perm recruiter, the clients booked in the interview time with only my candidate’s name and before I sent the resume. All this happened because the clients trusted me and knew that I wouldn’t waste their time by sending ‘a body to fill a seat’.

7. Respect

My great clients respected me and my referred candidates enough to prepare for interviews, not keep candidates waiting and, most importantly, fulfill their commitments in regard to ‘next step’ processes and timelines.

8. Consistency

I didn’t mind recruiting for a ‘tough’ client as long as they were consistent during the recruitment assignment and with the candidate after the candidate had commenced employment. I had a label for inconsistent tough clients – they were known as ex-clients.

No client starts out with all 8 of these characteristics, and very few end up with all 8, however the challenge I loved as a recruiter was to use my skills to ‘convert’ the untamed client into a great client. What other characteristics do you look for in a great client? Make your contribution on my blog.

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/04/8-characteristics-of-great-clients.html

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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Australia’s population explosion: Ross Clennett

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

The two weeks leading up to Easter were filled with the news of the health debate between the PM and the Opposition Leader, the Federal Opposition reshuffle, soaring house prices, high auction clearance rates as well as predictions of hefty mortgage rate hikes ahead.

If that wasn’t enough to distract you, then the start of the footy season and the Australian F1 Grand Prix probably would have done it.

In amongst all those headline fillers there was something far more significant and genuinely newsworthy, if you had been looking closely enough.

On Thursday 25 March the Australian Bureau of Statistics released some startling data about our population. Between 1 October 2008 and 30 September 2009 Australia’s population soared by 451,900 people to stand at 22.06 million people. Of that increase, 297,400 (66%) came from net migration and the remaining 154,500 (34%) was due to natural increase (the net of births minus deaths).

State by State population growth rates:

State % increase 12 mths to 30/09/09 Total population growth (000′s) Total population (millions)
WA 2.9 64.3 2.259
QLD 2.7 115.2 4.450
NT 2.3 5.1 .227
VIC 2.2 117.9 5.473
ACT 1.9 6.5 .353
NSW 1.7 117.0 7.165
SA 1.3 20.9 2.259
TAS 1.0 5.0 .504
Total 2.1 451.9 22.065

Net Overseas Migration by State

Although NSW attracted the highest number of migrants (89,100) just ahead of Victoria (82,100), the revealing statistic was that SA had the highest reliance (75%) on net overseas migration for their population increase.

Net interstate Migration

Queensland continued to be a lure for Australians moving around the country with a net increase of 16,000 people. Well-documented infrastructure problems and political instability (ineptness?) would appear to be an obvious reason for a net loss of 16,700 people from NSW to other states.

Capital City Growth

The growth rate for capital cities was 2.3%, outstripping the rest of Australia’s growth rate of 1.9%. This difference in growth rates, although not seeming to be much at 0.4%, is at a ten year high. Perth recorded the highest growth rate of 3.2%, just ahead of Darwin at 3.1%. The 93,500 people added to Melbourne’s population was the largest raw number increase of all Australian cities.

Non-capital City Growth

In terms of raw numbers, Queensland provided the top three regional growth Local Government Areas (LGA’s) for the whole country (as usual) with perennial #1, Gold Coast (+15,643) closely followed by Moreton Bay (+13,260) and then Sunshine Coast (+9,572).

In percentage terms, WA was clearly the growth leader with Capel (+6.0%) and Mandurah (+5.1%), both in south-west WA and Port Hedland in northern WA (+4.9%) showing the way for the rest of the country, followed by Victoria’s Surf Coast (+3.9%), Townsville (+3.2%), Northern Yorke Peninsula LGA of Copper Coast (+3.2%) and WA’s Pilbara Region (+3.1%).

Global Comparisons

At 2.1%, Australia’s population growth rate ranks as third globally and almost double the world’s annual rate of population increase (1.0%). Australia’s growth rate blitzed the population growth rate of countries with which we have close ethnic, cultural or trade ties eg USA (1.0%), NZ (0.9%), China (0.5%), UK (0.3%), Greece (0.1%), Italy (0.0%) and Japan (-0.02%).

To put it another way – our national population jumps by 1,238 people per day or 8,667 per week. That’s a lot of extra people to feed, house, school or employ.

Clearly this demand for services has been a huge factor in Australia avoiding the economic challenges besetting our friends in Europe and America. By contrast Japan’s population shrinks by an average of 70 people per day every day of the year.

Australia: The lucky country? You bet.

This article is reproduced with permission from Ross Clennett’s blog – http://rossclennett.blogspot.com/2010/03/australias-population-explosion.html.

As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. Ross now works as a speaker, trainer, coach and recruitment industry commentator.

In 2009 Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website for recruitment company owners and managers which provides a variety of training and strategic resources in various multi-media formats. For more information visit www.rossclennett.com

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Recruitment in the 21st Century: Art or Science? – Ross Clennett at RecruitTECH 2009

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Our second speaker in the RecruitTECH series is Ross Clennett…

Ross is a recruitment expert. As a professional recruiter, between 1989 and 2003, Ross screened over 80,000 resumes, interviewed over 3,000 people and successfully placed over 500 people in work. Over this time he worked in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. He has been professionally recognised by the designation, MRCSA (Accredited Recruitment Professional) awarded by the Recruitment & Consulting Services Association (Aus & NZ). Since 2001 Ross’s opinion pieces and skill development articles have been regularly published in recruitment industry magazines and on specialist recruitment websites, both in Australia and in the USA.  Through his speaking, training and coaching business, RossClennett.com, Ross is an in-demand expert on recruitment and the recruitment industry in Australia. This year Ross launched Australia’s first professional development website (http://www.rossclennett.com) for recruitment company owners and managers.

Ross’ topic

The recruitment process of last century was predominately a process that was reactive, emotionally driven, non-evidence based and utlising little, if any, technology. The recruitment leaders of today embrace a recruitment process that is proactive, factual and uses effective, validated and relevant technology every step of the way. The rapid aging of the population, and corresponding reduction in the availability of skilled labour,  will dramatically increase the costs of slow, outdated and ineffective recruitment processes. In his keynote presentation, recruitment expert and trainer Ross Clennett will present how the effective recruiter of today combines both the science and art of recruitment to deliver outstanding results, consistently.

Video

Powerpoint Slides

Recruitment in the 21st Century: Art or Science?

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Ross Clennett's free ebook – Succeed Quickly or Fail Slowly

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

ross-clennettI was lucky enough to catch up with Ross Clennett, one of Australia’s foremost recruitment trainers and speakers, at a recent conference in Melbourne.  Ross has just launched his own subscription-based recruitment training and resource portal, which you can find here:  http://www.rossclennett.com/.  The website constitutes a good example of personal branding.

Whilst surfing Ross’ website I stumbled upon a free e-book which Ross wants all-and-sundry in the recruitment industry to read – in fact, Ross encourages readers to circulate the document as widely as possible, so I am duly doing that here.

Download Ross Clennett’s ebook, ‘Succeed Quickly or Faily Slowly’ here…

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