How can employers and recruiters work together more efficiently? What processes are broken and require fixes? How can the client-supplier relationship in the recruitment industry be improved?

Of course, there are no easy answers. It’s my hunch, though, that the vast majority of friction between employers and recruiters occur mainly because both groups understand very little of how the other operates. At Destination Talent we wanted to start addressing the many challenges and problems inherent in the client-supplier relationship. To begin with, we are going to mobilise and present the perspective (voices) of the recruitment community. To that end, we are inviting recruiters to voice their opinion on how to improve a wide range of issues including:  Read more...

Starting in 1989, Ross Clennett, APRCSA, worked for 15 years as a recruiter in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. He has been a regular writer about recruitment and the Australian recruitment scene since 2001. He runs Australia’s only online training and professional development membership site for recruitment company owners and managers.

1) Believing the claims that technology vendors make and undertaking few, if any, background checks of these claims with other recruiters who are actively using the vendor’s product  Read more...

A year ago we briefly explored the uptake of social media to source talent. Overall, we found, organisations were slow to adopt social media; only a minority (35%) used it in some form or another to recruit new staff.  Read more...

Three months ago we embarked on a study to better understand the behaviour of executives in Australia. The results from the study, involving 1332 executives across Australia, can be downloaded here.

The study offered many insights but also raised new questions,a nd many of the findings merit further exploration. In the coming days, I will explore in greater detail many of the topics covered in the report. Without doubt this report is a first step in a journey of discovery. For now, it is my hope that the findings will trigger discussion within organisations on how they recruit, engage and manage executive talent.  Read more...

Conversations on Whirlpool are raw, honest and seldom kind to recruiters. Are recruiters worthless? One of the most popular forums asked. The answer:

The graph, with all its flaws (I suspect many of the respondents are job seekers), presents two immediate opportunities for recruitment firms:

1) An opportunity to be different. Majority of employers (at least those who took the survey), rightly or wrongly, have a negative opinion of recruiters. In other words, many employers are yet to encounter a recruitment firm who ‘wowed’ them. So, why not be the first? Why be banded with the rest of the competition?  Read more...

The recruitment industry has been hit hard by the economic downturn. But how deep are the problems? What is the current supply and demand scenario for recruiters? Are recruitment firms still hiring? I explored some of the issues facing the recruitment industry with Clare Barton, Director, at Barton Mills, an international Recruitment to Recruitment (R2R) firm based in Sydney.

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