State of the industry
Are things looking better? IMF expects the Australian economy to recover and grow by 1.5% next year. Hudson’s latest report seems to suggest a positive shift in employers’ attitude. Hiring is likely to pick up for the first time in 18 months. Greg Savage have a more tepid view of the situation.  Unemployment rate hovers at 5.7%, it is likely that the hard times will continue for a while longer.  Read more...

The future of work
Time magazine has a good piece on what the future of work would look like. I particularly find Seth’s contribution thought provoking: “ there’s going to be a huge focus on finding the essential people and outsourcing the rest”

Is optimism back?
Optimism among executives is back, McKinsey’s latest economic survey says so. 39% of executives across the globe think their economy will improve. Another study by AESC also found signs of improvement in executives recruiters activity.  Read more...

Earning trust: Besides maintaining a lively blog, every week the team at Sixfigures quietly produce two newsletters for employers and executives. They are one of the few players taking a long term view of the market; building relationship and earning ‘trust’ one audience at a time.

Whitepaper: Regularly producing useful content, Taleo continues to be a leader in research. Here’s their take on reducing recruitment cost (includes a whitepaper)

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Recruitment in good and bad times
Harvard warns against complacency and advise companies to focus on their talent acquisition strategies, believing that most companies don’t do recruitment well – “Despite a universal acknowledgment that hiring good people is a key source of competitive advantage, we could find only a few companies that excel at one or more aspects of the hiring process and just a handful that come anywhere close to a hiring “gold standard.”  Read more...

Australasian Talent Conference
I received the final programme for The Australasian Talent Conference today, and boy am I excited.  Here’s an opportunity to hear and perhaps meet some of the giants of the recruitment/HR industry (What does one ask/say to the likes of John Sullivan and Gerry Crispin?). The conference starts on 5^th May with a range of workshops and concludes on the 7^th. You can re-visit what’s on offer at the conference here. I plan to live blog or Tweet from the event. If you are interested, it’s not too late to register. A discount of 15% for readers of this blog is still on offer; use the code ‘DES09’ here. If you do attend, please say ‘Hi’, it would be lovely to meet you.  Read more...

Newspaper classifieds making a comeback?
Print advertising in Australia actually grew in 2008, and the industry performed much better than the US and UK. While most forms of print classifieds grew, employment section declined by 12.3%. As far as job advertisements are concerned, the shift to online channels seems to be permanent. Here’s a different point of view. Also, a TED presentation ask ‘can design save the newspaper’?  Read more...

The Australian Talent Conference 
A reminder that the ATC is scheduled for 5-7 May. Event organisers outlined reasons why the event is worth attending for recruiters and HR vendors. Readers of Destination Talent can receive a 15% discount on conference fee (use promotional code DES09)

How are boards coping with the economic turn
McKinsey study found that 43% of survey respondents found their board has been ineffective in dealing with talent management.  Read more...

Brand name and remuneration
Graduating from premium universities necessarily does not mean higher remuneration for graduates.  Enrolling in the right discipline is more important than the brand name of the university. Meanwhile executive salaries have soared in Australia.

Skills shortage
A conference paper ( Global skills crunch: A case of dog eat dog?)  argues that alarm about long-term skill shortage is unfounded. Business cycles will have more dramatic effect on skill shortage than demographic changes.  Meanwhile, a new report found half of the mining sector will shed staff. Also, Indian IT professionals dominate the 457 visa intake into Australia.  Read more...

 Money quote

“There are, of course, powerful economic reasons behind the trend. As sociologist Nan Lin puts it in his book, Social Capital, “Individuals engage in interactions and networking in order to produce profits.” These profits are based upon information, influence, social credentials, and recognition. The accumulated social capital, meanwhile, helps individuals to gain competitive advantages in the labor market as a result of privileged access to “resources” located on the social networks” – McKinsey, March 2009  Read more...

Money Quote

“Workforce planning and development is non-existent, our sector does not have the necessary employment data to analyse and forecast trends. Had this information been available, we may have been in a better position to identify our emerging skills requirements.” – Ray Pincombe, President,  Local Government Managers Australia  Read more...

Money quote

“The leaders of Great Groups love talent and know where to find it. They revel in the talent of others.” – Warren Bennis & Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing Genius

Skills shortage
It’s never wise to generalise, especially for something as unique and diverse as ‘skills’. Gartner believes a shortage of Business Intelligence Specialist is hampering projects. Not every sector is affected by the downturn.  Meanwhile, a cohort of very smart people are getting together to discuss the long-term skills shortage facing Australia (brochure)  Read more...

Thought for the Day

“ The role of the Director is to create a space where the actors and actresses can become more than they’ve ever been before, more than they’ve dreamed of being.” – Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech  Read more...

Mobile recruitment
Many pundits are bullish that mobile platforms will be the new frontier for acquiring talent. From the humble but ubiquitous SMS to sophisticated smart phones, the adoption of mobile tools for recruitment is gaining noise. Here’s another white paper on how ‘an unwired world is changing recruitment’.

457 visa debate re-ignited
The perennial debate on the pros and cons of the 457 visa system surfaces again.  Calls to reduce migration intake in the light of the  global recession has been rejected by the government.  Read more...

State of the recruitment industry
Recruitment firms’ performance is often a good barometer to measure the state of the economy.  Current standing of the industry on the ASK is not flattering. SEEK’s share price, the best performer of the pack, currently stands at $2.53, a far cry from its heydays. However, performances have to be viewed in the background of the Australian share market plummeting as a whole. Australian share price trends since 1900  Read more...

Not all doom and gloom
It’s misleading to talk in national terms, or blindly generalise the state of the job market (the media loves bad stories). Some states are still dealing with 3% and below unemployment rates. Some companies are struggling to find staff. Demand and supply of talent is a local issue, and in most cases national data does not always accurately represent the reality at the local level. By the way, national unemployment rate currently stands at 4.5%, hardly the nightmarish picture often painted by mainstream media.  Read more...