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...

Over the weekend, the number of my followers on Twitter passed the 1000 mark.

In social media speak, I am now popular. In fact, according to Sysomos I belong to an exclusive club (only 0.68% of users have more than 1,000 followers).

But what does this digital milestone mean? It certainly doesn’t mean 1000 customers. In fact, I do not have close relationship with majority of my followers, yet. This isn’t a rant. I certainly am not against having more fans on Twitter (thanks for following). The point is getting attention is good, whether its on Twitter or elsewhere, but it doesn’t means much if  it doesn’t translate to results.  Read more...

Economy
National Unemployment rate hits 5.8%. An additional 21,400 jobs were lost, most of it in permanent roles. It’s interesting that part-time roles continue to increase (400 jobs added in June).  While regional differences remains, the pain is likely to continue.

CEO speak
John Chambers, CEO and chairman of Cisco Systems, talks to McKinsey on a range of issues, including leadership and management. “Instead of 10 people running the company, with a very heavy leaning toward the command, we have moved to a structure with the top 500 people running it today  Read more...

Monitoring social media
What are job seekers saying about your employment brand? What are your customers or suppliers talking about? Monitoring the social media landscape is becoming an essential activity. Here’s a useful primer on how to make sense of the ever growing social media landscape.  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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Equipped with a unique perspective gained from years as an agency recruiter and currently as recruitment manger at DWS, a technology consulting firm, Dan Nuroo navigates the rapidly evolving recruitment landscape with aplomb. A regular on industry forums and a prolific user of social media tools, Dan blogs, tweets and shares his experiences and views on recruitment with refreshing openness. One wonders if he represents a new breed of HR/recruitment professionals in Australia. I caught up with Dan to find out more.  Read more...

Twitter has been in the news a lot, lately. Visit to the site by Australians grew by a whopping 517.9% from last year.  It is estimated that close to 300,000 Australians have Twitter accounts (Mine’s here)

I use Twitter to reach out to new clients, to connect with industry peers, find new information, data and people. However, the main buzz surrounding Twitter is its immense potential as a tool to find and recruit ‘talent’. In the coming days, I’ll explore more about Twitter’s place in talent acquisition strategy. Meanwhile, an excellent exploration of Twitter’s role and potential by John Sumser is here, here and here.  Read more...

How to hire software developers
When hiring software developers the traditional method of resume and interview proves ineffective. Many company are starting to practice ‘extreme interviewing’.

Jobs distribution
As job boards, specially the niche players, assert themselves, we will see a wide range of new partnerships.  Sixfigures partnership with Australia’s Women Online is a case in point.  Very soon a job board’s worth will be measured by its networks and the partnerships it keeps.  Read more...