tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14864082599267165012012-01-31T01:10:56.126+11:00I am passionate about recruitment. As a temp and perm recruiter since 1989, I have screened over 80,000 resumes, conducted around 3,000 interviews and placed over 1,500 people into work. I understand what it takes to find, hire and keep top talent.Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.comBlogger1841100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-77929467086080660902012-01-24T23:00:00.001+11:002012-01-24T23:00:14.990+11:00

I am devastated to share with you the death of my gorgeous sister, Mary.  click to view tribute video Mary had been fighting breast cancer for nearly four years. Late last year, the cancer spread to her brain. Last weekend, Mary suffered a heart attack in hospital. She was revived but remained in a coma.  Mary did not regain consciousness. She passed away peacefully on

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-58263510475051149012012-01-20T10:32:00.001+11:002012-01-20T11:18:55.022+11:00

In InSight 211, I passed comment on 14 career sites, representing some of Australia's biggest recruitment agencies. The verdict wasn't pretty.  I also asked for nominations for agency career sites that were worthy of highlighting. Specifically I was looking for a site that demonstrated innovation, a compelling message and information about the role and career of a recruiter as well as details of

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-71381286839393988902012-01-18T00:01:00.001+11:002012-01-18T00:01:01.424+11:00

Earlier last year, global professional services firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, released their 14th Annual Global CEO survey, Growth Reimagined. Across 69 countries, 1201 business leaders responded to a range of questions about issues impacting and expected to impact their business. In response to the question 'How concerned are you about the following potential economic and policy/business

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-55604271434435879172012-01-16T13:08:00.000+11:002012-01-16T13:08:39.713+11:00

Just as everyone was winding down for the summer break, the undisputed #1 Australian job board, Seek, decided to liven things up a bit with a pricing announcement that has made a few waves. Having axed Seek Executive at the beginning of October 2011, a decision was taken to incorporate a $150k job tab into the flagship Seek site and charge a 25% premium for the privilege of having jobs listed

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-79165784981288735862012-01-10T16:53:00.010+11:002012-01-12T20:34:25.719+11:00

Having spent a couple of days of my holidays reading the Steve Jobs biography I couldn't help but reflect on the remarkable accomplishments of the man and the lessons applicable for business owners everywhere, big or small.  This could have been a very long list, but here are the seven things that are most strongly front of mind for me (text is paraphrased and quoted from the book Steve Jobs by

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-66012983261067416372011-12-19T16:46:00.000+11:002011-12-19T16:46:48.706+11:00

Mary and family in their garden, Ashwell, Herts, UK, April 2011 The final InSight of the year has given me an excuse (not that I really need one) to veer off my normal subject matter path and write something more personal. In 2007 I wrote of my forthcoming (second) marriage (Risk, learn and forgive, InSight 13). In 2008, with the impact of the GFC looming in a very ugly way over

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-14254101383532059272011-12-12T10:00:00.004+11:002011-12-12T10:00:04.398+11:00

The age-old adage of ‘do as I say, not as I do' has been around for a long time highlighted by those old gags about plumbers with leaky taps, teachers who aren't interested in learning anything and debt collectors who never pay their bills on time. Of course it's a bit close to home to highlight the rate of staff turnover within the Australian recruitment agency world (25%-45% per annum

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-20510107699592088162011-12-08T16:05:00.000+11:002011-12-08T16:05:39.956+11:00

My experience of attending both the ATC Social Media in Recruitment event last Thursday and TRU Australia last Friday (both held in Melbourne), left me scratching my head as to what might be going on inside the heads of leaders in our sector. Here are two events where a majority of the attendees are corporate recruitment managers looking for solutions to their problems. What a perfect opportunity

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-34943262269996321822011-12-06T11:55:00.001+11:002011-12-06T12:32:08.529+11:00

In October 2010, the lead article in InSight 153 was Adventures of a (linchpin) job seeker. It was the story of Ellison Bloomfield, a frustrated job seeker who decided she was going to try a different approach to finding her dream job. Ellison embarked on a very public campaign to find ‘The Job' and the outcome of her campaign was a fascinating insight into the options available for job seekers

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-30043673680833432742011-11-28T18:20:00.002+11:002011-11-28T20:46:38.810+11:00

Earlier this week I took my eldest son to the 2012 Year 7 Orientation Day at his new secondary school. All the kids and parents were milling around before the event started. There was an excited buzz in the air as students from many different primary schools checked out their future school-mates. As I was waiting for the formalities to start, I was looking around the hall and noticed the school

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-31754697118687505602011-11-24T17:31:00.000+11:002011-11-24T17:31:59.016+11:00

Last Monday I watched the documentary Targeting Bin Laden that pieced together the story about the raid by American Navy SEALs which resulted in the assassination of Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan on 1 May this year. It was a compelling piece of television that captured an extraordinary event in a very dramatic way by interviewing the key players in the event as well as using very

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-21461573617632809472011-11-21T16:11:00.001+11:002011-11-21T18:48:38.143+11:00

There's plenty of fuss, quite rightly, being made of LinkedIn's massive momentum in the online employment space. All this fuss has perhaps distracted people from what progress has been made in the fight for eyeballs and dollars in the Australian job board marketplace.  Seek's share price has rallied from around $5 two months ago to now be sitting just above $6, yet it's still a long way from

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-82442195073364161312011-11-15T17:54:00.001+11:002011-11-15T18:30:02.520+11:00

Each year, for the past five years, I have reviewed all the job ads appearing in the Australian Financial Review (AFR), on the last Friday in October. I do this with the purpose of categorising each ad into one of four quality ratings (see below) and tracking what progress has been made (if any) in overall ad writing quality. There is no panel or independent arbitrator here, just my very

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-15025693482381125622011-11-14T10:01:00.001+11:002011-11-14T10:01:36.030+11:00

In late September I announced my inaugural InSight readers' survey and invited people to complete a 21 question survey about InSight and my blog. I thought you might be interested in some of the results from the survey that was completed by 175 people (my goal was 200): 73% of respondents had been reading my material for at least 1 year 51% had more than 10 years recruitment

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-41677498468336022792011-11-08T09:04:00.003+11:002011-11-08T09:10:16.204+11:00

Those recruiters who attended the RCSA International Conference in Port Douglas a few months ago, were fortunate enough to witness Steve Vamos speak on the last afternoon. Given Steve’s background in technology companies, you would be forgiven for expecting that his presentation would be hi-tech in format and tech-heavy in content. In fact it was neither. Steve spoke without any slides and he

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-90095621807549110572011-11-04T13:33:00.003+11:002011-11-04T14:18:35.803+11:00

I am sure the successful recruitment agency winners of the recently announced Federal Health Department’s temp/contract panel must be delighted with their win. The whole process began in the middle of August last year when the Department called for tender submissions to provide temp and contract recruitment services to the head office in Canberra and regional offices in Sydney, Brisbane,

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-73903180749777066172011-11-01T21:27:00.001+11:002011-11-02T07:53:19.375+11:00

When I am running my 'Building a Profitable Desk' workshop and it comes around to the discussion of High Pay-Off Activities (or KPIs, if you prefer), I will inevitably have a participant nominate ‘interviews' as a high pay-off activity.  When I disagree, there is often a slight pause and then this look of confusion appears on the face of one or more participants. To those recruiters I am sure it

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-92158168367530882932011-10-24T12:57:00.001+11:002011-10-24T14:30:41.502+11:00

Garr Reynolds is the author of the excellent book Presentation Zen, which I bought a few years ago. When he released his next book The Naked Presenter, I had no hesitation buying it. But I bought it in a different way. I bought the first book in the traditional way - while browsing for books at a major book store. But I bought the second directly from Garr's recommendation on his blog. I

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-38995256736783909282011-10-17T13:30:00.001+11:002011-10-17T14:08:54.486+11:00

 Katie Borton, Launch Recruitment It's award season in the recruitment industry and as you are sifting through the various categories in the respective SARAs, FEMAs and REAs, you will notice that there is only one individual award, and that's the FEMA Recruiter of the Year. Last year Sydney-based executive recruiter for Talent2, Neil Galvin took home the prize and this year Sydney-based

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-90077711594403405702011-10-10T16:46:00.001+11:002011-10-10T17:30:54.910+11:00

*This article was originally published in InSight 93, 5 August, 2009 With apologies to Phil Collins, who was singing about the collapse of his first marriage after his then-wife ran off with their painter and decorator, I can definitely feel something coming in the (recruitment) air right about now. Do you feel it too? Given how focused you are on generating and filling jobs to keep cash flow

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-6202633485377710382011-10-04T11:48:00.002+11:002011-10-04T11:48:00.072+11:00

My review of the 2010 results of the ASX-listed recruiters proved popular enough last year for me to invest the significant number of hours required to do the same exercise for this past financial year.  One thing is very clear from both this year's and last year's results; most of the ASX-listed recruiters paid too much for recruitment agencies acquired in the pre-GFC rush to accelerate sales

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-47484982134431643152011-09-27T13:26:00.001+10:002011-09-27T18:41:16.277+10:00

Today marks the 200th issue of InSight, my weekly e-zine. It's also the 4th anniversary of the first issue of InSight which means of have been blogging for four years. Apart from a brief break over Christmas/New Year,each year, InSight has been emailed out to subscribers every Wednesday morning (or Tuesday afternoon/evening for North American and European subscribers) since it was first

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-61266400638501787822011-09-19T14:18:00.002+10:002011-09-21T08:25:09.032+10:00

Two weeks ago I wrote a summary of the 2011 RCSA Conference, held in Port Douglas. I compiled a list of what I regarded as useful and insightful quotes that were uttered by the various presenters. Today I return to one of those quotes for a greater examination of it because as the days since the conference have elapsed, I've considered its truth and significance. The quote came from one of the

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-1104911438963119752011-09-12T15:54:00.001+10:002011-09-12T17:18:45.321+10:00

The past four weeks have been a very productive period for my own professional development. I have attended the ATC Sourcevent, the RCSA Conference and Greg Savage's Cunningham Family Fund fundraiser presentation, Old Skool v New Kool.  I love hearing from a range of people about the sector I am passionate about. Each of these events has been very valuable in confirming some of my own

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-44920745291763737672011-09-06T10:53:00.001+10:002011-09-06T11:05:14.456+10:00

The RCSA delivered another excellent annual conference last week at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas, Queensland. Over 300 attendees were treated to a varied and high quality program which ensured that recruitment agency owners and managers departed Far North Queensland with just as many questions about the future of their respective businesses as they did answers. Peter Sheahan was the

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-61274949771162378512011-09-01T13:33:00.003+10:002011-09-01T13:33:00.673+10:00

In the world of agency recruitment, it's very rare that a recruiter or a leader can land the trifecta of leaving at the top of their game, leaving on their own terms and leaving with a level of acknowledgement and recognition appropriate for their contribution to their colleagues and employer.  When I left the company I had been employed at for just over ten years, I did so in awkward

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-8078761836547186552011-08-29T16:23:00.000+10:002011-08-29T16:23:45.933+10:00

 At The ATC Sourcevent (left to right) Kevin Wheeler, Ross Clennett, Bill Boorman Two weeks ago I joined 200 other recruiters and sourcers at the ATC Sourcevent Conference held at the Melbourne Convention Centre to find out the latest developments in the world of sourcing.  It was a fascinating day. Organisers Trevor Vas, Horace Chai and Kevin

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-41014831775614580622011-08-25T09:46:00.001+10:002011-08-25T09:59:55.906+10:00

Last week a fascinating new experiment in Australian recruitment services quietly launched.  RecruitLoop is a pay-as-you-use recruitment service where clients have a choice of how much, or how little, they wish to use ‘recruitment support' (an external recruiter), based on agreed fees.  It's a classic unbundled recruitment service model with the five components; Specify (writing a full job

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-89789943660957578772011-08-23T14:17:00.001+10:002011-08-23T14:24:41.538+10:00

When Recruiter Daily took a sabbatical three months ago, I took it upon myself to find out who in the Australian and New Zealand recruitment community were active bloggers. It’s proven a bit tougher than I thought but here’s a run-down (in no particular order) of those in the recruitment community who are blogging at least semi-regularly.   NameBlog URLWho are they?Check out this post Stuart

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-13359957059123511472011-08-22T08:37:00.000+10:002011-08-22T08:37:36.475+10:00

Last month, global recruitment company Robert Walters released the results of a survey conducted with 800 job seekers. Three significant, although unsurprising, findings of the survey were the following: 1. A large majority of job seekers (79%) were turned off by a lengthy recruitment process with 77% agreeing that the job process from application submitted to offer letter received should take no

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-57823366078100274282011-08-15T16:25:00.005+10:002011-08-15T17:00:40.118+10:00

This month the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) released its 2010/11 Financial Year summary of what's going on around the country with respect to the shortage of skills.  It makes for fascinating reading.  Here's the most relevant and interesting information I extracted from that document and another DEEWR report:  The past 12 months: 1.    Employers

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-86884080236906627352011-08-09T14:11:00.045+10:002011-08-09T14:25:25.777+10:00

Professional sport can be brutal. Two weekends ago in the AFL the Melbourne Demons travelled west to play the Geelong Cats in Geelong. The Demons were just outside the Top 8 and the Cats were second from the top. The Demons were not expected to win but nobody could have predicted the humiliation that was to be inflicted by the Cats that afternoon. The final winning margin of 186 points was only

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-14037874617827457752011-08-01T13:06:00.000+10:002011-08-01T13:06:23.114+10:00

In last week's InSight lead article Play More Beach Volleyball to Bill More Fees, I referred to the research supporting the importance of making genuine connections at work in order to build a more resilient and productive workforce.  Today I will discuss specifically how recruiters can create this connectedness with their colleagues, their candidates and their clients.  Although some of you

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-24324392341532640242011-07-28T17:15:00.002+10:002011-07-28T18:17:08.899+10:00

Western Australia gains more than its fair share of publicity whenever skills shortages are mentioned. As I wrote about last week in InSight #190, the WA Employment Minister has been on a jobs road show in Ireland and the UK, heavily promoting the vast numbers of new workers that the WA economy, fuelled by the mining boom, needs.  You would think, given all this publicity, that WA would be

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-65018154123272598102011-07-25T10:20:00.001+10:002011-07-25T10:31:59.327+10:00

Two weeks ago, one of my favourite recruitment bloggers, Jonathan Rice, posted on his blog The Whiteboard, a smartly written post, provocatively entitled Smoke More Cigarettes to Bill More Fees.  The essence of Jonathan's post was that when he worked at Hays, a large majority of the biggest billers were smokers, but it wasn't the actual smoking that lead to more fees. More so that the smokers

Moderator (Liana Duric)http://www.blogger.com/profile/05456873277745463021noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-86686083282588176362011-07-18T15:22:00.000+10:002011-07-18T15:22:19.767+10:00

Last month, the leading Australian business magazine, Business Review Weekly (BRW), announced the Top 50 places in their annual Best Places to Work list. It was very pleasing to see that recruitment companies took out five of those 50 places. Making that achievement even more satisfying for our industry was the #6 ranking of SARA Legend, Queensland generalist recruiter, Davidson

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-81586508003232553252011-07-14T15:18:00.000+10:002011-07-14T15:18:11.987+10:00

Seven years ago in Sydney I ran a small group coaching session for three senior leaders of multi-national recruitment agency, Aquent. In that session I met Duncan Cunningham, a likeable, cheerful English ex-pat who was responsible for the Aquent business in Hong Kong. We stayed in irregular contact for a year before he moved to Shanghai to lead the growth of Aquent in China. 

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-853782810600303732011-07-12T10:38:00.002+10:002011-07-14T15:30:45.142+10:00

On Friday last week I had the good fortune to be a guest of one of my clients, On The Ball Personnel at the Business Chicks Melbourne Breakfast event featuring Sir Richard Branson. Could there be a more high profile, successful and respected business person to address a gathering of 1700 of Melbourne's mostly female business community? I had never heard Sir Richard speak live. The closest thing

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-81058520122840902002011-07-05T09:19:00.006+10:002012-01-12T09:00:09.098+11:00

*This article was originally published on 9 October, 2007 in InSight #3 I started my recruitment career in February 1989 with Accountancy Personnel (now known as Hays) in London as a fresh-faced, innocent 22 year old from Hobart. I knew nothing about accounting jobs or qualifications, nothing about London geography, nothing about working in a corporate office (my previous work experience had

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-75012001520189589292011-06-28T10:18:00.001+10:002011-06-28T14:43:47.932+10:00

In broadcasting any sporting event via radio or television, most media networks will have two commentators on air at one time. One commentator (the ball-by-ball or action commentator) describes the play as it is occurring and the other commentator (the expert commentator) will provide an analysis and opinion of the tactics or overall trends of the match including speculating as to the motives of

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-86049099603752586362011-06-22T07:55:00.002+10:002011-06-22T18:57:22.521+10:00

Earlier this year, after LinkedIn stated their intention to become a publicly listed company, I wrote a lead article about LinkedIn's global aspirations and specifically, their intention to tackle the recruitment agency market. This intention was made explicit when they registered their S-1 Statement with the United States' Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in late January. In the S-1

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-47598954769313035932011-06-14T23:58:00.012+10:002011-06-18T07:35:11.039+10:00

Welcome back to InSight Steve and congratulations on your one year anniversary with the RCSA. How different, or similar, has your experience of the role been compared to your expectations of the role when you started on 7 June last year? Hi Ross and thanks very much. It is amazing how quickly the last 12 months has flown by. On joining the RCSA, I expected that the role would be extremely

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-7701030209064189622011-06-06T15:41:00.002+10:002011-06-06T15:45:11.802+10:00

One of the biggest sporting events of the past few months was the European Champions League Final, held at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 28 May, 2011. After months of pool and elimination matches, the two undisputed power clubs of world football faced off in the final. Manchester United, managed by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson for the past 24 years, had just won their 12th English Premier

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-42517662184979172362011-05-31T14:55:00.002+10:002011-06-01T17:45:36.971+10:00

I have attended all 5 ATCs held in Sydney. They have all been very interesting in their own way and a valuable source of trends and case studies for my speaking, writing, training and coaching. I am still digesting everything I learned at the event, so before anything escapes my over-flowing brain, here's a quick summary of my initial conclusions:  1. LinkedIn is VERY serious about dominating

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-6116206647126502902011-05-23T14:34:00.001+10:002011-05-23T14:56:23.268+10:00

There were a number of significant announcements and events over the past four weeks that, from my reading, seem to be compelling evidence that the new era of recruitment advertising and candidate attraction has officially announced itself as serious and here to stay. Here's the chronological sequence of announcements and events: 29 April 2011 - Fairfax Media announce that they are shutting

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-45526220821658038412011-05-17T14:32:00.004+10:002011-05-23T14:31:44.768+10:00

In the past two weeks the words ‘skills shortage' has only been matched for frequency of mention in the media as ‘Osama Bin Laden'.  Firstly there was the release of the Skills Australia White Paper Skills for Prosperity with its headline-making conclusion that Australia needs an additional 2.4 million skilled workers by 2015, to replace retiring baby boomers, and 5.2 million additional workers

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-63601033969064180442011-05-09T13:07:00.004+10:002011-05-09T13:30:28.316+10:00

My Lead Article in last week's InSight #179 ‘Sorry, they are already on our database': The lazy corporate rip-off generated a flood of emails directly to me as well as numerous comments on my blog. In less than one week it became my #6 most viewed blog post of all time (out of a total of 137 blog posts).  Here is a small selection of the emails and blog comments I received (slightly edited for

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-33897476412061708452011-05-02T08:44:00.001+10:002011-05-02T08:52:58.236+10:00

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a consultant (thanks, Ben) which perfectly summarises one of the dilemmas that is increasingly being faced by agency recruiters everywhere. Ben wrote: ‘Recently clients have been increasingly insisting that if a candidate is on their system - whether they been there for 6 months or 6 years they have ownership of the candidate. There have been a

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-28667835638081516832011-04-27T08:59:00.001+10:002011-04-27T09:13:03.016+10:00

A couple of weeks ago, daily news service, HR Daily, published a summary of the recent Profiles International publication Australia's Most Productive Companies 2010. The report is a summary of recent research (150 of Australia's public companies) into the factors that drive high revenue per employee. Further research, including interviewing executives within each high-performing company,

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-83227360553492236122011-04-18T12:50:00.001+10:002011-04-18T13:09:25.619+10:00

The week prior to Easter last year I wrote the original You, Me and Twitter and as we arrive at that time of year again, I thought it was useful to revisit and update the article. So here it is. ‘Oh save me, not another article on Twitter', I hear you say. I understand if that's your reaction. There are more than enough webinars, eBooks, special reports, white papers, and articles about Twitter

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-53413253783036833142011-04-14T09:00:00.003+10:002011-04-14T10:08:21.730+10:00

In case we needed any confirmation that the Australian economy was powering along, the release of the March ABS labour force data confirmed it. These are the March results (ABS catalogue 6202.0) for each of the past five years:  What do you notice? The most significant change is the huge increase (4.2%) in the number of Australians employed in the local workforce (either full time or part time).

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-91039888776540057232011-04-11T17:36:00.001+10:002011-04-11T18:59:00.781+10:00

One of the great challenges for all recruiters, no matter what their role and where they work is maintaining the very tricky balance between optimism and scepticism. Optimism is a critical trait for highly successful recruiters. For example, the optimistic recruiter believes ...  that no matter how bad today was that tomorrow will be better no matter how many prospects have said ‘no' to them

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-72379629805435426332011-04-06T01:00:00.000+10:002011-04-06T01:00:05.403+10:00

I don't think it would be much of a competition if you polled recruitment company owners to discover the most under-utilised resource in their company. I am willing to bet that a large majority would nominate their organisation's database/CRM system. What is the most compelling value proposition any recruiter can offer their clients or prospective clients? High quality candidates, delivered

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-31714137115292487242011-04-04T20:30:00.002+10:002011-04-06T16:57:48.227+10:00

On Saturday mornings, it really takes something extraordinary to grab my attention before I have had my first hot, rich espresso of the day. A couple of Saturdays ago something did. It was the ever-shrinking My Career section of The Saturday Age. Although the grand-daddy of Australian job boards, Seek, started up in 1997, and many other hundreds (thousands?) of job boards have followed since,

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-47056374415836116952011-03-28T11:56:00.001+11:002011-03-28T14:26:31.344+11:00

On 28 October, 2009 in InSight #105, the lead article was The Best Run Recruitment Companies in Australia (part 1): Hays which listed the reasons I believed Hays was so highly regarded by other recruitment industry owners and CEOs. Although no comments were posted to my blog about this article, I received a few emails that suggested I was being naïve or irresponsible in highlighting or endorsing

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-17175803819768362172011-03-21T16:06:00.002+11:002011-03-21T17:06:29.586+11:00

When I was working in Sydney in the early 1990s, I was part of a very good temp recruitment team. The temp business, Temporary Solutions, was run by Greg Savage nationally. The Sydney team was lead by Bronwyn Allen, a very experienced temp recruiter, and in the team besides me, were three other very good recruiters, Michelle, Jocellin and Andrena (who all eventually opened their own recruitment

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-76371830561635577172011-03-16T01:14:00.000+11:002011-03-16T01:14:00.822+11:00

I am not a networking expert but through the hard yards of personal experience I learned how to get the most from networking events when I was a recruiter. In this day and age with the accompanying vast amounts of free information available via the internet, it frequently surprises me how unprepared most recruiters appear to be, for live networking events. There are many opportunities to

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-52320962559180877892011-03-15T09:00:00.000+11:002011-03-15T09:00:26.512+11:00

Last Monday, 7 March 2011, just after 5pm AEDST, you were probably wondering what that very loud noise was that echoed around the country. It was the ‘oh, sh*@' being uttered by every recruitment company owner, manager and temp/contract recruiter who was, at that moment, reading the most recent story posted on the website of recruitment industry news service, ShortList. The story entitled;

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-75730651144776318652011-03-08T09:00:00.001+11:002011-03-08T18:41:59.699+11:00

Using ‘secret' as your search criteria under ‘Books' on Amazon.com generates 142,462 returns. Narrowing down the search field to ‘Non-fiction' and ‘Business & investing' still leaves you with 8,787 books promising the reader some kind of insider's revelation about their topic. Of course we all know that it's all a marketing ploy to get us a lot more interested in a book than we may otherwise have

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-30446956860622245362011-03-07T13:45:00.001+11:002011-03-07T13:49:46.908+11:00

What did the Myer sales assistant say when you asked her what the wholesale price was of the designer pair of trousers you were thinking of buying?How about your dentist; what did he say when you politely enquired  what hourly rate he was charging himself out at?Maybe it was during your most recent meal at your local Italian restaurant, where you pressed the waiter to tell you the cost of all the

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-44060546281441856622011-03-04T18:02:00.000+11:002011-03-04T18:02:10.328+11:00

We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. I certainly am not. In these very pages I've made comments that may not have been as well considered and expressed, as they could have been. It's all part of the risk that comes with the territory of making a living by expressing a view about people and events using social media networks. Once a mistake is out in the public domain, the power of social

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-4159692474832091812011-03-02T07:59:00.001+11:002011-03-02T08:04:02.419+11:00

One of the most satisfying aspects of being a temp recruiter, was creating a temp^ job from nothing. I mean ‘nothing' in the sense that there was no existing job before you took the initiative; the client hadn't even considered using a temp or considered that there was work a temp might usefully be engaged to do. This is where a temp recruiter has an advantage over perm recruiters in generating

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-48394087407056330402011-02-21T09:00:00.002+11:002011-02-21T10:19:28.646+11:00

Risk is a topic I have returned to a number of times during the three and half year life of InSight. I was reminded of it again last week as I took my Rookie Recruiter Training Program participants through the eight principles contained in the RCSA Code for Professional Conduct. Whether you are a member of the RCSA or not (BTW I think you should be), I would advise all recruiters to both know and

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-25273781386779578612011-02-14T14:35:00.001+11:002011-02-14T15:06:07.567+11:00

One of the great frustrations of being a new recruitment consultant, without a solid base of loyal clients, is when a client rejects a well matched referred candidate, based solely on the resume. You know the candidate is a good match for the job but the client takes one look at the resume, or hears one thing about the candidate's background and says ‘no, I'm not interested'. This frustrating

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-25619731728460867802011-02-08T14:18:00.006+11:002011-02-14T14:33:01.122+11:00

The most significant event for the recruitment industry for 2011 so far has undoubtedly been the announcement by LinkedIn that they intend to ‘go public' at some stage this year. They did not set a date for the listing or a target price for their shares but they did reveal a lot of very interesting information when they registered their S-1 Statement with the United States' Securities and

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-40949711741860968772011-02-01T11:47:00.001+11:002011-02-01T12:50:30.545+11:00

Predicting the future is an inherently risky and fraught business. For example, who would have predicted that Keith Richards would still be alive at 67 years of age? Videos and DVDs didn't kill cinemas, as they were predicted to do. Instead they helped fuel greater demand and innovation in movie making and movie going (eg. Gold Class, 3D etc). Downloadable or free public-access music hasn't

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-45115457622418883482011-01-24T15:21:00.001+11:002011-01-24T15:42:02.276+11:00

It's a question I am often asked during a break in a training or coaching session; ‘Do you miss recruiting, Ross?' The honest answer is ‘sometimes'. I loved almost every minute of my time when I was recruiting. For most of my 14 years running a desk (full time as a consultant, part-time as a manager), I was young, without significant life commitments and hungry to achieve. So what do I miss from

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-30887280427960616722011-01-18T12:40:00.015+11:002011-01-18T13:56:03.888+11:00

As a keen student of high performance and a casual golf fan, I was delighted when, last month, 51 year old Peter Senior won the 2010 Australian PGA title, ahead of runner-up, 33 year-old Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 US Open champion. Both players finished the 72 hole tournament tied on 276 and Senior won on the second extra hole in sudden death play-off. This was a remarkable result for a number of

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-679433060833747782011-01-11T10:55:00.002+11:002011-01-18T12:41:11.602+11:00

Hayley Warne The Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE) is the peak industry body representing organisations that recruit and develop Australian graduates. The current membership comprises over 340 organisations, including a variety of large and small employers across a wide range of industries in both the private and public sectors. Every year the AAGE has various awards to

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-21054062503342032602010-12-20T09:31:00.001+11:002010-12-20T09:35:39.766+11:00

Yes, I am pleased to confirm that the Australian recruitment agency sector, after a near-death experience in late 2008 and early 2009, is alive and well. Reports of the industry's irrelevance were proven to be well off the mark as growth and profitability rebounded strongly in 2010. That doesn't mean it was a year without challenges. In fact, for the pessimists (realists?), there was plenty of

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-3057075225274585082010-12-14T16:22:00.003+11:002010-12-14T17:23:47.766+11:00

Last week I read with interest, an article on Recruiter Daily about candidate segmentation. The article details the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tactics recommended by two consultants who work for a recruitment outsource provider on-site at Ernst & Young, one of the ‘Big 4' accounting firms. The article got my attention as providing an excellent example of how dramatically different

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-69632904429260321682010-12-07T14:55:00.001+11:002010-12-07T15:28:55.455+11:00

These days it is hard to imagine how little information was available about recruitment practices and competitors back in the early to mid 1990s. There was only one source of industry-specific public recruitment training available in Australia, and that was Rosemary Scott's business in its original 1992 form as a training business. The NAPC (forerunner to the RCSA) held an annual conference and

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-2601653659431463072010-11-30T15:38:00.006+11:002010-11-30T15:40:38.642+11:00

As I was going through the checkout at my local Coles today, I noticed a sign taped to the register. ‘I am a hearing impaired person. Thanks for your understanding when I am serving you'. It reminded me that this Friday, 3 December, is International Day for Persons with a Disability. Recruiters might be interested to know how the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR)

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-2127943044956511022010-11-23T08:57:00.000+11:002010-11-23T08:57:47.614+11:00

Amongst the many awards available at the respective SARAs, FEMAs and REAs, there is only one individual award, and that's the FEMA Recruiter of the Year. Last year Melbourne-based executive recruiter for McArthur Management Services, Darren Condon-Green took home the prize and this year Sydney-based recruiter for Talent2, Neil Galvin was the winner. Originally from the UK, Neil has been

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-50654617616059749622010-11-15T14:32:00.007+11:002010-11-15T17:24:30.516+11:00

Recently, international professional services firm, KPMG, released the results of their survey into skilled migration (Class 457 Visas) in Australia. These survey results, combined with recent data releases from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) make for interesting reading. I've reproduced the most relevant data below: 1.    There were 64,400 Class 457 Visa holders in

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-50265863842492508112010-11-10T11:03:00.002+11:002011-09-19T17:23:36.817+10:00

Australian international software company, Atlassian, have provided me with plenty to comment on in the past 15 months. On 31 August 2009, I first wrote (see my blog) about the very different tactics Atlassian were adopting for a specific campaign they had just launched to hire 32 engineers for their Sydney head office.   This post generated 39 comments and, subsequently, prompted a story in

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-57259496551351926162010-11-02T16:54:00.000+11:002010-11-02T16:54:48.221+11:00

On the last Friday in October each year, for the past four years, I have reviewed all the job ads appearing in the Australian Financial Review (AFR). I do this with the purpose of categorising each ad into one of four quality ratings (see below). There is no science to this process, just my opinion as to the effectiveness of each ad as I read it. For further analysis, I identify each ad as being

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-59021237461276596912010-10-26T10:56:00.005+11:002010-10-26T11:08:31.542+11:00

In last week's InSight Issue 153, I summarised the major points that I took from the RCSA CEO panel that I had facilitated in Melbourne. The first I point I listed was ‘deliver value to your customers'. This, I would like to think, is obvious. Clearly it is important in ensuring you have satisfied customers ... customers that both use you again and recommend you to others. Recruitment agencies

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-92133703441511079542010-10-19T10:22:00.008+11:002010-10-19T10:49:13.038+11:00

This is a story that I find to be both inspiring and revealing. It demonstrates what is possible when a motivated and resourceful job seeker decides not to play by the rules and, in fact, changes the game.   This is the story of Ellison Bloomfield.   Ellison is a HR professional based in Melbourne. She has undertaken a large amount of professional development but she hasn't completed an

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-6100947590359331162010-10-12T15:43:00.002+11:002011-09-20T13:13:36.241+10:00

The issue of ageism is one of the elephants in the room for the recruitment industry. I first wrote about the relevance of age with respect to work three years ago, in InSight Issue #6, prompted by the release of the long awaited (for fans anyway) comeback album from veteran 1970s' rockers, the Eagles. Ageism is an issue that will need to be seriously addressed if Australia's workforce

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-83686454591347260032010-10-05T09:26:00.004+11:002011-09-20T13:15:03.012+10:00

Each year, the last day of September brings down the curtain on the financial reporting season for ASX listed companies. Thankfully, for investors in Australian recruitment companies it was a better set of numbers all round than for the previous financial year. Not brilliant by any means, but better. I thought it might be useful to give you a brief rundown on some of the key numbers. Here's a

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-31976503784971723732010-09-28T15:46:00.003+10:002010-09-28T16:39:15.508+10:00

Another week and another reminder about the lengths some candidates will go to in order to fool employers and lie their way into a job. The Sydney Morning Herald reported last Monday that in late 2009 an Australian ‘doctor' had conned his way into a senior lecturers' position at the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. The ‘doctor' in this case, Vitomir Zepinic, had a long history of lying

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-12976021618007418412010-09-23T17:05:00.000+10:002010-09-23T17:05:50.971+10:00

Three months ago I wrote about the huge benefit that Australia gains from having New Zealand as a neighbour, providing an unrestricted and constant flow of labour into the Australian economy. Recently the NZ Department of Labour (Te Tari Mahi) released an Employment Briefing Paper on Trans-Tasman migration which is helpful in providing some ‘missing data' that was not covered in the ABS Fact

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-67781050231176736912010-09-20T16:22:00.043+10:002010-09-20T17:03:23.117+10:00

Every few months or so I will receive a call from a CEO, owner or manger who will ask my advice about keeping their top biller motivated. The particular dilemma is that the top biller concerned has stated little or no desire to become a manager of people within the business. The CEO, owner or manager is, understandably concerned that without fresh challenges, their star may be tempted with an

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-516801815635083312010-09-14T09:31:00.018+10:002010-09-14T09:42:30.880+10:00

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

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-53623918118351001222010-08-24T20:15:00.022+10:002010-08-24T20:27:07.952+10:00

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

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-51553237024761325532010-08-17T09:13:00.001+10:002010-08-17T09:13:10.945+10:00

It was the middle of week four in my new job. I was the third consultant on a three person temp accounting desk team. My Manager Bronwyn, and Michelle, the Senior Consultant, were finishing their weekly working temp calls.   Bronwyn smiles at Michelle and says, ‘Time to call the sleepers!'   I must have looked perplexed as I tried to make sense of what I was hearing - ‘sleepers?'

Moderator (Liana Duric)http://www.blogger.com/profile/05456873277745463021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-90536101640739858572010-08-09T17:42:00.001+10:002010-08-09T19:29:14.890+10:00

So what do employers really want in an employee? Well the government thinks they have the answer and amazingly, I believe they've got it pretty right! How do I know? In my recent research I found this great publication, Australian Jobs 2008, which is prepared by the Department of Education, Employment & Workplace Relations. Page 26 is devoted to listing what are called ‘employability

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-64200814517053088302010-08-02T14:28:00.001+10:002010-08-04T19:46:07.390+10:00

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

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-52212835403519342652010-07-27T08:22:00.020+10:002010-07-27T10:03:54.543+10:00

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

Moderator (Liana Duric)http://www.blogger.com/profile/05456873277745463021noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-21076166025314084862010-07-20T08:15:00.002+10:002010-07-20T08:17:44.672+10:00

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

Moderator (Liana Duric)http://www.blogger.com/profile/05456873277745463021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-21755638860024812682010-07-12T16:09:00.014+10:002010-07-12T17:08:34.828+10:00

Last week I was fortunate to be alerted (via Twitter) to a great article from FORTUNE (Why Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin) and I was given a fascinating book written by Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers: The Story of Success, Penguin Group, 2009). Both the article and the book examine successful people and they respectively argue how their individual successes are as the result of backgrounds and

Moderator (Liana Duric)http://www.blogger.com/profile/05456873277745463021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-80355629687906037862010-07-06T13:01:00.001+10:002010-07-07T07:57:00.694+10:00

During coaching or mentoring sessions with recruitment company owners and managers, I am often asked for my views on growth strategies. Clients are interested to know whether it is better to grow horizontally (ie add a new discipline or niche) or vertically (ie build greater depth in their current discipline or niche). For me, the response is a no brainer. Vertical growth should be a priority

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-13412709195027860622010-06-28T18:11:00.001+10:002010-06-28T19:10:49.970+10:00

How to review your 2009/10 results to provide lessons and opportunities for 2010/11 ** For most recruiters, this is the last week of the ‘old’ Financial Year. The annual fees or billings clock is just about to wind back to $0 and June 2011 seems like an eternity away. It would be tempting to just treat this week like any other week and go about your business of calling, interviewing, visiting

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-43973818521913492902010-06-22T12:35:00.002+10:002010-06-24T11:40:21.334+10:00

Australia has much to thank New Zealand for. Teaching us how to play better rugby is the most obvious one. Employing Kiwi, Robbie Deans, as head coach of our national rugby team, kind of says it all in terms of long-term Trans-Tasman superiority with the oval ball (although I will ask ‘who has won more Rugby World Cups?’). In the round ball code, the All Whites have performed well above

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-37337231290326164792010-06-15T14:43:00.001+10:002010-06-15T15:09:39.655+10:00

My editorial in last week’s InSight about the attendance at the RCSA Consultant Forum, generated plenty of positive email traffic for me as well as a phone call from the CEO of one of the ‘big players’ who wasn’t too thrilled about what I had written in that article. We had a frank and civil 10 minute conversation about some of my comments. He thought I was being ‘self serving’ and ‘not being

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-32394488891368968142010-06-08T16:24:00.000+10:002010-06-08T16:24:30.339+10:00

Thankfully the past few months has seen a return to a decent flow of jobs for most recruiters. The recruiters currently operating in the Australian market have been helped by the downsizing or demise of some of their competitors. As reported by industry news service ShortList on 28 April 2010; ‘207 agencies shut up shop between September 2008 and December 2009, and 4,241 recruiters left the

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-38487472767853273242010-05-31T15:29:00.005+10:002010-06-10T08:15:34.794+10:00

In the past month I have bought a case of wine, 6 printer cartridges and had my car serviced. Nothing unusual about that you might think, and you’d be right. The common denominator of these purchases was that each purchase decision was triggered by a telemarketing call. Not just any old telemarketing call but a regular one. None of those three purchases was either critical or urgent. None of

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-32087191136964376092010-05-25T14:21:00.000+10:002010-05-25T14:21:31.642+10:00

As many 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

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1486408259926716501.post-87485069341739272782010-05-17T18:22:00.000+10:002010-05-17T18:22:58.749+10:00

Dear past, current and new clients, As a recruiter and business owner, I have recently reflected upon the many years I have had in the recruitment sector and I believe I owe you an apology. I have come to the conclusion that we have been guilty of having terms of business that do not provide sufficient incentives for you (our client), to maximise your chances of hiring the best available

Ross Clennetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03278465867331070620noreply@blogger.com2