Why this petition matters

Craig Watson & Rachel Hill care deeply about the Talent Acquisition Industry in Australia, and we recognise the essential need for improving the standards and professionalism within our sector. Currently, the industry does not have formalised professional qualifications. This gap not only limits career development but also impacts our ability to access training to enhance key skills.

TAs in Australia are missing essential pathways.

The TA industry is critical for business success. However, without structured training and qualifications, TAs in Australia are missing essential pathways offered to other professions. According to the Productivity Commission’s ‘Shifting the Dial: 5 Year Productivity Review‘, substantial improvements in training and qualifications are integral for Australia’s future economic growth. 

The petition calls on ASQA to endorse formalised qualifications.

Therefore, this petition calls on ASQA to endorse formalised qualifications (in the form of Certificate IV & Diploma) for TAs, developed by the industry, for the industry. Such a system will enhance career development and the overall professionalism within our industry, consequently improving our contribution to Australia’s business landscape and Craig Watson and Rachel Hill are committed to driving this change.

We need your support. Sign this petition, and let’s elevate the TA industry together. Together, we can create a difference in the lives of every TA in Australia, providing qualifications, a clear career pathway, and skills to improve the professionalism of our sector.

It’s time to elevate our industry!

Sign the petition and be part of the change.

Take the next step!

Share this petition in person or use the QR code for your own material. Download QR code

Recruitment Meet Up Groups

Looking to grow your TA Community? Don’t know where to start? Don't worry, you are not alone - there are heaps of things going on with Recruitment Meet Up Groups in every city around Australia, plus Tas Talent Day, held in Tasmania every October.

I’m always also happy to share recruitment expertise, along with best practices, tips, and tricks to maximise efficiency. If you haven’t already, please sign up to our monthly newsletter The Recruitment Revolution.

If you’d like a chat, we can schedule a quick call to brainstorm ideas and strategies. Book a slot at a time that suits you via Calendly.

It’s a great way to probe at interviews after a nice opening question.

Many managers claim they know the STAR interviewing technique (many actually don't know it at all) but we've seen it done wrong or poorly over the years.

Our tops tips for the STAR techniques is:

1. Do one or more extra probes, just getting an initial example is not enough.
2. Know which competency you're looking for and keep on track looking for that.
3. Agree what good looks like (with the panel or fellow interviewers) before the interviews begin so all scoring in the same way.
4. Ask for real actual examples - not hypothetical questions, or that they do have this competency or skill in the workplace and finally …
5. Make sure they are recent examples. Once STAR is done …
6. Ask again for another example (everyone has one great example so ask for two under the same competency) OR
7. Do the flip - this is where you ask a negative question "Tell me of a time it all went wrong" under the same competency.

The answers will be surprising.

The answers and insights (evidence) will be surprising. Helps you sort the wheat from the chaff (or, out the bullsh***ers).

If you want to help your Hiring Managers become more skilled at this technique—understanding why it’s effective, how it works, and how to design the best questions and interview structure, contact us to arrange an initial chat about our training programs.

In a nutshell, skills-based hiring is looking beyond formal paper-based qualifications, and it is something we have always done.

Here’s why:

1. It opens opportunities for non-traditional candidates, and certainly enhances diversity and inclusion. Opening up new talent pools or new opportunities for those less qualified, less educated or who have non-traditional backgrounds, yet still have amazing skills.
2. It allows for hiring on transferable skills or on propensity to learn new skills, especially when things change or when new skills can also be learned on the job.
3. It tries to focus on what matters most for the role: By concentrating on skills, companies ensure they're getting the right capabilities developed or hired that they need for job or project success.
4. It can help unearth hidden gems - allowing companies to discover talent that might be overlooked due to non-traditional backgrounds.
5. Matches current needs – Organisations taking this approach try to ensure that the skills of the workforce are directly aligned with the company's current and future skills needs, allowing for more flexible, nimble, efficient and productive teams.
6. Helps with internal talent pools and resource planning. Being able to see who you have, what skills they have and where there are skills gaps and shortages. This would help internal mobility in the “Talent lifecycle” and training needs analysis of the workforce. And potentially allows for much better workforce planning than most HRIS systems can currently provide.
7. Prepares for the future in those industries where the required skills are rapidly changing, a skills-based approach might allow companies to adapt quicker by hiring for emerging skills.

Get in touch today if you'd like to discuss how your organisation can benefit from Skills Based Hiring.

Did you know that when we meet a new person, we formulate an opinion on them in the first 30 seconds?

So ultimately, we are making a judgement on them (and their ability to do the job) on what they are wearing or how they look. In recruitment circles we call this "Halo Horns".

It's very dangerous and also allows for unconscious bias to creep into the interview or screening. It also means we are judging someone superficially on their hair, their tie, shoes or even ethnicity!!

Why we might want to move to blind CVs

For example some people have halo horns with a surname (make a judgment). Are your hiring managers prone to making quick judgments, which bear no relation to the person's abilities or experience. It's why we might want to move to blind CVs.

Can you think of a time you've witnessed Halo Horns at interview where a candidate was pre-judged by a Hiring Manager and its hard to get past this "bias" later in the interview?

Learn more about Halo Horns on one of our TA Fundamentals Training courses or Hiring Manager Recruitment Skills programs.

Our MD, Rachel was recently at a business launch with lots of high-flying business contacts. One senior manager turned to her and said, “well it’s about time we got everyone back in the office”. Nice sentiment she thought but they just don’t understand the market…

Rachel had to explain a bit further.

So, the “War for Talent” is real. It really is a buyers’ market – by which we mean employees have the power, in terms of supply and demand. They are in demand, and there is very little supply (due to a wave of baby boomers retiring, more 65-year-olds than ever before since 2020). So, anyone left in the workplace with skills and experience will be getting multiple job offers if they look (even if they are not looking, they will be approached). Even school leavers with very little experience (those Gen Z aged 16 to 20) will all be getting six offers each…. So why come and work for you?

This means in a very competitive marketplace – you’ll need to be flex. A global survey conducted at the end of last year, by Mercer found that the number one priority of workers globally was flexibility. Covid and working from home has also extended this request.

So, in order to attract (and keep) the best you will need to be flex.

Working from home

Yes, this means many workers will be seeking some work from home v days in the office flexible working options. It might also mean offering flexitime, like a 9-day fortnight, job share, or part-time hours. Flex might just secure you the best talent in the marketplace. We have a client where they all work from home (anywhere on the Eastern seaboard of Australia) and just go in one day a month…

If not offering flex hours or working conditions – they might just walk (and they can) right into another job. Maybe with your competitors? So, in the war for talent. Yes FLEX. Put it on your job adverts. Think of creative ways you can offer this – school hours only (10am to 2pm) no Friday afternoons for early starts, job share with a co-worker.

In the war for talent, you need to get strategic, and this is one way to keep up or stay ahead of the competition (at no extra cost). Those that don’t flex – we will see their workers leave. Or they won’t join you for a better offer with more “flexible conditions”.

In a tight marketplace you need to think strategically.

There are a couple of problems with this statement.

The first is that it can be illegal. You can’t just hire someone on gender alone, even if it is to address a gender imbalance in your industry or workplace. Not even just because you want to. There are Federal and State Laws re discrimination and, so no, you cannot hire on gender alone. Unless of course, you have applied for and gained an exemption (for specific gender-based role or team – think Prison Correctional Officer) under your State Act. So, gender can’t be the deciding factor, and recruitment must be based on merit (you want the best applicant for the role). Not on any of the 22 possible discrimination attributes covered under State and Federal laws.

The second is that many employers who wish for more women in their workforce – often don’t deserve them!!

They are usually just not female friendly workplaces. Remember, women in the workplace still do the majority of domestic chores and care giving at home. In fact, they carry out about 70% of domestic duties compared to their male counterparts (42%) on average (ABS). Whether that is domestic duties like shopping or childcare, or looking after ageing parents, even ageing in-laws. You can check out the stats here ABS website.

In sociology, this is known as the "Double Burden." Many workplaces still fail to offer female-friendly or flexible work environments. We've spoken to several hiring managers who insist that roles cannot be job-shared, must maintain strict 9-to-5 hours, or require a five-day workweek. There are no options for flexible schedules, part-time work, or school-hour shifts, and some jobs involve unsociable hours. Even small details like a lack of female restrooms, absence of parent rooms, or a "blokey" culture—where office footy tipping is common but outings to the theatre or ballet are overlooked—contribute to this imbalance.

It could be arbitrary requirements like asking for "15 years of experience" in an engineering role or counting the number of academic papers published to become a professor—criteria that often put parents, especially mothers, five years behind their male counterparts due to time taken for childcare. Another issue is the lack of affordable or free parking in many city centres after 8:30 a.m. (the early bird parking deals are often gone by then). This timeframe coincides with when most parents, especially those with limited childcare options, are doing school drop-offs. As a result, parking alone can become prohibitively expensive—up to $150 a week—which is particularly burdensome for a single mum/dad.

Or maybe it’s just that “blokey” environment again and the job descriptions and adverts are written in a male language (it’s a thing - check out Textio for a more neutral language in your position descriptions and job adverts).

These barriers to hire are real and can mean that someone (women) just can’t take the job with you (even though they are brilliant in your field).

It's time to flex your thinking! To attract more women into your workplace you might just need to take a long hard look at your culture and your facilities. Are you really flex? What could be done differently, and would open the door to so many more great candidate applications? Dads have carer responsibilities too.

One client told us that they didn’t have any women in a particular technical team because 1. Women don’t want to work nights! And 2. It was unsafe to walk to the car park after dark (well I say...work it out).

It’s not about having a policy: with mixed gender on interview panels, it’s about having a flexible attitude, women friendly culture and benefits and flex in the work environment and mean it. If women can be in the Army, a mine site, a nurse, a doctor, a police officer, I am sure they can work night shifts. Or someone can walk them to their car? To encourage women into the work place you need to live it breath it. And – maybe even change!

To find out more check out websites like Work180 who endorse women friendly workplaces. You’ll see their logo on job adverts and the bottom of Recruiter emails. Think also about paid time off, paid maternity, women in the executive team, pay equity, career development, policies and support. Women will be checking these things out about you. Also remember to advertise where the women hang out (fish where they fish are).

A final question to all our female colleges – as a woman in the workplace, and good in your chosen profession - was there ever a barrier to hire that stopped you taking a job? That the employer could have easily changed - but just could not see – or be flexible and change for you – like hours, parking, job share, resources/ pay?

We'd love to hear what you think - please return to the Facebook post and share your thoughts with us.

Well yes, we think so.

1. Recruiters and Hiring Managers need to work together to reach candidates. Where do they hang out? As we say, “fish where the fish are”. And help each other via social media to like and share adverts across your industry. Plus turn all your other “taps” - channels to market on.

Next … 2. Know what you’re hiring for and make sure you pull out the core competencies for each position. Have good questions prepared and a different interview pack for each position.

Next, 3. Train your Hiring Managers in interviews skills, so they know what to ask, how to ask it, when to probe for more evidence and how to sell the role and the organisation.

Finally, 4. Make sure you have a structured interview format to get the most out of the interview (my WIGGS model is good for this). Then make sure the onboarding is excellent and new employees get a warm welcome.

So, if you want HR on the same page and your Hiring Managers too, come on one of our training programs and learn how to apply a systematic selection process for your organisation. Modules include, the law, structured interviews and probing questions to effectively address competence for the role.

Our Strategic Recruitment Program, a half-day, classroom-based style course delivered at your premises (Australia wide) includes the following topics:

• EVP and brand and attraction techniques
• Competency based Interviewing techniques.
• Question types & in-depth probing techniques
• Best practice interview structure
• Preparation & competency questions for the interview session
• Candidate evaluation
• Diversity and inclusion in recruitment
• Your Recruitment Strategy

Remember, we can also tailor the program to include your policy and process steps, organisational values and behaviours as well as key messages for managers.

For more information or to discuss tailoring the course please contact us today.

We also run public courses in Melbourne and Sydney – you can register your interest in a forthcoming course by dropping us an email to rachel@hillconsulting.com.au

First of all, let’s define what is and what is not a Recruitment Strategy?

When we talk about a Recruitment Strategy, we are not describing a Recruitment Campaign. A recruitment campaign is something you do for a specific job. Yes, you need a plan and a “strategy” to market, but this is a campaign plan and not your organisation's “Recruitment Strategy”. Also, you may have a strategy for bulk recruitment – like your Graduate Recruitment Strategy – but again that’s not what we're talking about here. That again is just a plan for a specific vacancy.

It’s what you want to do with Recruitment as a function.

Your Recruitment Strategy is your bigger bolder statement and view of the Recruitment function. It should fit on one page, but with plenty of detail behind it. It’s what you want to do with Recruitment as a function. The capability of the staff in the function and your channels to market. For example - Is TA centralised or decentralise? Do you have a TA team and function or is it run by HRBP’s in the divisions, or do you even outsource to an RPO? It involves questions such as what’s your EVP Messages and Employer Branding? Your target costs, time to hire, TA headcount? Map out your candidate touch points, process steps and your Candidate Care ethos (high touch or low touch)? Do you have a budget? What HR Tech stack do you have, or do you need? What are your volumes to hire e.g. Blue-collar roles v white collar vacancies etc. etc.

A Recruitment Strategy can be a lot of things.

It’s your bigger plan and should always link back to your business strategy, growth plans and profitability and cultural and values drivers of the organisation. Fundamentally does it support your bottom line? Or solve problems such as high turnover or previous poor hiring decisions.

Your Three Main Problems:

What are your three biggest challenges for your current recruitment function? We often see these with our clients as:

1. Attraction
2. Process Flow / Systems
3. Capability Uplift (TA Function and Hiring Managers).

A tip for your strategy development is that it should include the following five elements (or pillars as we call them), plus we can also deep dive and look at 16 different facets of your Recruitment model….

First the Strategy Five Pillars:

1. Attraction - Employer Branding & Marketing
2. Process mapping / Steps and Candidate Experience
3. Technology enablement – TA tech stack and gaps
4. Operational Model – Transformation required
5. Data and Analytics – reporting capabilities / KPI’s

Within these five pillars we also recommend sub reviews, so we can Red, Amber, Green key functionality and experiences (or RAG them). We have 16 key Recruitment Performance Drivers that you can traffic light with your HR team.

Then, we also Recommend a “Recruitment Audit”

What’s that?
This is where you look at all these pillars and performance drivers and do a deep dive into data. This might include extracts from payroll on turnover, or Finance on supplier spend, or data on aging workforce etc. This might also include some staff and management surveys. Or what we call VOC – Voice of Customers. Try asking your Hiring Managers, HR team, Candidates and Senior Executives what they think of the recruitment function. They will tell you. This qualitative and quantitively rich date is excellent for building the business case for change.

This is what Hill Consulting HRS do for our clients. We come in and audit, build out a strategy plan / paper (what’s needed) and then help write the business case for change (with financials and costings) for the Executive team or Board.

Why have an External Partner Come in and Help?

We feel lots of people are scared of us coming in and having a look under the covers. However, we are not there to criticise but to help partner HR with change. Ideally getting the business case up for funding of more heads in TA, a centralised function or new HR tech platforms implemented. We can see many benefits to getting in an external “audit” partner in, who understands TA (no not an accounting firm!)

1. HRD, HR and TA teams often don’t have the time to undertake a review
2. It’s good to get an independent view of your practices
3. We help create the business case for change including the $$
4. We are not a vendor (but neutral independent advisors) so not trying ti sell you on one particular system or process.
5. It’s good to get an external view and a comparison on what others are doing in the marketplace
6. It’s good to get specialist skills in who can run the surveys and do the number crunching as well. Or offer ROI calculators or write up three options / scenarios and costings for change.
7. A partner that helps get the work done and delivered usually with a 6-to-8-week period.
8. Helps sell the need for change internally with Stakeholders – who feel a “proper review” has been undertaken.
9. It allows for full costing on what your Recruitment function working (or not working) can be costing the organisation in terms of empty seats or staff turnover.
10. Finally, and ironically often the powers that be (e.g. a Board) listen to an external provider more than their internal folk. Seeing it as an independent, neutral view.

It’s amazing when costed out it often runs into the millions of dollars of unseen costs from poor recruitment practices, opportunity costs, and poor hires. Which can also be used as the argument for change.

In Summary - How to do a Recruitment Strategy in your Organisation?

So, in summary your Recruitment strategy is your business case for change. Your strategy that will tell you if you have enough people in TA and the right systems in place, the right team and capabilities and the right KPI measures to track performance etc. It’s your two-year road map for change and enables HR to get the right budget and or tech buy in to implement significant improvements. It also allows HR shine and to be seen as strategic partner with the business in adding value to the bigger business operations, strategy and bottom line (costings).

Get in touch today.

Many organisations think they’ve got diversity and inclusion covered in their hiring mix – but when we scratch the surface really, they are just looking at key obvious diversity metrics such as gender and age.

Diversity Is More Than Gender and Age

When we consider that all States and Territories in Australia have Antidiscrimination Acts with a range of 19 to 22 different attributes upon which discrimination can occur – do we really have everything covered?

Inclusion Matters as Much as Hiring

Plus, when our new candidates arrive – are they “allowed” to bring their whole selves to work? By that I mean we may have diversity in hiring, but do we have the inclusion part mastered?

I would argue that there are lots of different types of diversity we need to consider – not just gender. With up to five generations in the workforce we need to think about age more often. But also consider diversity such as those with neurodiversity or different sexual orientation, family status and carer responsibilities.

When Workplaces Fall Short on Inclusion

I’ve heard and seen many a story of women being recruited to address a gender imbalance only to land in a very male dominated workplace or “lad culture” where they’ve really had a terrible experience.

The same might be true for Aboriginal people where the workplace is just not a culturally safe space for them to be.

Its like buying a plant and then not giving it any light, water or soil to allow it to flourish. And wondering why it hasn’t grown! Or worse still spraying it with poison and wondering why it doesn’t like its new environment?

Good Intentions Aren’t Enough

Most organisations truly want a diverse workforce, to be inclusive and to reflect the communities they serve. And are very genuine in this intent. However unfortunately have not really given this the level and depth of thinking it deserves. Three of the big mistakes I see is that:

1. They haven’t considered all the barriers to hire (for diverse groups).
2. They haven’t trained or educated their hiring managers (doing most of the interviewing) what to watch out for, questions not to ask, or unrealistic expectations (think flex in your working practices to attract and accommodate certain groups).
3. They have not reviewed their workplaces for aspects such as gender friendly, carer friendly, neurodiverse or disability accessibility and accommodation etc

A Practical Approach to Inclusive Hiring

One model or solution would be to take each group (yes, over 22 attributes – and possibly more) individually and consider the barriers to hire for each.

Ask yourself:

• Are we attracting people in this group?
• What’s stopping them from applying or getting through our process?
• Is it bias (or unconscious bias), or the process itself?
• And when they arrive, is it a supportive and friendly environment?

Allowing them to flourish. If not, why not?

Top tip: go ask them (diverse groups, their allies and representatives).

Want Help with Inclusive Hiring?

If you’d like to know more on this subject, we train it on our Recruitment Skills courses including unconscious bias in recruitment practices and I’m happy to share some of the exercises and deeper thinking we do to enable clients to thrive in the diversity space.

Get in touch today.