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Episode 133 Should you endorse a candidate or just refer them?
22 Plays1 hour ago
Episode 133 Should you endorse a candidate or just refer them?
Plus news on latest unemployment figures, APSCO Awards winners and a but about why they won. Results from some of the big agencies that are indicators for the rest of the sector and a study that show AI is preferred by most candidates in the interview process.
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Transcript
Understanding Wingman's Role
00:00:08
Speaker
R&A has a new sponsor, Adele, Wingman Recruitment. Wait, why is there a recruitment agency sponsoring our podcast, Ross? They're not a recruitment agency, Adele. They're an offshoring partner for recruiters. The founders of People and Wingman Group have joined forces to help agencies grow by outsourcing all the time-consuming stuff, admin compliance, sourcing, even lead generation.
00:00:32
Speaker
Ah, so a bit like virtual assistants. Right. Way more than that, actually. They're called remote professionals, capable offshore staff who are trained in Australian recruitment practices and can add real value to the core functions of your business.
00:00:44
Speaker
That sounds great. How do we find out more about Wingman? Check out wingmangroup.com.au and click on the services tab to find out more. And this is the news for the 21st of October 2025. I'm Adele Last.
Australia's Unemployment Trends
00:01:00
Speaker
And I'm Ross Klenitz and we start with Australia's unemployment rate. It's jumped to 4.5% in September, up from 4.3% in August in seasonally adjusted terms, according to the latest labour market update released last week from the ABS.
00:01:15
Speaker
There's been some time since an increase, right Ross? That's right, Adil. Last September, the unemployment rate was 4%. It dropped down to 3.9% last November, back to 4% in December.
00:01:27
Speaker
And since then, it's steadily climbed and we're now at the highest unemployment rate since November 2021. And just to give that some context in terms of actual jobs, we see that over the first nine months of this calendar year, employment has risen nationally by 116,000.
00:01:47
Speaker
However, the same period last year, total employment was up by 323,000.
00:01:54
Speaker
almost three times as many jobs in the first nine months of last year compared to compared to this year. On a state and territory basis, Victoria has the highest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 4.7% and the lowest all at 4.2% Queensland, the ACT and the Northern Territory.
00:02:15
Speaker
And I believe there was a quote from Anders Magnusson, the BDO chief economist. He said that despite the jump in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in September, Australia's labour market was only cooling, not collapsing, adding he did not think the ah RBA would cut rates in November.
00:02:32
Speaker
Well, we'll have to wait for Melbourne Cup Day to find out. The good news, and there was good news, was that the internet vacancy index for September reported a rise in job ads.
Labour Market Observations and APSCO Updates
00:02:45
Speaker
of 2.3%, which is good news and it also reinforces the SEEK job ad data. Last week, I attended the APSCO Gala Awards dinner in Sydney at the amazing Dalton House on Darling Harbour.
00:03:00
Speaker
I wasn't able to make it, so you were representing ah RNA by yourself, so tell me how'd it go Well, this year's APSCO Awards introduced a new judging format where the judges interviewed finalists directly.
00:03:12
Speaker
I think it was a change that seemed to be well received by everybody involved. I'll tell you a bit more about that in a moment, but let's run through the winners. Okay. Well, reading off the APSCO website, Back Office Team of the Year, Talent International.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yes, I spoke to the Megan and she said that she loved the new judging format, found it very engaging. She actually made a comment of saying that she didn't like the title of this award being called Back Office.
00:03:38
Speaker
She said they're very much the front office in their organisation. Okay. Best brand, Lotus People. Candidate experience, Tradewind Australia.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yes, I spoke to Tradewind after their win and they loved the ju judging format because they felt they were able to bring more emotion to their response. It wasn't just a written document. And their program was pretty innovative in relation to the candidate experience. They work in the education space and they have prioritised professional growth of their contractors and casuals.
00:04:11
Speaker
They run a whole range of career development programs and even a mentoring program for the teaching staff. Fantastic. Client service, Preactor.
00:04:22
Speaker
Employer of the Year, Six Degrees Executive. Environmental Social Governance, ESG. Kaleo Resourcing. MSP of the Year, Guidant Global.
00:04:35
Speaker
ah RPO of the Year, Solve by Talent. Specialist Firm of the Year, The Network. They were an interesting group, small business that started in generalist IT recruitment and have ended up specialising in defence IT
Industry Highlights and Awards
00:04:50
Speaker
recruitment.
00:04:50
Speaker
So some of the, you know, most highly paid and very secret um cyber and, you know, it t security personnel, these guys are recruiting. Wow.
00:05:02
Speaker
Okay. Technology and innovation winners, Zed Staffing. I spoke to Zed Staffing and they have their own IT solution, quite a commitment to build their own tech solution.
00:05:15
Speaker
They really liked the interactive nature and real-time kind of response to the new judging format. Okay, great. And finally, Partner of the Year, Bullhorn.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, this one surprised me because Bullhorn were sponsors of the event. ah They then also won the Partner of the Year. I don't know, seemed a bit strange. I think it's voted on by the members.
00:05:39
Speaker
Oh, okay. All right. Well, they've obviously got a lot of members and fans within that APSCO network community, so that's good to hear from Bullhorn. and ah There was also another award which was called the Leaders' Acknowledgement. It wasn't actually awarded to one person, but it was a means of being able to acknowledge some of the key leaders in our industry and some of the fantastic things that they're doing.
00:06:01
Speaker
And it was run as a series of videos that were edited together where they'd asked the leaders questions about their leadership style and some of the challenges that they face as leaders in our industry.
00:06:11
Speaker
And it was edited well. It was, you know, we watched this video of a range of different leaders, but I felt like it was a really good uplifting movement to see some of, i guess, you know, the future of the industry, you know, at their best.
00:06:24
Speaker
Great. And awards season continues with the winners of the SEEK SARA Awards announced next month in Sydney. Moving on to recruitment industry company results.
00:06:38
Speaker
Again, not great results. So the latest quarter three results, so September quarter, Page Group reported a 6.7% global year-on-year decline in gross profit, with its Australian business down 12%, noting that New South Wales was a particularly difficult market. Robert Walters saw an even steeper drop, 12% in net fee income, although it did say there was a slight quarter-on-quarter improvement in both Australia and New Zealand. Both firms highlighting continued caution as delays in hiring decisions and candidate hesitancy impacted fuel rates.
00:07:19
Speaker
Both firms reduced global headcount on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Page Group down 2.3%. Robert Walters reduced headcount by 3%. Slight good news, Manpower Group reported its first global revenue increase in nearly three years, up 1%.
00:07:38
Speaker
although gross profit still fell. Its APAC Middle East region saw revenue drop 8%, with specific figures for Australia not disclosed. For the first time, we now have evidence that AI, when designed responsibly, brings humanity back to hiring.
00:07:55
Speaker
This is what every recruiter wants to hear. Adele, tell us more. Sapir.ai has released the Humanising Hiring Report. the largest analysis ever conducted into candidate experience with AI interviews.
00:08:08
Speaker
The study draws on more than 1 million interviews and 11 million words of candidate feedback across more than 30 countries. I'm looking at the findings, which are startling and not what I would have expected.
00:08:21
Speaker
Let's start with candidate satisfaction. So this is across all groups and industries. Out of 10, the average score, 9.05. nine point zero five That's astonishing. 82% of candidates left written feedback.
00:08:36
Speaker
That is ah level of engagement that is unprecedented. Eight in 10 candidates would recommend an employer just because of the interview. 30% more women apply when told AI will assess them, resulting in a 36% closure of the gender gap. 98% hiring equity for people with disabilities through a blind, untimed, mobile-first interview design.
00:09:02
Speaker
The four features of the sapia.ai's chat interview that made the biggest difference to the candidate experience were that every candidate gets the same structured role-relevant questions,
00:09:14
Speaker
Interviews are untimed so candidates can answer at their own pace. Bias is monitored closely and every candidate receives personalised feedback. The research challenges the perception that AI dehumanises the hiring process. In fact, it proves the opposite.
00:09:31
Speaker
When thoughtfully designed, AI clearly helps interview integrity by allowing candidates as much time as they chose to share their story and then providing timely feedback. Well, to me, this result challenges the long-held notion by recruiters that the human experience is what candidates prefer in a hiring process.
00:09:53
Speaker
Now we've got clear evidence that what candidates value most highly is a fair and timely interview experience, the type of experience that human recruiters as a whole seem to have been largely unable to consistently provide.
00:10:10
Speaker
Well, think that's a bit harsh, Ross, to say that human recruiters aren't able to provide that consistently. I think this is showing that candidates definitely see the AI as providing a fair and equitable kind of playing field.
00:10:25
Speaker
Well, I think we can both agree that it's saying human recruiters, you better lift your game. Stay tuned now for question of the week.
00:10:44
Speaker
Question of the week, should you endorse a candidate or just refer them?
Recruitment Practices and Endorsements
00:10:50
Speaker
I think I know where this one comes from, Ross. We were recently at the RCSA VicTAS Council Consultant Forum and we had a number of sessions on that day. One of them involved Jeff Slade, who was the founder of the Slade Group and one of probably, ah arguably, Australia's most successful recruitment agency owners. He's run and sold several recruitment agency businesses over the years. In fact, he's been in the industry for longer than many of us have actually even been alive, in fact.
00:11:21
Speaker
That's And he was on the panel and telling his ah story and his advice around, you know, how to do well in recruitment in today's market. And one of the things he mentioned was the fact that he would endorse a candidate. He would actually make a recommendation to his clients that about a particular candidate, not just be referring resumes over.
00:11:44
Speaker
And this was endorsed further by the panel, which occurred in the next session. So Robbie and Mel, who were the client representatives, they said what they valued in a recruiter was a recruiter who was prepared to provide insight about a candidate or candidates. The reason for the recommendation and that to me when I'm sitting there listening, thinking, well, isn't everyone doing that? But clearly they're not.
00:12:11
Speaker
And it also spoke to this need to have really good understanding of your candidates and that ability to kind of endorse, represent them, have insight and knowledge about the candidate that is unlike just a straight referral.
00:12:27
Speaker
And mean, this is how I was trained when I began my recruitment career. I started in London. And back in the last century, we were trained as permanent recruiters to book an interview with the client over the phone.
00:12:46
Speaker
To send a resume was definitely the least effective way to book an interview. And then when I returned to Australia, it was the same. Even though I was a temp recruiter, I was trained to effectively tell the client in the conversation who was going to turn up as their temp employee the next day.
00:13:10
Speaker
And would you like them there at 8.30 or 9 o'clock? that That was the way that I was trained. Now, of course, it wasn't ah successful every single time, but most of the time it was successful. And we just seem to have drifted so far away from that in today's recruitment landscape.
00:13:28
Speaker
I would agree. I think potentially in the temple contract market, that's perhaps... more common where a client will be under pressure and say, i just need you to send somebody and we have more opportunity to do that.
00:13:39
Speaker
But I've not seen that in permanent recruitment for a long time. I think that it has changed over time and I've got a similar story to when I worked at Horner. We seem to have had a very low conversion rate in our PERM recruitment desks.
00:13:56
Speaker
Essentially, we had jobs coming in we were referring candidates for jobs And ah we were having a low conversion of the client interviewing. And then subsequently, obviously, that affects your ability to place the job.
00:14:07
Speaker
So we just changed this one thing at that business when I was there. And that was that the perm recruiters had to deliver the shortlist to the client in person.
00:14:19
Speaker
One change, that's it. Every single shortlist they created, as many people were on it, one person, three people, whatever, however many candidates you had, you had to take that to the client. So you had to get a meeting with the client.
00:14:30
Speaker
take it to them in person or at least sit down. You know, in today's market, if you couldn't go to their office, you'd sit down and have a video meeting with them where you actually presented the shortlist live. And that one small change increased our conversion to 100%.
00:14:47
Speaker
We went from very low. We were something like 20% conversion and we went to well over 90%, meaning that for the shortlist we're presenting, I'm presenting you three candidates. I'm getting three interviews for those candidates.
00:15:00
Speaker
You're taking my recommendation as an endorsement and my knowledge about the candidate in live time, what I can say about the candidate, as far more powerful than what I could write or just flicking the resume over.
00:15:14
Speaker
So – Did that mean that there was more pressure on the consultant to know more about each of the candidates? Because clearly in a face-to-face meeting, they're going to get questions in the moment from the client about the candidate that they'll be expected to answer.
00:15:31
Speaker
Absolutely. They had to know the candidate really well. and And interestingly, they did. They knew the candidates well. They were doing good quality interviews. They were just not putting all of that information down into the referral. So,
00:15:44
Speaker
By going and doing that in person, they were able to put forward a lot more information and as you said, counteract any objections or concerns the client had in real time to say, oh, well, actually, I asked that in the interview. Let me explain that a little further.
00:15:57
Speaker
So it was a really powerful way to change, you know, that particular relationship um process with the client, ah create a more endorsed environment and, as I said, increase our conversions, which obviously then helped us make more permanent placements and we certainly saw an uptick.
00:16:14
Speaker
in the results of permanent revenue that that following year after we'd done that. So I'd imagine that that also meant with that face-to-face meeting that interviews occurred much more closely to when the presentation of the shortlist was made compared to just attaching resumes and sending over an email because in the meeting, the client is then agreeing to meet or not meet, but at least there was an agreement about who's being interviewed and when.
00:16:46
Speaker
And so I'd imagine that shortened the timeline in terms of getting the job filled. Oh, yeah. Well, you had, you walked out of that meeting with, clopped you know, times to book the candidates in immediately. And, you know, obviously that helped increase ah conversion and kept the process moving for sure.
00:17:03
Speaker
But i I wonder how we got lost. Like, how did we get from the place where you're saying where you were trained? And as I said, and and this example I gave was probably, maybe 10 years ago now.
00:17:14
Speaker
ah How do we get to the point now where we're seeing candidates being flicked over, referred over, ai summaries, yeah How do we get to this spot, Ross?
00:17:25
Speaker
Well, I would point to the rise of ah HR and internal recruitment. In my heyday as a recruiter, I was rarely talking to ah HR or internal recruitment. i ah I was almost always talking to the hiring manager, which meant that in the conversation, the hiring manager asked me questions that she or he needed to know about the candidate with me having presented the candidate.
00:17:50
Speaker
And my belief was it was my job to recommend. That's the way I was trained. the The client I was trained was to be thought of as someone who was well-meaning but largely ignorant about the market.
00:18:09
Speaker
And so my role was to educate them about the market, to educate them about the suitability of the candidate, to present a strong recommendation. Now, in today's environment, does ah HR or internal recruitment have any interest in the endorsement of the recruiter? Because they're simply going to just refer the details of the candidates over to the hiring manager.
00:18:33
Speaker
i mean, are they going to communicate any of that endorsement? I mean, I I doubt it. So I think recruiters have probably just kind of got a bit resigned and sin cynical and gone, well, what's the point?
00:18:46
Speaker
It doesn't seem to make any difference. I still think there's ways to cut through that and recruiters need to get back to consulting. you know The job is called recruitment consultant. There's a reason that word is there. It's not called recruitment processor or you know operator or something where you're just processing information.
00:19:05
Speaker
We are consultants and that's what I guess, We've lost. That's what Jeff was alluding to, that people back in the day were prepared to put their butt on the line. You know, there was risk involved in that. You say to a client, this candidate's the best one for the job, you better know what you're talking about.
00:19:23
Speaker
Because the the best recruiters in an interview uncover information that the resume does not communicate or communicates in a very ineffective way.
00:19:36
Speaker
And as we know it's that critical um below the waterline information, the assessment of the candidates, communication skills, their level of commitment to high standards, their coachability,
00:19:53
Speaker
The genuine motivation for this role compared to another role, they're the sorts of things in a conversation you can communicate, I think, in a much more effective way than just simply words on a page.
00:20:06
Speaker
And the consultant is looking for the human involvement in that, in you having an opinion around it. Because I think what a lot of people are now doing is taking their interview summary and chucking it into ChatGPT or using some sort of AI tool to write a summary, what the what the client's getting is AI's endorsement. AI is actually making the recommendation, the consultant's going, okay, that sounds good, I'll send it off.
00:20:32
Speaker
But what your client wants from you is your opinion. You are a market expert. How does this candidate compare to the hundreds of others you've seen of a similar type of level or you know salary expectation or qualification? Exactly.
00:20:46
Speaker
That's what the client wants from you and we've forgotten to do that bit. That's right. When you're endorsing a candidate, what you should be doing is firstly demonstrating how you've discovered that the candidate is a very good match to the client selection criteria And then secondly, why this candidate or these shortlisted candidates are better than all of the others.
00:21:09
Speaker
And if you can do those two things powerfully, then frankly, your hit rate for your ah recommendations of candidates should be very high. Like you should be getting certainly north of 80%, heading towards 90 or 100%.
00:21:24
Speaker
So, Mr Slade, we agree with you. Should you endorse a candidate or just refer them? We're going to say definitely get out of the comfort zone. You know, don't worry about the risk involved and go back to being a consultant.
00:21:38
Speaker
That's right. Put your reputation on the line. You're not going to find your client agreeing with you every time, but I promise you they will certainly respect you for taking a stand.
00:21:59
Speaker
That was Recruitment News Australia. Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying the podcast, please share it with a friend in the industry. You can do that via our website at recruitmentnewsaustralia.com.au or via LinkedIn or wherever you download your podcasts.