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Episode 105 - How can recruiters build credibility in their market?
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Episode 105 - How can recruiters build credibility in their market?
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Transcript
AI in Recruitment
00:00:08
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AI is the buzzword of this decade. Bullhorn is embedding AI capabilities across the entire recruitment lifecycle to empower all your recruiters to work like your best recruiters.
00:00:20
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00:00:34
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Visit bullhorn.com to find out more.
Tax Deductions for Remote Work
00:00:39
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This is the news for the 15th of April 2025. I'm Adele Last. Taxpayers could claim an instant $1,000 tax deduction for working from home expenses under a re-elected Labor government, according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
00:00:55
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In a significant pre-election sweetener, the Prime Minister on Sunday pledged to reform income tax deductions for minor working from home expenses for 2026-2027 year. twenty twenty seven tax year Taxpayers won't need to collect receipts for expenses under the $1,000 threshold, said Albanese and Jim Chalmers in a joint statement.
00:01:16
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Current taxpayers can claim $300 in working from home expenses without receipts, so long as they can prove how they spent that money and how they calculated the claim. Labor estimates the policy will cover 5.7 million taxpayers claiming less than that in deductions each year, with an average tax benefit of $205 per person.
00:01:35
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Albanese and Chalmers claim the policy would save taxpayers around $200 million dollars annually in administrative and record-keeping costs alone.
RCSA Industry Awards
00:01:44
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The Australian finalists for the 2025 Industry Awards were announced by the RCSA last Thursday.
00:01:50
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The finalists are Excellence in Business Innovation, DNA Recruitment Solutions, Mercury and Pipeline Talent. Excellence in Candidate Care, Horner Recruitment, TruCoup, People-to-People Recruitment. and Excellence in client service. The finalists are Beaumont People, TruCoup, People2People Recruitment.
00:02:10
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Excellence in DEI and Belonging, Launch, Persol Kelly and Vertical Scope Group. Excellence in safety and wellbeing culture, Janna McLeod, DFP Recruitment and Synergy Group.
00:02:22
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Excellence in social purpose, Launch, Med Recruit. Australian Barnardos Recruitment Services were the finalists. Outstanding Boutique Agency, Elias Recruitment, Limelight People, Woodford Group.
00:02:36
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Outstanding Medium Agency, CBC Staff Selection, Horizon One, Horner Recruitment. Outstanding Large Agency, Fuse Recruitment, Programmed, People-to-People Recruitment.
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The finalists for Recruitment Professional, Laura Fraser from Fraser Trimble, Michael Jones, Michael Jones Recruitment Training, Peyton Buffington from Consentus.
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Rising Star finalists, Alma Rahim from Beaumont People, Anna Jadadji, Zeep Medical and Chelsea Farrar from People Fusion.
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Recruitment Leader of the Year finalists Andy Badston from Horizon One, Danielle Johnson Sirius and David Jam from Vertical Scope Group.
Job Vacancy Trends
00:03:21
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The winners will be announced at the RCSA Gala Ball on the 22nd of May in Sydney. The total number of job vacancies in February was 328,900.
00:03:34
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a decline of 4.5% from the November 2024 result, according to seasonally adjusted data released by the ABS earlier in the month. Compared to February 2024, vacancies declined vacancies are down from the post-COVID peak of May but still forty five percent higher than they were compared to february twenty twenty just before the first pandemic lockdowns Sean Crick, ABS Head of Labor Statistics, said the drop in the number of job vacancies reversed the recent rise of 17,000 vacancies in the three months to November 2024.
00:04:12
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As a result, there was a similar number of vacancies to what there had been in August. Compared with a year ago, job vacancies fell in 11 industries, with the largest drops in construction down 34% and education and training down 26%.
00:04:27
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The strongest percentage growth in job vacancies over the year was in rental, hiring and real estate services, up 13%.
Young Workers and Hybrid Work
00:04:35
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New research by business improvement company BSI has found that hybrid work is here to stay, with young workers ready to find a new job if they're forced back to the office every day.
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The 2025 Global Workforce Entrance Study is based on a survey of 4,700 new workforce entrants worldwide, including 417 early career workers in Australia.
00:04:55
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Just under 40% of respondents said they would quit their current role if they were forced to return to the office full time. Working from home and general workplace rights have played a prominent role in the federal election campaign so far, with opposition leader Peter Dutton last week back flipping on his plan to force public servants back to the office if the coalition wins the May election.
00:05:15
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Of the young Australian workers surveyed, over a third preferred hybrid work with less than 20% wanting to work fully remotely. For young workers, work-life balance is now the number one priority with 63% listing it as their top requirement in a job, followed by job stability, then financial incentives.
00:05:33
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A significant reason for wanting hybrid work amongst this cohort was to save time and money, with just under half of respondents noting they lived more than an hour away from their office and saying they can save money by not commuting.
AI in Legal Productivity
00:05:47
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A research paper released two months ago by academics at the Minnesota Law School demonstrates AI assistance significantly boosted productivity in five out of six tested legal tasks.
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The researchers conducted a randomised controlled trial assigning upper-level law students to complete six legal tasks. The first group used a retrieval augmented generation RAG-powered legal AI tool called Vincent ai The second group used an AI reasoning model from OpenAI and the last group, no AI at all.
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Vincent AI yielded statistically significant gains of approximately 38% 115%.
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And the OpenAI model increased productivity by between 34% and 140%, with powerful effects in complex tasks like drafting persuasive letters and analysing complaints.
00:06:41
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Notably, the OpenAI model improved the analytical depths of participants' work product, but resulted in some hallucinations. In contrast, VincentAI aided participants produced roughly the same amount of hallucinations as participants who did not use AI at all.
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The researchers concluded that integrating domain-specific RAG capabilities with reasoning models could yield substantial productivity improvements, shaping the next generation of AI-powered legal tools and the future of legal work more generally.
Recruitment Industry Challenges
00:07:13
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Page Group announced that Group Gross Profit declined by 9.2% to ยฃ194.2 million on a constant currency in Q1 2025. Permanent fees dropped 9.9% and Temp and Contract net margin was down 7.1%.
00:07:25
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permanent fees dropped nine point nine percent and temper contract net margin was down seven point one percent While first quarter trading was in line with expectations, the company said continued subdued levels of client and candidate confidence impacted decision making.
00:07:39
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Although salary levels remained high, offers made to candidates were not as elevated as they were in 2022 and early 2023. And consequently, the conversion of interviews to accepted offers remained the most significant challenge, the company statement added.
00:07:53
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In line with these conditions, group fee earner headcount declined by 74 the quarter, to ยฃ5,296, mainly in Europe. In Asia-Pacific, first quarter 2025 gross profit for the quarter ending 31 March was down 11.1% against 2024 to million, with Page Group Australia posting a 14% year-on-year decline.
00:08:18
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Looking ahead, the company said the outlook for fiscal 2025 uncertain. is uncertain A senior manager at a New York-based workers' association has reportedly been dismissed after a negative employee review on Glassdoor was linked to the organisation's inability to fill a junior vacancy.
00:08:37
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The development follows the resurfacing of an August 2024 review posted by a former executive assistant who criticised the company's leadership, working environment and communication practices in detail.
00:08:49
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The review allegedly contributed to candidates withdrawing during the interview process, ultimately prompting the board to take action against the manager named in the complaint. In a recent social media post, the former employee claimed the review had made it impossible for the company to replace them since their departure last year.
00:09:06
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The board intervened and fired my manager because people were bringing up points from my review in interviews, they wrote. The review in question rated the organisation two out of five stars and advised others not to accept the same role.
00:09:19
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The review contained no positive feedback and accused management of micromanagement without providing actionable guidance or support. Microsoft has fired two employees who interrupted its 50th anniversary event on Friday the 4th of April with protests against the technology giant supplying ai systems to the Israeli military, according to an activist group associated with the workers.
00:09:42
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One of the fired workers asserted all of Microsoft had blood on its hands and threw a kafaya headdress, a symbol of support for Palestinian people, onto the stage before being removed from the event.
00:09:53
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Following their protests, both workers sent emails explaining their actions to thousands of Microsoft employees and executives. Microsoft is yet to comment publicly on reports of the dismissals, although in a statement released just after the alleged firings, it said it had provided many avenues for all voices to be heard.
00:10:11
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American tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon and OpenAI, have faced ongoing criticism over contracts with the Israeli government.
Fake Recruitment Offers Warning
00:10:22
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Recruit Group, owner of local brands Chandler McLeod and People Bank, reported it had learned of scam recruitment offers being made in its name via Facebook and WhatsApp.
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The warning from Recruit comes as officials point to a surge in online scams. Recruit Group and its parent company, Recruit Holdings, are not affiliated with these counterfeit job offers or the sender of these messages, the company said in an announcement on April 10.
00:10:46
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We urge you to exercise caution if you receive any outsourcing offers purportedly from our company. The announcement by Recruit comes the same day as California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a warning on recruitment scams.
00:10:59
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Bonta's office cited Federal Trade Commission data that recruitment scams nearly tripled between 2020 and 2024, with U.S. consumers losing over half a billion dollars in 2024.
00:11:11
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According to Bonta's office, scammers typically promise high-paying jobs with urgent hiring, little qualifications or the opportunity to work from home.
News Segment Conclusion
00:11:20
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And that's the news for the 15th of April, 2025. I'm Ross Klenit.
00:11:25
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Stay tuned for Question of the Week.
Building Internal Credibility
00:11:31
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um
00:11:37
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Question of the Week. What can recruiters do to build credibility in their market? Oh, I like to jump in on this one, Ross, because I think there are three key things to address in answer to this question. Okay. First one is internally within the agency in which you work is a really good place to start. You need to build credibility with your colleagues, the people around you that you work with every day.
00:12:05
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And some of that is that personal credibility element of being, you know, true to your word and being reliable, um being coachable, you know, listening to to what they're saying to you.
00:12:17
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ah picking things up quickly. You know, if somebody's taking some time to sit down and and impart some knowledge to you, you know, writing that down or making sure that you're retaining that information. That's the kind of stuff that people will respect you for and start to get to know you as somebody of, you know, a credible nature, somebody who is reliable.
00:12:36
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Sure. Well, I absolutely agree with that. It's got to start with other people in your immediate vicinity, immediate physical vicinity your or colleagues thinking that you're at least worthy of some respect from a ah behaviour point of view before you move on to expertise.
00:12:56
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Absolutely. And so, yeah ultimately, you know, ask questions definitely, but more importantly, shut up and listen would be my advice around that one. Ask the questions of your colleagues. The second element, I think, to ah to answer this is then the external.
Entering New Markets
00:13:11
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So looking at the actual market around you, looking at trying to improve your credibility, potentially in a new market. So if you are changing to a different agency in a different industry or you're looking at opening and expanding your industry, how do you build that credibility quickly? So what do you already know? you know Take a bit of ah a reconciliation of what you know about that industry or the market.
00:13:36
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ah Do some research and read, you know, increase your knowledge so that you're becoming more knowledgeable about the market. Reading as much as you can, subscribing to publications that are relevant to that industry is always a really good way to improve your knowledge.
00:13:52
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And connecting, I like to say to people, start with the association for that industry. So if you're going into legal recruitment, find out the relevant associations in your area, connect with the association and start there? Do they have a list of members? Do they have events that they're running? Are there things that you can become involved in so that you can start immersing yourself into that industry? You can start becoming one of them and start being seen and heard and um get to know people and and building your network in that external market with what will be your client base essentially. Yeah.
00:14:27
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Yep. No, I think the the sooner you do that, the better.
Learning Industry Jargon
00:14:31
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And then the third one, I think, is about looking internally at yourself and how you're going to do this and improving your own, i guess, um knowledge and and learning and educating yourself about the industry. So, in any industry, there's always going to be jargon and acronyms and, and you know, things that you need to know and understand. so You want to sit down with relevant people, maybe that's internally or externally, and ask for you know the answers to those and write those down and keep them recorded until you've learnt them. What are the acronyms and the jargon for the industry that you're working in?
00:15:08
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Who are the major competitors that you have in that space? Who are the major players? What kind of ranking or tiering system is there within the industry? Are there tier one players, both um as clients and particularly as agencies supporting supporting those clients as well.
00:15:24
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So understanding your market and your competitors is really key and trying to build your own external um vision of credibility. Obviously, we use LinkedIn quite a bit for that.
00:15:37
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And so you want to look at ways you can strategize on LinkedIn to position yourself as a key expert. So that would be things like trying to gain recommendations. And you can do that in a reasonably short period of time, even if you've only been in the industry for a short while, you can ask clients and candidates for recommendations and that will certainly help to show people that you've worked with others in that space.
00:16:02
Speaker
You can also look for posting ah expert information and articles. Now, you don't need to write those articles. What I recommend when you're starting out is find other voices, other people who are experts in that space and repost their articles with a bit of your own commentary.
00:16:18
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And that starts to sort of sit you lot alongside and align you to ah experts in the space and start positioning you as an expert as well. Yeah, certainly i think LinkedIn recommendations is an area that's vastly underutilised.
Enhancing LinkedIn Profiles
00:16:34
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i mean, when I'm training people, I say when candidates or clients say nice things about you, thank them and then ask them if they wouldn't mind putting that in a LinkedIn recommendation.
00:16:48
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Pretty much everyone will say yes, about 40% of people will actually do it. But if you do that, then after six months, you should have at least six to eight recommendations. And in my experience, looking at a lot of recruiter LinkedIn profiles, I would say, i don't know, Adil, I guess what you reckon i would guess based on that viewing of LinkedIn profiles of recruiters would be the average number of recommendations that a recruiter would have. I don't think many people would have many at all, but, you know, one or two as a guess would be my guess. I reckon three would be my guess based on the average.
00:17:25
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And frankly, the number of recruiters that have more than 15 would probably be... less than 5%. And this is for very experienced recruiters as well.
00:17:38
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You know, it's the classic of ask and it's always better to ask when something nice has been said about you by a candidate or client. So I think that's, to me, ah a piece of low-hanging fruit.
00:17:49
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And just to circle back to one of your points about understanding the jargon, what I used to do was that I would tell a rookie recruiter, um I'm going to ask you questions about these and I might give them, say, 10 resumes that might be appropriate, say, for three different positions.
00:18:09
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And I'll say 10. study these resumes and know how to explain these resumes because in let's say by the end of the week I'm i'm going to spend 15 minutes with you and I'm going to ask you questions about these resumes that I'll expect you to answer and that gives them some real world connection between industry jargon and acronyms qualifications, those sorts of things that, frankly, they can find out by themselves. They don't really need to ask colleagues. There's obviously a huge amount they can gain just by tapping into internal agency resources or Google or chat GPT.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, actually, you're quite right. Obviously, yeah resources are at our fingertips now. I remember when I started in recruitment, ah we didn't have access to that such a long time ago. and a lot of the times we were interviewing candidates and ah finding that information out through the questioning with candidates at times. You know, you were asking the candidate, like explain that concept to me further or or can you elaborate on that that acronym you've used there?
00:19:12
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And that's how we actually learn things. So you don't have to do that anymore. Well, ah but frankly, i think that if a recruiter is in a interview and there is something they don't know and if they're a rookie I think it's perfectly fine to say to the candidate look I'm only relatively new in the space can you explain x or y 99% of candidates will be happy to show off their knowledge and explain that but if you're trying to bluff your way through that you know something about something you don't know something about I promise you the candidates will be able to tell 19 out of 20 times it's very that's very true
00:19:48
Speaker
So I think overarchingly kind of in summary to the question of how to build credor credibility, we've given you ah number of different avenues to kind of um pursue there.
Industry Dedication
00:19:58
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But I think it's about committing to the industry. This is another thing I see some people who are potentially new to any industry or changing industries. They sort of say, well, I don't know much about it or I'm not i'm not exactly sure if it's going to be where I'll stay long term.
00:20:12
Speaker
I say to people, commit to the industry while you're in it. You know, I myself have probably worked across I'd say four different key industries in recruitment in my career. And for each industry when I worked in it, that's the one I focused on. That was the the expert I was at the time I worked in that industry.
00:20:29
Speaker
Obviously moved on to a different one, you know, as I moved roles or, or you know, changed my career. But at the time when you're in the industry, commit, you know, to two feet in, um boots and all, so to speak. You know, don't be half and half because clients and candidates really sense that too.
00:20:44
Speaker
Completely. um Whatever job you're in, do that job to the best of your ability. If you're a rookie recruiter, even if you're not 100% sure that agency recruitment's the career for you, the best way to either prove yourself um that it might be or to give you a foundation for some other career turn is to do this job as well as possible.
Job Performance and Opportunities
00:21:06
Speaker
And that's, you know, frankly what My wife and I tell our youngest boy that he's working at Zombreros. Yeah, it's not the most exciting job in the world, but be reliable, show up on time, do good work, listen to your manager, be nice to customers, and that's a good foundation for learning how to get a better job.
00:21:27
Speaker
You don't know who's watching. You don't know where it leads. Absolutely. That is so right. And when you look at the the stories of how ah famous people have got their break in certain areas, it's often because they were you know relatively minor in some job that they got noticed. And that being good at that job was enough to get them an opportunity of something that was much, much better or turned out to be career-defining.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, make yourself discoverable. Oh, I like that phrase. Yes, make yourself discoverable. There you go. I love that, Adel. That's a ah great summary for ah this week's question of the week.