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RNA Episode 131 - Why do candidates rate agency recruiters so poorly for job fit matching?
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Episode 131
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Transcript
Introduction & New Sponsorship
00:00:09
Speaker
R&A has a new sponsor, Ross, Wingman Recruitment. Wait, why is the recruitment agency sponsoring our podcast, Adele? Well, they're not a recruitment agency, Ross. They're an offshoring partner for recruiters.
00:00:23
Speaker
The founders of H-People and the Wingman Group have joined forces to help agencies grow by outsourcing all the time-consuming stuff like admin, compliance, sourcing, even lead gen. So, like virtual assistants?
00:00:36
Speaker
Way more than that. They're called remote professionals, capable offshore staff who are trained in Australian recruitment practice and can add real value to the core functions of your business. Sounds great. How do I find out more about Wingman?
00:00:50
Speaker
Check out wingmanrecruitment.com.au and we'll be sharing more about Wingman as the new sponsors of RNA.
Mystery of Leo Jackson Executive Search
00:00:57
Speaker
Welcome to Recruitment News Australia. For the 7th of October 2025, I'm Adele Last.
00:01:03
Speaker
And I'm Ross Klenit. Adele, do you know who Leo Jackson is? He's Australia's newest recruiter, isn't he? Newest executive recruiter. Okay.
00:01:16
Speaker
Who is Leo Jackson? Well, Leo Jackson executive search is, in fact, Ephraim Stevenson, back in the recruitment business. His own recruitment agency yet again.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yet again. Absolutely. And do you know how I found out? Tell me. Well, I got a bit of a tip. Someone sent me a message going, oh, Leo Jackson, that seems to be Ephraim. And I'm like, oh, really?
00:01:42
Speaker
And he said, yes, click on the Contact Us page and see what comes up. And I'm like, so I clicked on the Contact Us and it's a pre-populated email and it's Ephraim at Ephraims.com.au. I did notice this business, a Leo Jackson executive search, liking a lot of posts that Ephraim had made. So now it kind of all makes sense.
00:02:04
Speaker
Well, it does. And of course, if you go and look at the Leo Jackson website like I did, you could not find a more bland, non-descriptive website in your entire life. No description about who's behind the business, although they talk about 50 years of executive search experience or recruitment experience and award-winning experience. They've got a list of values.
00:02:26
Speaker
Like everything's there except an identity of who the 50 years recruitment experience for refers to. What about the Meet the Team tab, Ross? Who's in there? There wasn't anyone in Meet the Team. And, of course, they invite you to drop in and see them. And you know the problem with that, Adele?
00:02:46
Speaker
There's no address. There's no physical address, so you can't actually drop in and see them. And you know when you click on the Leo Jackson LinkedIn page, you know what comes up when you click the people tab?
00:02:58
Speaker
What comes up? Nothing. There's not a single person attached to that company. Now, isn't that odd when a company sets up a LinkedIn page that there's no employees whatsoever attached to that business. I've never seen that before. Yeah, I think that's a pretty strange one. The whole thing's strange and Ephraim, we've become used to that. So this is attempt four, is it, for running a recruitment business? It is it is attempt four. i don't like his chances of succeeding, but hey, you've got to give him marks for confidence.
Australian Job Market Trends
00:03:31
Speaker
And moving on job vacancies in Australia dropped in the August quarter, led by a drop in private sector vacancies. Figures from the ABS late last month showed vacancies fell 2.7% in the three months to August, reversing gains made in the previous quarter.
00:03:47
Speaker
In the 12 months to August 2025, private sector vacancies sector vacancies jumped 7.4%. and public sector vacancies jumped seven point four per cent Combined, public and private sector vacancies have decreased overall by 1.5% for the year, Ross.
00:04:03
Speaker
It's only a mixed bag, Adele. Vacancies fell in 11 of the 18 industries covered by the ABS. What we saw was finance sector, probably not surprisingly, given some of the headlines recently, a 15% decline in vacancies over the past three months, although over the last year, only down 5.2%.
00:04:25
Speaker
Somewhat surprisingly, manufacturing is booming. Vacancies have risen 46% across the year, which is easily the largest of any sector. Accommodation food services, the second largest rise across the year at 20%.
00:04:39
Speaker
twenty percent Contrary to many recent claims about recent skill shortages in the sector, we've got construction vacancies dropping around 22.5% over the year to August and down about 12.5% in the three months.
00:04:56
Speaker
Mining, bit of a mixed picture over the year, up about 3%, although down about 14% the most recent quarter. Be interesting to note whether that's flying through to the recruitment agencies that support those specific sectors.
00:05:11
Speaker
The feedback that I'm getting would seem to suggest that, but it's such a mixed picture. Depends on which city you're in and which particular market within the sector. Very hard to generalise, Adele.
Candidate Satisfaction & AI in Recruitment
00:05:24
Speaker
Next, we have the results from Bullhorn's Talent Trends Report. This is a survey of 2,800 people. current or former candidates from staffing firms that was conducted in July across a range of countries, including North America and APAC.
00:05:44
Speaker
Headline result, candidate satisfaction is declining across all aspects of the recruitment process, dropping as much as 20% in key areas like speed and responsiveness. However, AI seems to be getting the big tick.
00:06:01
Speaker
Those that interacted with AI in their job search process, 77% rated it as positive, with 88% of candidates rating AI voice agents either as good as or better than human interview. This is very concerning, Adele.
00:06:24
Speaker
I did have a look at this report too, Ross, and it said nearly three quarters of respondents, which was 72%, stated they stopped working with a recruiter due to a lack of communication and slow responsiveness.
00:06:36
Speaker
According to the findings, AI in the recruitment process drives candidate loyalty up by as much as 45% with getting a response to every application being the top benefit that respondents listed.
00:06:49
Speaker
Very damning for our sector, unfortunately. Only 35% of respondents listed staffing firms as their go-to for their job search, which was down from last year. reckon this is a massive, massive, massive concern. chat GPT was only released not even three years ago. And look at how quickly candidates have turned against human recruiters. this is This is very concerning, until very concerning for our industry.
00:07:16
Speaker
Sounds like we might need some therapy about this, or else should we have a further conversation? i think let's just um circle back to this, Ian, question of the week.
Four-Day Work Week Trial in the UK
00:07:27
Speaker
Our next article is a big win for the four-day work week.
00:07:32
Speaker
Many people be aware that in the yeah UK, there's been a significant trial. a number of companies have participated in a two-year trial of a four-day work week for five days pay.
00:07:44
Speaker
And there's been a significant outcome for one of the organisations that participated. Actually citing recruitment agency costs were among one of the reasons why they're going to continue to make this a permanent arrangement.
00:07:59
Speaker
Tell us the details, Ross. Yeah, at South Cambridge, your Shire Council in the UK, the um Liberal Democrat leader, Bridget Smith, said the trial had been a success due to lower staff turnover and improved recruitment outcomes, saying the revolving door has stopped.
00:08:18
Speaker
We don't have to compete with higher private sector pay. They said, or she said, job applications had more than doubled and temp agency staff costs were down £400,000 per annum. So, they're very significant differences and I'm sure they were a significant factor in the council deciding to go ahead, although, of course, there was some criticism.
00:08:42
Speaker
It is interesting that they would cite the recruitment agency costs, but clearly, Those kind of results are quite significant to see that sort of saving when you're retaining your existing staff better, you're attracting more staff and you're essentially able to you know give everybody a bit of a pay boost without paying any more money because they're working less days and getting the same amount of money.
00:09:05
Speaker
I'd be fascinated whether there was a reduction in absenteeism because people were working four days and having three days off. And frankly, i'd also be fascinated to know, are there any parallels in Australia? I certainly haven't heard of anything similar in Australia at local government level.
00:09:25
Speaker
Adele, do you have any insights? I don't know of any other councils in Australia who have made this change, but I could imagine that they'll see this sort of example as a case study and be very interested to understand how they could save costs too.
00:09:39
Speaker
Well, certainly takes the pressure off having salaries needing to keep up with the private sector and then of course, and know the difficulty of continuing to replace people when they leave for more money elsewhere. So I think it's a real watch this space one.
Impact of Economic Issues on Redundancy Rates
00:09:57
Speaker
And the final item today is some concerning news from the Advertising Council of Australia. They've just pre-published some results from their upcoming 2025 survey, which shows redundancy rates have almost doubled to 11%, seems to be driven by economic uncertainty, technological disruption, particularly that produced by generative AI and changes in consumer behaviour. Most concerningly for a sector that already has a problem with the perception of ageism.
00:10:28
Speaker
It does seem to be senior staff that are being targeted. So what what about for other sectors? Do you think what's going on the in the creative sector, Adele, is really just the canary in the coal mine for other parts of the Australian workforce?
00:10:40
Speaker
Well, I did do a little bit more research on this, Ross, and it appears that could be the case. The creative and media sector is often an early responder to economic and technological shifts because they do rely heavily on innovation in that space.
00:10:53
Speaker
They are respondent to rapid shifts in consumer behaviour and they are impacted by budget volatility. So, think other recruitment firms in other sectors should watch for large-scale and senior-level redundancies, shifting budgets towards ai and freelance demand increasing, freelance contract temp demand increasing, and the greater prevalence of workforce strategy consulting.
00:11:20
Speaker
And that's the news for the 7th of October 2025.
Recruitment Challenges & Training Needs
00:11:23
Speaker
I'm Ross Klenit. um
00:11:29
Speaker
Question of the week. Why do candidates rate agency recruiters so poorly in assessing job fit? I think this comes from the news that we just reported on Ross with results from the Bullhorn Grid Talent Trends Report for 2025. that correct?
00:11:48
Speaker
Yes, that's right. The question, what went wrong for dissatisfied candidates? When they were dissatisfied with the recruitment process, what was it specifically? And um yeah, it was pretty revealing and frankly, I think pretty damning.
00:12:04
Speaker
The results are ah shown as a graph in the report and anyone can download this report. You just have to register your interest with Bullhorn and they'll send it to you But there was an outstanding number um on one particular item. So the question, as you said, was what went wrong for dissatisfied candidates?
00:12:21
Speaker
And by a very large margin at 56%, it was job fit. And specifically, it says the recruiter didn't understand my desires and objectives. The next closest reasons are kind of equal second and third, which is the application process took too long, the documentation was complicated, and there's too many steps or clicks.
00:12:42
Speaker
Those ones are probably no surprise to anybody. But that first one being such a big margin and being really at the core of what we do, Ross, as recruiters, is understanding the candidates' desires and objectives.
00:12:55
Speaker
and trying to make sure we're finding the right job that fits that. Precisely. And this is our biggest advantage as an agency recruiter, because when a candidate applies for a job where an internal recruiter is interviewing them, with all respect to internal recruiters, they're more interested in how the candidate fits for that particular job inside that particular organisation, because that's the only job they've got on offer.
00:13:21
Speaker
Whereas as an agency recruiter, we should hopefully have not just one job, but a range of jobs. And so this is a critical question that I just, I'm i'm literally dumbfounded that it's such, clearly, I mean, the candidates wouldn't be lying, that it's such a big problem in the area of agency recruiter interviews with candidates.
00:13:43
Speaker
So does this speak to the fact that interview skills are poor? The recruiters are not asking the right questions. I would say undoubtedly, i mean, i don't know about you Adele, but my training as a recruiter was you start with why the candidate is putting themselves on the job market. What is it about where they are if they're currently employed that has them look to leave? What sort of jobs have they applied for? Why have they applied for that particular job and that particular job?
00:14:14
Speaker
Tell me about your desired industry, like really digging into what it is that the candidate wants before you have a conversation with them about if you have a specific job to talk to them about. But this survey seems to suggest that not many or not enough recruiters are doing that or certainly not doing it effectively.
00:14:37
Speaker
The only sort of example I have of this as you're talking reminded me of some clients that I've worked with. agencies and their recruiters who have a practice of sending the position description to the candidate before the interview.
00:14:53
Speaker
So they're sending the client position description to the candidate, one, revealing who the client is, but two essentially giving the candidate the roadmap, the blue map, the the blueprint of of what they're looking for.
00:15:07
Speaker
And then subsequently the interview goes along the lines of, do do you like the sound of it? You know, does it fit for you? Tell me why you're good for it and, you know, I'll put you forward. It's pretty lazy recruiting.
00:15:19
Speaker
That is really lazy really lazy for recruiting. My God, ah like I'm – I don't know if shocked is probably too strong a word, but it's like that that is inviting problems because you are already creating effectively bias when you have – an interview with that candidate because the interview is naturally skewed towards the position description that they've already read.
00:15:45
Speaker
Makes no sense. And like you said, they're not exploring the wider opportunities. If you work in a niche or in a sector or in a particular area, whilst the candidate might not be right for that particular job, but by exploring these wider kind of desires and expectations of what they want in their career, you're opening up the conversation for what else is on my desk if kate in case this job's not right.
00:16:10
Speaker
Precisely. It's widening options. And I think critically that when you present an option to a candidate, you can then reference what the candidate said in the answer to your questions about what they're looking for and then say, this job I think is well matched to what you're looking for because demonstrating that you've listened to the answer to the questions or questions that you've asked the candidate.
00:16:42
Speaker
And if you don't do that, then what happens is exactly what we're hearing a lot of complaints about, is that candidates drop out through the process, ghost the recruiter, ah don't turn up when they accept an offer. Why? Well, there's many reasons, but I suspect, given what this survey is telling us, it's because the candidates weren't fully engaged with that particular job to begin with anyway.
00:17:09
Speaker
So we're bringing the ghosting on ourselves, you're suggesting there to some extent. Well, there's certain yeah, to some extent. I mean, clearly there are other factors. I'm not saying it's all the recruiter's fault, but I'm suggesting...
00:17:22
Speaker
that this result points pretty squarely to the fact that candidates, whether we like it or not, candidates are telling us agency recruiters, you're not asking me sufficient questions, you're not probing deeply enough about what I'm really looking for, and then, or therefore, you're matching me to jobs that I'm not really interested in or don't really have sufficient interest for me to get excited about.
00:17:51
Speaker
And why do we think this might be happening? I mean, is it a case of, you know curiosity isn't killing the cat, but it's killing the recruiter? You know, are we just not, are we not curious enough to ask these questions?
00:18:03
Speaker
I suspect there is an element of that for sure. I think it's probably a training issue as well. the The recruiter...
00:18:15
Speaker
hasn't been trained to do it. Therefore, what happens? They get into the interview, they've got the resume, may they've got the job description, and they effectively start asking the candidate questions about their employment history to have them be able to work, have the recruiter be able to work out whether they're a good match for the job or not. So they're going straight to second base.
00:18:34
Speaker
To me, first base you ask candidates more broadly about their job search. Second base is when you move towards the particular opportunity and how their current employment or current skills matches that ah potential opportunity you've got for them.
00:18:53
Speaker
So maybe that recruiters are just really focused on the client needs. You know, there's an imbalance there in understanding who your paying customer is. The client is paying the bill and I really need to focus on what the client wants. And that's ah an excuse, I suppose, we hear often, you know, I couldn't, you know, process through with that candidate because the client won't see them. The client is the decision maker here and the client can't be influenced in any way. And that's often in our training, you and I do often, we're talking about that sort of thing in terms of how to influence a client, how to put a candidate in front of a client they may not have considered. And that's really our greatest benefit in some ways to the client. We can find people, they think
00:19:33
Speaker
we can find people that they couldn't find themselves. It's just that we're getting them to see candidates in a different way. Yes, precisely because we've asked these questions. Like that helps us understand how a candidate whose resume may not look like the type of candidate that the client thinks they want.
00:19:52
Speaker
But because we've asked those questions, we understand that, hey, actually this resume may is obscuring the fact that that this candidate could be a really good match for this job. So if we're not asking those desire motivation questions up front, we're effectively giving away our greatest advantage as an objective independent recruiter compared to an in-house recruiter.
00:20:18
Speaker
And if you throw in the mix then the AI tools around the interview process that a lot of people are using nowadays or starting to test the use ah of in terms of video interview,
00:20:30
Speaker
um bots that are listening to the the interview, creating a summary, transcribing the information. They're taking just what it what ad hears, right? It can only use the information from the questions you've asked the candidate and the answers the candidate's provided. And if they are only focused, those questions on the current situation, i mean, you could just, you know, put the resume through through this process and get the same answer from an AI bot.
00:20:57
Speaker
You know, put this candidate in, and give me a summary of the candidate without even interviewing them. So the interview is the part where you're asking those more personal questions, getting the insights into the real person that the bot can't get from any other source other than your interview.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah. And if you've asked those questions and the bot's captured that, then if your data database already doesn't have this capability, will soon, where from that information, it will be able to go in and then match that candidate to not just open vacancies, but potentially closed vacancies that will indicate where that candidate might be worth floating to in terms of opportunities that you could uncover with that sort of knowledge. So to me, this is critical, critical information that if recruiters are not capturing the or not asking the questions to and capture this, then this is just a ah big competitive advantage they're just missing out on.
00:21:58
Speaker
It's core skills to the job, as we said. um if candidates are rating us so poorly in job fit and that is the core of what we do, then, you know, we say do better. So what could we suggest to people? Go back and check out your interview guide if you're using one. Go back and reread your AI bot notes and see whether you are exploring deep enough with your candidates.