Transcript
Speaker: Do you know who helps recruitment agencies recruit, Adele? It's Wingman Recruitment, flexible recruitment support built by recruiters for recruiters. More capacity, less pressure, better results.
Speaker: Learn more at wingmangroup.com.au and visit the services tab. Welcome to Recruitment News Australia. This is your news for the 13th of October, 2026. I'm Adele Last. Still flying solo as Ross Klenner is on extended leap. He will be back soon. For now, you've got me reading the news and another special guest for our question of the week.
Speaker: On to the news. New South Wales is set to join the rest of the eastern states in labour hire licensing. On Friday 2nd October, the Minns Government announced that if it's re-elected in March next year, it will legislate a statewide licensing scheme within its first 100 days. The scheme will follow the national principles on labour hire licensing, cover every industry and carry penalties for non-compliance.
Speaker: newus New South Wales has been the gap on the map. Queensland and Victoria have licensed operators since 2018 and 19 and the ACT since 2021 and South Australia extended its scheme to every industry in January.
Speaker: The pressure has been building. A McKell Institute report three months ago found 171 businesses with cancelled or refused licenses interstate appearing to be operating in New South Wales. Anti-slavery Commissioner Chris Evans told a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry that operators knockback in Queensland and victoria Victoria are simply moving across the border.
Speaker: The numbers from the regions are stark. Fair Work Ombudsman horticulture inspections found non-compliance of 72% in the Riverina and 61% around Coffs Harbour and Grafton.
Speaker: Labor hire providers received 91% of the infringement notices issued. The ah RCSA says it will keep working with both the government and the opposition to push for a proportionate risk-based scheme that targets bad operators without burdening reputable ones.
Speaker: In Victoria, the Labour Hire Authority has forced a West Gippsland operator to refund close to $160,000 to workers charged for substandard accommodation.
Speaker: Kaishin Pty Ltd trading as top of the crop labour hire housed horticulture workers at two properties in Warragul. Inspectors found significant overcrowding, extensive mould, few too many smoke alarms and a failed septic system leaving effluent pooling in the front yard.
Speaker: Workers were having $190 a week deducted from their wages for the privilege. The authority put conditions on Kaishan's licence in December 2025, banning accommodation charges until the housing met minimum standards.
Speaker: Kaishan has now refunded 51 workers for the seven months they live there with some receiving up to $5,800.
Speaker: And a reminder that the label on a contract doesn't decide whether you're running labour hire. The New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal has upheld a Revenue NSW ruling that Chief Group Services was operating a labour hire business. The company provided airline security and guard services to Delta and United at Sydney International Airport, while a related cleaning business serviced Avis and Europecar.
Speaker: Revenue NSW assessed additional payroll tax of around $885,000, including penalties and interest. The tribunal found the company hadn't proved its contracts weren't employment agency contracts. The key test, it said, is how closely the work done matches the nature of the client's own business.
Speaker: Australian job vacancies have fallen for a second straight quarter. ABS figures show vacancies dropped 0.9% 3,000 rolls to in the three months to August. That follows a fall in the previous quarter and vacancies are down the year.
Speaker: the private sector is doing the pulling back down two percent to two hundred and eighty six thousand rolls and the public sector vacancies went the other way They went up 7.8% to 38,700 roles.
Speaker: By state, the ACT fell hardest, down almost 22%, followed by the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Victoria posted the biggest rises. By industry, wholesale trade dropped 18%, and professional, scientific, and technical services fell 17%.
Speaker: Retail jumped almost 25%, and healthcare and social assistance remains the biggest source of open roles, at 54,300. Meanwhile, the JSA internet vacancy index edged up 0.3% in August to 212,400 job ads.
Speaker: If you recruit in tech, you'll already feel this one. Jobs and Skills Australia data shows only 32% of IT employers were hiring in the financial year against across other industries.
Speaker: 43% of IT firms named weak demand for their products as a major challenge, up from just 8% in the previous report. Yet the skills problem hasn't gone away. About a third of recruiting IT employers received 20 or more applications per role, but so half still say a lack of specific technical skills is their biggest hiring hurdle.
Speaker: Candidates are filling it too. a July report from Clix IT Recruitment found 44% of IT workers are pessimistic about the market, and nearly half had no pay rise in the past year, the highest figure in a decade.
Speaker: Overseas, the US economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, well short of the 84,000 economists expected. Unemployment ticked up at 4.2%.
Speaker: Revisions made it worse. August was cut to 133,000, and July flipped from a gain to a All up, that's 60,000 fewer jobs than first reported despite solid GDP growth through the first half of the year.
Speaker: Tokyo-listed matching service, Japan, MSJ, has bought the remaining 25% of Melbourne's four-quarters recruitment, completed on the 30th of September.
Speaker: MSJ took its first 75% stake in September 2024 in a deal valued at around $36 million. dollars The price of the final stake wasn't disclosed.
Speaker: Four Quarters was founded in 2011 by four former Robert Half managers. It runs four offices across Melbourne, Sydney and Perth and now has 46 staff, down from 54 at the time of the first investment.
Speaker: MSJ joins Perth Soul Recruit, Will Group and Outsourcing as Japanese owners of Australian recruitment brands, including Programme, Chandler McLeod, People Bank, DFP and Clix IT Recruitment.
Speaker: Staying with Japan, Persol Holdings is now the world's largest permanent recruitment firm. A new staffing industry analyst report put Persol's share of the US $75.6 billion global direct hiring market at 1.34% or just over $1 billion dollars in US revenue.
Speaker: Rounding out the top five are Michael Page, Adeco, Randstad and Hayes. The big takeaway is how fragmented PERM is. The 10 largest firms hold just 7% of the market. Asia-Pacific generates more than half of all global direct higher revenue. China alone is worth $18.3 billion. us dollars Seekers named the finalists for the 2026 SARAs, with winners across nine categories to be announced at a gala in Melbourne on Thursday, the 26th of November.
Speaker: In the headline Recruitment Leader of the Year category, last year's winner David Jam of Vertical Scope Group is going for back-to-back wins. He's up against Ali Kimmerley of People Fusion, Debbie Davis of Beaumont People, Leanne O'Connor of Natural Selection Group and Tyson McNally of Fuse Recruitment.
Speaker: Recruitment Consultant of the Year finalists are Bianca Holmes from Harrison McMillan, Catherine Little and Kate Chase, both from Davidson. Marissa Conlon from First People Recruitment Solutions and Martin Hill from Iron Merge People.
Speaker: The agencies to watch with nominations in more than one category are Beaumont People, Fuse Recruitment, Harrison McMillan, Vertical Scope Group, Davidson, Iron Merge People and First People Recruitment Solutions. The full list of finalists is on the SEEK website. We wish everybody the best of luck.
Speaker: And finally, a job ad with a difference. The Australian Antarctic Program is recruiting for more than 200 positions for its 2027-28 season with postings from six months to over a year.
Speaker: They're after chefs, electricians, carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, doctors, telecommunications officers, aviation staff and science and field leaders across Davis, Mawson and Casey stations and the Wilkins Ice Runway.
Speaker: Applicants need to be Australian citizens with relevant qualifications and several years experience. Applications close on the 1st of November. And that's your news up to date for the 13th of October, 2026. Stay tuned now for a very special guest on Question of the Week.
Speaker: Question of the Week this week, I have a very special guest, Michael Jones from Michael Jones Recruitment Training. who is the RCSA Recruitment Professional of the Year. Welcome, Michael.
Speaker: Hello. Great to have you join me for a special question of the week. This one is around sales. Tell me, has recruitment lost its sales mojo?
Speaker: oh gosh. i feel quite strongly about this one. um And I will caveat this conversation by saying, when I first started working in recruitment, I worked for a very sales-driven organisation, a little old agency called Hayes. And I was brought up in an environment where sales was very much a big part of the job. And a lot of the practices that I was introduced to and things that I was encouraged to focus on were very sales heavy. So comparatively now, as I travel around working with different agencies all across the country, i would have to say that, yes, in some instances, I think we have lost our sales mojo. We certainly aren't as sales focused as we might have been back in the day. Okay, let's just go back to back in the day because people probably would be aware of this. They may have worked for Hays. They would have heard this. I certainly, I've never worked for Hays or those larger organizations in my career, but I'm aware of this ah sales culture. ah And others may be listening to this and saying, I don't even know what that means. What is the Hays sales culture? So can you unpack that a little bit? What was it like working in Hays, you know, back in the day?
Speaker: Happy to. and And hopefully, you know, I'm not wearing my rose-coloured glasses too much, but yeah, the sales culture at Hays was very strong. And what that meant was when I was working at Hays, it was very much 360 recruitment. So typically you were doing candidate and client work, business development right from the get-go. And what that looked like was every day, 10 till 12 was power hour when you were on the phone making PD calls.
Speaker: KPIs were set quite high. i remember having to make 120 business development calls each month and we were encouraged or targeted to do between eight to 12 sales meetings each month.
Speaker: So there was a very strong focus on sales for everybody. Okay. So everybody was doing it. It was targeted and targeted and measured. ah And what happened if you didn't reach it? What was the repercussion?
Speaker: Oh, well, you know, like all KPIs and targets, if you weren't reaching them, there were certainly conversations with your manager around why and how can we address those. but there was a lot of really good stuff underpinning that activity in terms of we all had sales plans. We had very clear call lists.
Speaker: target clients, we were very much focused on lead generation and identifying agencies working, sorry, identifying companies working with different agencies that we would then target and try and convince to come and work with yourself.
Speaker: and And this is what I'm talking about. This, this very sales focused approach to recruitment and these very commercial practices that were the norm for me working for that agency.
Speaker: I don't see as much these days and I don't see in as many agencies as I would expect, given that I would have thought that they were a bit the norm back in the day. Okay, so what's happened? How how have we lost that sales culture through the industry?
Speaker: Well, I guess it's it's diluted over time, perhaps. I think there's certainly a lot of people who grew up in a haze or a page or a ran stard who experienced that culture and maybe thought, I didn't enjoy that. I don't want that for my agency. and So I'm not going to inflict that on my people. So I think there's been that dilution into agencies as people have started up their own.
Speaker: i think COVID also was a huge factor here because most of us will have experienced post-COVID there was a massive hiring boom and a lot of recruiters didn't need to do BD because the jobs were coming in thick and fast. We shifted to a delivery model and anybody that joined recruitment post-COVID, a lot of those people were 180 recruiters focused on delivery. So I think that's kind of where it's happened.
Speaker: Okay. So if I'm listening to this and I'm a recruitment agency owner and i meet I'm hearing, I'm nodding and smiling to myself and thinking, yes, this is correct. I've lost this in the business. I don't necessarily want the Hays culture either. I hear what you're saying about that. But what's what's the solution here? How does somebody address this for their own business specifically?
Speaker: Well, it's... You're correct. Not everybody wants to replicate a mini haze, and I'm certainly not ah promoting that. But recruitment is a sales job, whether we like it or not. And we need to be bringing in people into the industry who are sales driven and motivated.
Speaker: We need to be ah focused on developing that commercial acumen with really good sales training. And that also includes coaching people on the job, how to make a sales call. It is reviewing their sales activity and providing additional support and infrastructure, um making sure that people have sales targets that motivate them to do a good job and achieve what's required. But underpinning it with strategy, planning, a call list, reasons for calling,
Speaker: You can't simply say to people, make more calls and expect them to do it. They need to understand, well, why and how do I go about it? And then they need to be trained at the same time because if people don't feel comfortable doing something, they're not going to do it.
Speaker: There's a real subtle art to that coaching piece that you're talking about, the training and coaching piece. I want to sort of talk about that now. Because you're right, you can't just say to people, make more calls. And that's often the case of what I'm hearing of people in industries, ah in agencies being told that or or agency owners, you know, pulling their hair out going, I just tell them to get on the phone. So let's let's talk about that a little bit further. The coaching training piece is so critical and not many people can do this really well, right?
Speaker: No, they can't, unfortunately. and The best managers I've seen who are doing a great job of this, they are hands-on with their coaching. So you've got managers, agency owners who are actively on the phone, making sales calls in front of their team, taking their staff out on sales meetings and showing them how it's done. And I think that's really powerful and that's how a lot of people learn how to do sales and build their confidence. So I think it's taking that hands-on approach and leading from the front. That's something I would certainly encourage managers listening to this podcast to think about, am I demonstrating the behaviors that I want my team to be displaying?
Speaker: Okay. That's really great advice, obviously, demonstrate it. But what if you've got somebody who's watching, but they're just not learning or they're just not understanding how to adapt it or they're feeling totally ah overwhelmed by seeing someone who's so brilliant? Okay, the manager or the owner of this business is bloody good at what they do, but I don't seem to be able to replicate that.
Speaker: What could they do with that sort of person? What would you advise? Yeah, Adele, that's such a good point. And I certainly, when I'm delivering, you know, business development and sales training, we we start off the training by having a really open conversation about, I hated business development when I first started. i was rubbish at sales when I began. This is the worst BD call that I ever made. This is how clumsy or awkward I felt, but I got better over time. And I think you're right. We can sometimes paint an unrealistic expectation of you need to be excellent at sales right from the beginning.
Speaker: That's not realistic. So I think managers taking the time to reassure people, Adele, you're learning how to do business development. It's going to take you time to get to my level. I'm not expecting you to be a superstar salesperson immediately. You'll make mistakes. You'll have bad calls, but it's okay. You will get there and you will get better. But let me give you a great example. Let me give you a script or a framework or some techniques or some tools to help you along the way and build that confidence faster. I think just letting people loose on the phone going, have at it, sink or swim, make your mistakes, you'll be fine. What's the worst that can happen?
Speaker: i don't think that's necessarily the right approach. I'm going to do the plug for you here and say it would definitely help having an external type coach trainer like yourself come in, correct? Correct.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely. And I think a lot of the agencies that book me to come in and do training, typically it's business development training. It's the most critical skill. and And what a lot of agency owners find is by having someone external come in and say the exact same things that they say, but having them away from the desk in a controlled environment where they can role play, practice, build their confidence in a safe space, that's the real value. and giving people tools and techniques and a framework, it absolutely accelerates their confidence and their results. So yes, I would agree bringing in somebody external to work with your people is definitely going to help address any challenges around people picking up the phone and doing the sales activity that you need them to.
Speaker: Are you confident for the future of our industry if we're losing our sales mojo and it's becoming more difficult to find people, we've spoken about that before, and then train them up. What's the future look like, in your opinion?
Speaker: Look, I think there are certainly some challenges that are affecting our our industry, and we need to take action sooner rather than later. But I'm so optimistic about our industry. We have some wonderful, amazing, and hugely talented people out there in Australia and New Zealand, many of whom are starting their own agencies and leading teams. And the fact that people get involved in the industry association and conferences and training, i think that's very encouraging. So the future is bright, but we do need to watch out and never get never be complacent.
Speaker: Great. So if anybody's listening today and you want to see a little bit more of Michael or you want to get involved in some of his programs, I believe you've got a public webinar coming up, Michael?
Speaker: I do. Very, very soon. I have a public webinar, um How to Build a High-Performing Sales Culture, which is an extension of the keynote presentation I delivered at the RCSA Shed Conference.
Speaker: And I'll be running more of my BD boot camps, two days of sales training with lots of role plays and assessments to build people's confidence. They will be launching again in the new calendar year.
Speaker: Fantastic. How do we find out more information? our Website, LinkedIn, where would you like to direct people? Please connect with me on LinkedIn. All my information is there. That's my main source of information for you.
Speaker: Excellent. Thank you so much for joining me today on this special question of the week. I've enjoyed hearing more about your perspective on the sales culture in the industry and I look forward to your webinar.
Speaker: Thank you for having me. I'm very honoured to have stepped in for Ross.
