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Episode 8
401 Plays1 year ago
Episode 8
Unpack all the news of the week with Adele Last & Ross Clennett in this episode.
Question of the Week:What are the best ways to overcome client ghosting?
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Transcript
Introduction
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to Recruitment News Australia. This is the news for the week beginning Monday, the 8th of May, 2023.
RCSA 2023 Industry Awards
00:00:16
Speaker
After a record number of entries across 13 categories, the finalists for both the Australian and New Zealand sections of the RCSA 2023 Industry Awards have been announced. In Australia, the agency is up for the most awards of people to people with four and launch with three. Four agencies, DFP, Horner, Clicks and Mayday.
00:00:36
Speaker
were each nominated for two awards. In New Zealand, Robert Walters, with four remarkable people and frog recruitment, with three each, scored the most nominations. The Australian winners will be announced at the Industry Awards Night on the 1st of June in Sydney.
Migration Reforms and Wage Increases
00:00:51
Speaker
The New Zealand event is in Auckland on the 29th of June. Wages for temporary skilled migrants in Australia will be raised by about $16,000 per annum from July 1,
00:01:04
Speaker
and thousands will be eligible for permanent residency by the end of the year. Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neill announced the major policy reforms in her National Press Club address last week as part of her overhaul of the migration system. Her announcements came after a review found the migration program was not fit for purpose and that it was failing to attract most skilled people and was failing to give businesses efficient access to workers.
00:01:30
Speaker
Frozen since 2013, wages will be increased from $53,900 to $70,000 under the temporary skilled migration income threshold. The minister said the government would create a three-tiered skilled migration system for the country for the first time and hundreds of visa categories and subcategories will be reduced and simplified. The three-pronged model would firstly create a highly skilled stream with fast turnaround times.
00:01:58
Speaker
In the middle stream, decision-making will be linked to Jobs and Skills Australia to ensure a data-driven approach, and a final pathway will address chronic skills shortages in the lower paid care sector.
Financial Updates
00:02:10
Speaker
Robert Half International reported revenue fell by 5.4% in the first quarter ended 31 March 2023. Revenue totaled US$1.72 billion compared to US$1.81 billion the year prior.
00:02:27
Speaker
Gross profit declined 10% and operating profit declined 27%.
Go-to Group's Voluntary Administration
00:02:32
Speaker
ASX-listed go-to group entered voluntary administration last week. The group, which comprises go-to recruitment, the go-to people, skilled hire training and apprenticeships, NARA training and assessing and hunter executive search consultants, cited legacy Australian tax office liabilities as one of the reasons for the move.
00:02:52
Speaker
The announcement comes after its shares were suspended last week pending the release of an announcement regarding a material debt owed by a customer. In addition to the legal dispute with one of its clients, in January 2022, GoTo discovered it had failed to pay superannuation in its entities on time and estimated a 3.1 million
00:03:11
Speaker
dollar liability payment to the ATO. The administrators intend to continue operating the go-to group on a business as usual basis while options for the sale and or recapitalization of the business are explored.
HRD Employers of Choice Awards
00:03:25
Speaker
Outside of the recruitment industry awards a number of leading recruitment agencies have been recognised for excellence across all sectors. The HRD employers of choice awards have recognised two recruitment agencies among 54 companies
00:03:38
Speaker
that have distinguished themselves by creating leading HR policy in areas that include diversity and inclusion, catastrophically injured individuals living longer, work-life balance, training, and professional development. Clicks IT recruitment was recognized in the 1 to 99 employees category and healthier nights in the 100 to 499 employees category. In the AFR bosses 10 best places to work,
00:04:05
Speaker
four recruitment agencies were named in the professional services category. The rankings are based on staff surveys and written submissions underpinned by consultancy Inventium's Workplaces of the Future framework. Hoban recruitment ranked fourth, Talent Web Recruitment fifth, ProFusion Group eighth and Cornerstone Medical Recruitment came in tenth.
Greg Savage's Book Tour
00:04:30
Speaker
Apsco has just announced the dates and venues for Greg Savage's July national Australian tour to promote his second book, Recruit the Savage Way. There's been some speculation about the reasons for Savage's removal of his presence from all his usual social media channels, including his website, which is in maintenance mode at the moment. However, having personally communicated with Greg a number of times in the past couple of weeks, I can report he's just taking a complete break at the moment and he'll be back on deck for the launch of his new book.
Unique Job Opportunities
00:05:00
Speaker
and an unusual job has become available at the Blackpool Zoo in Northern England, and a job advertisement for five seasonal positions for seagull deterrence to help with the nuisance of birds stealing food from visitors and animals was posted on the zoo's website. The specific job role is to dress like a giant bird and chase the nuisance birds away. We need to do what we can to keep the seagulls away from our main visitor dining areas, which is why we are looking for a team of people
00:05:27
Speaker
to join our visitor services team as seagull deterrence, Blackpool Zoo Road in the job advertisement. The requirements are straightforward. You must be friendly, outgoing, energetic, flexible, and of course, comfortable wearing a bird costume. Hey Adele, do you think in the selection requirements it's got skinny legs and must be able to squawk?
Preventing Client Ghosting
00:06:05
Speaker
Onto question of the week, this week, Ross. And our question is, what are the best ways to overcome client ghosting? Well, the first thing to say is client ghosting is hard to prevent, but what you can do is through the process of taking the job,
00:06:25
Speaker
identify some potential red flags. So the first one would be that the client, if it's a new client, they don't return the terms and conditions promptly. So they either don't return them, they don't sign them. There's an excuse for not returning them. To me, that's definitely the first red flag. Secondly, and this applies for permanent work, no job description.
00:06:54
Speaker
That to me, big red flag. Why is there no job description? Surely if this is a real job with real urgency, there's a position description. And then the third one would be lack of start date or a start date in some unspecified future. You know, they'll start when we're ready or when they're available. To me, a real job, there's a definite start date.
00:07:24
Speaker
And what you probably will get and will often will get, the client will go yesterday or as soon as possible. And my advice there is test them with a hypothetical. Actually say to the person, okay, so in theory, if I found someone suitable this afternoon, would you be able to interview them tomorrow? And if in theory they were available to start next Monday or the Monday afterwards,
00:07:50
Speaker
would you be able to facilitate the recruitment process for that to occur and then wait and see what they say and that will really test out whether as soon as possible is actually in reality as soon as possible. I've got three bits of advice or some practical tips when this question's put to me. The first thing I would advise is to lock in
00:08:15
Speaker
the timeline with the client in the briefing process. So lock in those catch-ups or those follow-up conversations with the client at the very start when you do have their time and attention. So lock in when you will present a shortlist to them. Lock in when interviews should be occurring. Lock in a feedback session after interviews. So you're actually getting their commitment upfront to the timeline and to the time that's required for each of those stages and get them to put it in their diary if you can push that far and get them to commit to
00:08:45
Speaker
to that locking that in and that's good for you too. It keeps you locked into those dates as well. I would also confirm how they want to be communicated with. I think in today's market where we have a variety of different generations all working together, your client may very well wish to be communicated with in a different way to the way that is comfortable for you. So you may want to be continuing to phone them and they may prefer to have a text conversation with you or you may be texting and they're waiting
00:09:15
Speaker
They don't want to reply on texts. They want to talk on the phone. So I'd be confirming with your client, which is the best means of communication with you. How do you like to be communicated with and make sure that you communicate with them in that way. And the third bit of advice I would give is to look for an alternative contact. When you're taking the job brief, it's probably pretty rare that it's just one person involved, unless it's a really small company with only one staff member.
00:09:41
Speaker
But generally speaking, there'll be someone else involved that may be a stakeholder, that may be an office manager, could be HR, could be recruitment. There might be other people that are involved or around the ancillary of the job brief and recruitment exercise. So ask for that contact information of that person. Ask to have another contact so that you've got an alternative to follow up with should your primary contact disappear or so that you're able to, you know,
00:10:10
Speaker
have a multifaceted relationship account, manage that relationship with that account better as well. So they're my sort of three bits of very practical advice. And I think just to finish off is when you have concluded that you've been ghosted to close out the process.
00:10:31
Speaker
And what I mean by that specifically is that if the client has not responded to your calls and or emails and you've decided enough is enough, then send an email telling the client that you are no longer working on the assignment. So it's an email that's short.
00:10:54
Speaker
It's respectful, but it's definite. And it goes something like this, dear client. Uh, I haven't heard back from my, you know, three voice messages and two emails re feedback on such and such a vacancy from this. I'll take it that either you've filled the job or other things are at the moment, taking priority over filling this assignment.
00:11:25
Speaker
I'll assume that you don't need my help any further, unless I hear from you otherwise. When you're ready to restart the vacancy or fill another vacancy, I'd welcome your call or further contact. Best regards. That'd work. Well, here's one thing I know from having used that tactic.
00:11:49
Speaker
If the client is still recruiting that vacancy and still wanting your help, you will get a response from that email within about an hour. An apologetic, oh, I'm sorry, Ross, I've been distracted or I'm definitely still recruiting. And if you don't get anything, if it's crickets, you have your answer. The job is either filled or it's on hold and you've saved wasting any more time on that vacancy.
00:12:19
Speaker
That's a wrap. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. Google, Apple, Spotify, or on our website.