Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 132 - What will instantly lose your credibility with TA?
37 Plays2 hours ago
RNA Episode 132 has news for 14 October 2025, featuring the September 2025 quarter results for Hays ANZ, the latest Yale research on GenAI's impact on jobs, JSA's latest industry and occupation data and Question of the Week, "What will instantly lose your credibility with TA?"
Recommended
Transcript
Wingman Recruitment's Global Impact
00:00:09
Speaker
This episode is made possible by Wingman Recruitment, the offshoring solution changing lives. Not only do they help Australian recruiters scale by integrating fully trained remote professionals into their teams, but they're also creating real career opportunities in the Philippines.
00:00:26
Speaker
It's smart growth with heart. Visit wingmangroup.com.au and click on the services tab to find out more.
Industry Struggles: Hayes' Challenges
00:00:34
Speaker
This is Recruitment News Australia for the 14th of October 2025. I'm Ross Klenit.
00:00:41
Speaker
And I'm Adele Last. We start off our news with some results from Hayes. Yes, unfortunately, not good news for Hayes. They've just released their September 2025 results. That's their Q1 for 2026. Net fees in Hayes ANZ down by 5%. Tempen Contracting down 2%.
00:01:02
Speaker
Perm down 9%. And these comparison points are the September 2024 quarter. Private sector net fees down 3%, public sector even tougher down 7%, New South Wales down 5%, Victoria down 7%, ACT down down 4%, good news in up 3%,
00:01:24
Speaker
queensland down four percent good news in w a up three percent But New Zealand, terrible, down 17%.
00:01:33
Speaker
By specialism, construction and property, which is their largest specialism in ANZ, responsible for 20% of net fees, down 4%. IT down 2%. Accountancy and finance down 5%. Office support was flat.
00:01:50
Speaker
Consultant headcount decreased by 4% in the quarter. And it's down 11% year on year and is now 650%.
00:02:00
Speaker
Wow, didn't Hayes have over 1,000 consultants not that long ago? Well, you're right. For comparison, 30th of June 2022, Hayes employed 1,136 earners. that means compared three years and ago, Hayes have 486 fewer consultants 43% fewer.
00:02:15
Speaker
so that means compared to three years and three months ago hayes have four hundred and eighty six fewer consultants or forty three percent fewer These results are really significant for the rest of the local industry because they are the largest recruitment business locally and they seem to be a bit of a barometer for the whole industry.
AI Investments: Are They Worth It?
00:02:38
Speaker
You're right, Adele. It's been very difficult. if you look at the difference between the financial year 2022 and financial year 2025, Hayzane's Ednet fees have dropped by 41%, headcount down by 47%.
00:02:51
Speaker
Not much light at the end of the tunnel right now. Next, with the talk of an AI bubble, the most recent evidence suggests the widespread economic and labour market disruption is yet to occur.
00:03:04
Speaker
AI-related enterprises have accounted for 80% of the stunning gains in the American stock market this year, and Gartner estimates global spending on AI will likely reach a whopping $1.5 trillion dollars before 2025 is out.
00:03:19
Speaker
Researchers from yeah Yale University released their paper evaluating the impact of ai And their assessment is summarised in two main points. While the occupational mix is changing more quickly than it has in the past, it is not a large difference and predates the widespread introduction of AI in the workforce.
00:03:37
Speaker
And currently, measures of exposure, automation and augmentation show no sign of being related to changes in employment or unemployment. Well, that matches a ah damning MIT study that's just been released about AI projects.
00:03:53
Speaker
And the report states that despite $30 to $40 billion dollars in enterprise investment into generative AI, 95% of organizations that implemented AI systems were getting zero return on investment.
00:04:09
Speaker
The study involved surveying 300 AI deployments while the researchers spoke to approximately 350 employees about their experience. AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot are some of the most adopted models, but only 5% of integrated AI pilots are extracting the value, while a vast majority remain stuck with no measurable P&L impact.
00:04:32
Speaker
The conclusion being, AI tools may enhance individual productivity, but not the P&L. And the results of this research were reinforced by recent article by the Harvard Business Review about work slop.
00:04:46
Speaker
What's work slop, Ross? Well, apparently it's defined as AI-generated work content that masks array as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.
00:05:00
Speaker
Approximately half of the people surveyed by the HBR viewed colleagues who sent WorkSlop as less creative, capable and reliable than they did before receiving the output.
00:05:11
Speaker
42% saw their colleagues as less trustworthy and 37% saw their colleagues as less intelligent. Well, certainly sounds like there's more hype than tangible wide-scale impact with AI right now.
Australia's Workforce: Key Insights
00:05:26
Speaker
And the latest Jobs and Skills Australia release is out. It's occupation and industry data. Some highlights. Sales assistant remains Australia's largest employing occupation, over 556,000 Australians in that median age of twenty three and seventy five percent are working parttime The second largest occupation was listed as aged and disability carers, which is growing 28,500 workers a year reflecting the rising demand in the care sector.
00:06:03
Speaker
and registered nurses follow closely behind employing over three hundred and sixty thousand people with an annual increase of thirteen and a half thousand people Unsurprisingly, healthcare and social assistance is the largest employing sector in Australia, easily.
00:06:18
Speaker
It employs nearly 2.4 million people and it's grown by about 140% over the past 20 years. And Professional Scientific and Technical Services, which covers accounting, legal and consulting firms, ranks second with 1.4 million workers and it grew by over 63,000 jobs in the past year.
00:06:38
Speaker
Education and training also continues to grow, employing 1.3 million. Overall data, just over 15 million Australian workers. 48% are female, 31% are part-time.
00:06:53
Speaker
The median age of an Australian worker is 39. And the median weekly full-time earnings of an Australian worker is $1,697, which is a little over eighty eight thousand dollars a year But one of the highest paid occupations is a dental practitioner earning a median weekly income of $3,800, which is an annual salary of just over $210,000.
00:07:18
Speaker
thousand And comparably, ah HR professionals earn a median annual income of just over $97,000, which is about 10% more than the median Australian worker.
00:07:29
Speaker
And recruitment consultants have a category. Ross, can you guess how many recruitment consultants there are in Australia? I'm going to say about 40,000. There's actually 33,000, maybe yeah um reduced by Hayes' results as we read earlier.
00:07:44
Speaker
um What percentage do you think are part-time? ah I'm going to say sort of 20 to 25%. Yeah, we're not that good in this space. Only 17% are working part-time. What percentage do you think are female?
00:07:57
Speaker
I'd say about two-thirds. Yeah, you're close with that. 69% female. And what do you think the median age of a recruiter in Australia is? 32 or 33.
00:08:09
Speaker
a little bit older than that. We're 36. There's just another fantastic data released from Jobs and Skills Australia. If you want more free, and I stress free information to help you be a labour market expert or an expert in your niche, go to jobsandskills.gov.au.
Interview Success: Avoiding the Three Cs
00:08:29
Speaker
dot a you And finally, another piece of fascinating research published recently in the Harvard Business Review. 350 Harvard Business School executive education students and hiring managers at 40 US companies in a variety of industries were surveyed about their experiences in interviewing candidates for senior roles.
00:08:49
Speaker
When a candidate bombed an interview, the six most common reasons were poor self-awareness, lack of preparation, poor manners or etiquette, excessive self-interest, problematic relationships with past or present employers, and a history of job hopping.
00:09:04
Speaker
Well, I suspect none of those would surprise anybody in the recruitment industry, Adele, whether it's a senior or a junior interview. The review summarised these categories as the three Cs to help candidates improve their interview performance.
00:09:20
Speaker
Clarity, know what you want and what you offer. Courtesy, treat others with respect, professionalism and kindness. And coherence, tell a coherent story about your decisions, successes and failures and how they connect to the present moment and future plans.
00:09:36
Speaker
Well, I'd certainly endorse those three Cs. And that's your news for the 14th of October, 2025. Stay tuned now for Question of the Week.
Recruitment Strategies: Insights and Trust
00:09:55
Speaker
Question of the week. What will kill your credibility with talent acquisition? Well, this has come from the event that we attended last week. RCSA Vic Taz put on Consultant Forum 2025 and the final session of the day was two hiring managers.
00:10:14
Speaker
discussing with Charles Cameron, and the RCCA CEO, what they liked and disliked about agency recruiters. One hiring manager was from the commercial sector, a building company, and the other hiring manager was from state government who'd had various jobs and with the state government agency.
00:10:31
Speaker
What was the major thing you took away, Well, it's quite a contrast, Ross, between their responses. Obviously, they came from very different sectors and They were quite specific about what they found to be positive about dealing with recruitment agencies and I guess what what drove them out or what broke down credibility. But ultimately, the fundamental message they both talked about was ways to build trust with talent acquisition.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah. And the simplest way to build trust was to do your research, turn up prepared. And they stated that the number one thing that killed consultant credibility was a consultant turning up and clearly had not prepared. As one of the participants said, she said, you know, you just click on the about us tab and that gives you plenty of information and really does make me shake my head.
00:11:28
Speaker
I mean, I started in recruitment before the internet, which meant that if you wanted to find out about an organisation, then if they weren't in your database, you were scrambling to look through, don't know, The Age or the Sydney Morning Herald or the Australian Financial Review or BRW for some mention. There wasn't an online world that you could explore And when you think about how easy it is to use ChatGPT and Google to do research, and really how even in 10 minutes, you could do probably enough research to at least get by in a meeting. And if you invested 20 minutes, then you've got a heap of material. It's just perplexing to me that clearly many recruiters are just not even taking this basic step.
00:12:13
Speaker
So it sounded a lot like they were telling us we were just jumping in. We're too focused on the fact that we want to work with talent acquisition or we want to get a job from that organisation and we're not putting a lot of effort into that prepare preparation and research part of the process so that we're coming to even that first conversation with a bit of insight and information.
00:12:39
Speaker
Well, Clearly, many recruiters, as they indicated, are coming in hoping rapport will do all the heavy lifting, that I come along and I'm smiling and I'm positive and I'm nice and I'm chatty and I'm likable and that will be enough to win the business. And for most TA people, that's kind of irrelevant.
00:12:59
Speaker
it's not like It's not like they want a dislikeable person. But it's like, I'm not here to find out whether you're worth chatting to. I'm here giving you my time to see whether you're a recruiter that I want to partner with. And not just for a job, but potentially for a number of jobs. And clearly, far too many recruiters are over-indexing on that personal relationship aspect without understanding what is it that the hiring manager truly wants to see or experience before they'll give you an opportunity.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah, somehow there's been a training course that's told them all to be, you know, bright and effervescent and, you know, fun and confident on the phone. And really the TA yeah experts on the panel were talking more about providing value, looking at how can you actually engage with them in a way that is valuable to them? What's in it for them?
00:13:55
Speaker
That's right. And they, i mean, they gave examples, ah ah examples being market insights, What can you share that's of interest to me, the hiring manager or the TA person?
00:14:08
Speaker
What are our competitors doing in the world of hiring? What are they doing that works for them that may be working against us? What are candidates saying about us?
00:14:22
Speaker
What are the trends in the market? In other words, demonstrate that you do know the market, that you are an expert. that you can gather information and turn it into useful insight. So again, suggesting that not many recruiters are doing that and those that are doing that are gaining a substantial advantage by doing so.
00:14:43
Speaker
So the practicalities of this for the recruitment audience that's listening is around doing that preparation and research and sitting down and thinking about, I'm about to contact this person, I'm going to reach out either via phone or email or both And I'm going to provide some information. What is the information that person needs to know? Sitting and putting yourself in that person's shoes and saying, what do I want to know? I've got an ad advertised. It's been advertised for four weeks and or it's been re-advertised. You know, what am I going to want to know about how to fill that job?
00:15:16
Speaker
And that's what the recruit is sitting and answering before they even make make that contact. What do I know about the market? What do I know about candidates in the market? What do I know about salaries? You know, it's really looking in yourself and answering the question that the TA may ask or may not ask because you may not get past the first five seconds of the call. But what do you want to to give them? What insights can you provide that will allow that conversation to go on more than just, hi, how are you going? You know, are you having a great day? How's the job going? Have you filled it yet?
00:15:46
Speaker
Well, particularly, um i can't remember who who said this, but be ready to describe exactly how you would go about filling a particular job.
00:15:57
Speaker
Because when that question's been asked, mostly it's just a generic response or a response that indicates the recruiter is not prepared.
00:16:07
Speaker
So a basic piece of research would be what sort of positions has this organisation advertised recently or advertising now? Which ones are the ones that I would like an opportunity to recruit? And if I was given that opportunity or if I was asked in the meeting how I'd go about recruiting it, I've got a coherent answer.
00:16:26
Speaker
So I could give the person I'm talking to, TA or HR, a sense of confidence that, hey, okay, well, maybe I will give this recruiter ago because what they've described about how they'd go about sourcing and filling this job tells me that they're a bit different, that they're not just a generic recruiter.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that was something that significantly stood out for me in their responses was that they were emphasising it was a lot about the person, the recruiter themselves and their own market knowledge, certainly, and expertise and how they were able to demonstrate that. In fact, I think one of the panellists said, I follow the recruitment consultant, not the brand.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And that that's not surprising, but it also indicates clearly that there's a lack of quality consistency within recruitment agencies.
00:17:22
Speaker
Clearly, the experience is that when the preferred recruiter leaves, they that whoever the replacement recruiter is, that they don't meet that person's previous standards. And this is, i mean, a perennial and ah industry issue that we've just got such a variation of standards within the same agencies. And again, this is this is why recruiters will go out on their own, fairly confident that at least a reasonable number of clients will follow them. And what was said by the panel would really um substantiate that confidence.
00:17:59
Speaker
So, again, it was so interesting to hear it really from the horse's mouth in this panel. And we spend so much time as an industry focused on business development, focused on improving sales skills and doing training and looking for new tools that are going to help with this.
00:18:16
Speaker
And the crux of it really is understanding your market and preparing for these kinds of conversations. So being well-researched, well-read, well-informed about the market that you work in. And that takes work. That takes consistent effort to keep up that knowledge. It's not something you just do once and then say, I'm informed and off i go um Really preparing about that what that company is doing, what their key you know pain points might be, trying to really
00:18:48
Speaker
understand more about the organisation itself. So it's quite a personal touch approach. It isn't, I've got a script, I've got a spiel, I've got a process or a methodology, and I'm just applying it, you know, in repeat to each organisation. It seems quite customised.
00:19:05
Speaker
Well, and that takes time. But the reality is, given how difficult it is to get a decision maker on the phone and then to agree or to have that decision maker agree to a meeting, and then the time that you invest in getting to that meeting and conducting the meeting, investing 30 or 45 or 60 minutes in advance of the meeting to prepare all of that is an investment well worth making because the opportunity is not just that you get one vacancy potentially, but that goes well. You get more vacancies. You get referred to other hiring managers in that organisation. I mean, the upside is huge.
00:19:42
Speaker
And it's a relatively small investment of time to be able to capitalise on that opportunity. And clearly, only a minority of recruiters are doing that um investment of time prior a meeting.
00:19:57
Speaker
I think people are doing that and they're doing it too late in the process. I think perhaps what the biggest takeaway around this is You've got to do the work you would do when you think you've already got the client or you're about to to sign the client. It's much earlier in the process that you're doing that work, putting in that effort to make sure that you get in front of the right person and have the right conversation.
00:20:18
Speaker
That's right. – and These are reasonable expectations of clients. They're not unreasonable. They're not asking for the world.
00:20:29
Speaker
They're just basic expectations. And I was kind of just left a little disheartened that These issues remain issues across our industry. And of course, we're biased, but this is why we do this podcast, because we're passionate about recruiters being better informed, knowing more about the markets that they service and evidence that if we thought we might have been overstating the case was very clear from the front of the stage last Thursday.