This Week in Talent (26th August)

Welcome to another week of TWIT 🙂

Jody Smith
Jody Smith

This week I have been busy in butt-loads of interviews, back-to-back meetings, team brainstorms, 1:1’s. Is anyone else finding it extraordinarily busy right now too? The workload is increasing, but people’s motivation is slowly decreasing – not just me but everyone I chat to at work, friends, family etc … we’re all feeling it right now.

Not to mention the impact that the talent shortage is having – it’s here and it’s real. I work predominantly within the construction field and finding civil engineers with major infrastructure experience right now is beyond difficult. Finding the time to take a step back and recruit differently is something myself and the team have been doing, but sometimes that’s easier said than done when you’ve got the ol’ time to fill rising everyday.

Last week I shared a bunch of things that have helped me get through the day, and recently I’ve found that the best thing I’ve done … is delete Instagram. I haven’t deleted my account or anything, just the app. I feel like a weight has been lifted – I found myself doom scrolling every day for hours on end, getting angry about things, oversharing with my followers. Deleting the app has been amazing for my mental health – can’t recommend it enough. I’ll be back eventually, but at the moment I have absolutely no desire.

As you know I love to snoop – so I’ve been really enjoying Refinery29’s ‘Sweet Digs’ series on their YouTube channel. It’s like MTV Cribs, but for … normal everyday people living in NYC. They take you on a tour of their tiny little NYC apartments – watching these videos is so cathartic for me, I don’t know why. I might ask my therapist HAHA. I definitely have a problem …

This week at work I’ve been exploring ways to make our recruitment lives easier, and something I found super useful was Hung Lee’s LinkedIn post around “intake meetings” or (as I call them) “job briefs” with hiring managers. This is something we’ve been trying to nail for a while now, and are constantly trying to improve. I’ve bookmarked the post to explore it further next week and see what bits and bobs I can add to our own hiring manager job briefing process. Definitely check it out.

That’s it for this week – have a good one!

Men earning $260 per week more than women as gender pay gap widens

This sucks big time. We need to do better. Ergh.

5 Tips for recruiting tech talent in the COVID landscape

Steve Bousfield has provided some tips for addressing the tech talent shortage – although these apply to all industries and types of roles. I found this really useful!

Is the Australian technology sector on the brink of a Talent Crisis?

Loved this read from Simon McSorely – and again, some of these findings could be applied to any industry where talent is becoming increasingly harder and harder to find. Times are tough for Talent Acq right now, and the ideas suggested in this article are great for business and the community.

The global MD working 9-day fortnights & advocating for real flexible work

“At the end of the day my philosophy is that if you’re not providing a family friendly workplace then your competitors might be”. I really enjoyed this article, not only for the focus on flexible work but also on career coaching as something you provide your employees. Could giving your employee’s career coaching and advice actually increase retention with your organisation?

Why the worst parts of work can’t easily change

Do you feel like you’re working more now than BEFORE the pandemic started? Same! I feel like I sit and work on my laptop all day with no breaks. Back-to-back meetings – literally finishing one virtual meeting and jumping immediately into the next one, then the next one. Pre-COVID we had time between meetings so that we could physically get to the next meeting room. There was more banter and chit chat with colleagues that just doesn’t happen anymore. Who is going to invent something to fix this problem already? Give me a hologram/VR workplace already plz (see next article below)

Facebook introduces virtual reality conference rooms

Thanks to ol’ mate Mark Z, VR meeting rooms might be a thing soon! It’s almost like they’re reading my mind …

How To Write An Out Of Office Email

Do you try and get crafty with your out of office messages? Ever see a really cringe worthy one? The worst out of office message I ever received was from someone who was obviously overworked and very jaded – their message was about 2 paragraphs long detailing how awful work had been recently, and how they were “currently lounging on the beach getting drunk”.

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