This Week in Talent (28th July)

Wominjeka – IT’S MY LAST TWIT (for now).

My god, July has been EVENTFUL – I picked the absolute WORST time to do Dry July (Day 25 if anyone is wondering … only 6 days to go. Donate to motivate).

I ran the Run Melbourne fun run on Sunday. I could only run about 7kms, and I had to run/walk/hobble the rest. I should have trained more LOL. But … it was actually such a fun experience to do it with my team around me. I highly recommend booking in a fun run or some other physical activity as a team bonding exercise, because not only is it motivating to all be striving towards a common goal … it creates that feeling of comradeship. We were all in it together, hobbling to the finish line, and throwing up as a team when we got there. #teamwork

The day has finally come, and I’ll be handing over the TWIT reins to the hilarious and highly capable Mitch King! I’ve been doing the TWIT update every week for the past 18 months, and I thought … for this last TWIT I might share some of my key takeaways from my time with ATC so far! I’ve talked to so many different people, read a lot (and trust me when I say A LOT) of talent articles and content, and learned a buttload about myself along the way.

The human touch element of candidate care reigns supreme.

We love AI – we love automation, we love the easy life. BUT every candidate I talk to, every post I see, and every article I read reiterates the fact that having a human element in a recruitment process is what sets a recruitment team apart. Remember it’s not what you do or say, but how you make a candidate or hiring manager feel that counts.

Time management and priority juggling skills are crucial

This was a big learning for me, as back when I first started doing the TWIT we were in lockdown and I had a bunch of spare hours where I had nothing to do in the day. Adding TWIT into the mix was easy … but then we came out of lockdown, life happened and suddenly I found that trying to get my creative juices flowing late on a Tuesday night when all I wanted to do was sleep was really bloody tough. Luckily I’m a type A personality, and I live my life to a rigid and robust calendar schedule. Scheduling, pre-planning, and working on little bits of the TWIT throughout the week (not leaving the whole thing until the last minute) was the key!

IRL events warm my cold heart

You’ve heard me rattle on about this before, and I’ma keep on rattlin’ cause ATC’s Talent Day Out at the Melbourne Zoo this year was literally a career highlight for me. Hearing inspiring speakers, brainstorming with our TA peeps, sharing ideas, chatting with everyone, chatting with the otters and elephants … I was in heaven.

There’s something so special about immersing yourself in an event like that that can’t be replicated virtually, and I just loved it! (Which is why I’m beyonddd excited for ATC2022!! 🎡)

TA are a kind-hearted bunch, and we’re doing our absolute best

Every single week whilst doing the TWIT I was blown away by the kindness, caring, and compassionate attitudes of everyone I spoke to in talent acquisition. Working in TA, in my opinion, is one of the most thankless jobs that exists. We’re often forgotten about when new employees are raving about how much they enjoy their new job, we’re never thanked at the big company-wide updates on project completions or milestones (ummmm how did the project get completed? How did we hit that milestone? With PEOPLE? Found by TA? Yeah …), we’re often lumped with criticism if a hiring process takes a few days longer due to the insanely tough candidate market. BUT, despite this, we are constantly striving to do better. We are learning from each other, sharing our learnings with the world, attending webinars and answering questions, looking at how to improve the experience for everyone involved, and often emotionally supporting people through a scary recruitment process (both hiring managers and candidate like).

We literally are THE BEST, we rule, we are great, and I’m always SO GLAD that I accidentally found a career in recruitment.

That’s it from me for now – I’ll be back to do another TWIT again sometime in the future, but until then … if we’re not already connected on LinkedIn, then we damn well should be! (Send me a connection request, thanks!) Peace out <3

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Glassdoor ordered to reveal the identity of negative reviewers to New Zealand toymaker

You may have seen this article floating around this week, and for good reason. Whilst some of us don’t give much stock to anonymous online review websites like Glassdoor (given that … a lot of the time ex-employees use it as a way to vent their frustrations), the negative reviews can cause backlash and reputational damage. An interesting way to handle such a situation …

Australian job hunters warned about a dangerous new supermarket scam circulating on social media

Yikes! Those bloody scammers are at it again, and they’re targeting Australian candidates.

Management sends remote worker photo of herself away from desk, suspends her for speaking out

This is wild …

‘A bigger paycheck? I’d rather watch the sunset!’: is this the end of ambition?

We’ve all seen a massive swing in employee benefits to focus more on employee wellbeing and flexibility over bonuses and extra $$. Has the pandemic led people to value their own happiness over climbing the career ladder for more money?

Not quite recruitment – This new apartment building in Amsterdam is new housing for wildlife, not just humans

Y’all know that I love me some funky office architecture or a modern home designed for the post-pandemic world … so this is no different. When the population is growing rapidly, and some species of animals are slowly dying out … this type of design makes me happy! Super cool.

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