This Week in Talent (28th October)

Hi friends,

Welcome back to another week of TWIT. As we approach the end of the year, and the end of lockdowns as we know them (I hope), things are starting to feel magical again! The weather is warming up, and it’s nearly Christmas… I’m oh so excited! I can’t wait to get out of Melbourne, visit my family in Canberra and take a well-earned break.

On the flip side of all the magical feelings, I’m seeing the effects of the “Great Resignation” AND the skills shortage come into play big-time at the moment. ALL OF THE THINGS! In the past 2 weeks I’ve had 3 preferred candidates withdraw their applications at offer stage for roles we’ve been desperate to fill – citing their main reasons were to do with work/life balance, and not wanting to commit to a new role this close to the end of the year and juggling other things happening in their lives (kids, lockdown ending etc). No amount of sweet-talking on my end could convince them otherwise.

Not only are we losing staff and candidates that we thought we had sold, things are only going to get more competitive/tight with lots of companies that retrenched their staff during COVID set to kick off massive recruitment drives to get staff back.

There’s lots of little things we’re starting to do in our little TA team to tackle this problem:

• vigorously leveraging our EVP to highlight all the benefits of working with us (that’s a given)
• dedicating someone in my team to candidate experience improvement projects
• being more strategic with the way we recruit – not having a plan is planning to fail 😉
• thinking more broadly and looking at transferable skills rather than the ol’ “must have previous experience” thing
• exploring new job boards to advertise on, and other untraditional sourcing avenues to find new types of candidates (we’re looking in all the nooks and crannies)
• rethinking the way we assess candidates to make it a more enjoyable experience all round, and set our candidates up for success

Will this solve all our candidate shortage problems? Probably not, but by gawwwwwd it will help!

Have you done anything outside the box recently to find new candidates and address skills shortages? Msg me and TELL ME YOUR SECRETS!

They Quit, Now They Want Their Jobs Back

Do you anticipate that the staff you lost during the Great Resignation will eventually want to come back? As your company/business updates it’s flexible working policy, and other employee benefits, you might find an influx of past employees wanting to return!

The ‘third shift’ women do more of, study says

Studies have shown that women bore the brunt of pandemic pressure, working triple shifts – in the home, at their jobs, and added extra’s like ensuring people at work and in their personal life are emotionally supported. Did you notice this during lockdown? I certainly did!

Bloke At Job Interview Forced To Act Like He Cares About Company’s Founding Fathers

Love me a bit of Betoota. “Great, just, great really great guys…they believed in ideas.”

Adtech job vacancies double in Australia due to talent crunch

IAB report confirms the talent “crunch” in Australia. We’re all FEELING this right now, to our bones … particularly when it comes to gender balance within tech and engineering.

Millions Of Australians Are About To Quit

Predictions are that we will feel this at it’s peak in March 2022.

If There’s Only One Woman in Your Candidate Pool, There’s Statistically No Chance She’ll Be Hired

An interesting LinkedIn post and accompanying article – from 2016 but still relevant today. Why it’s so important to actively include gender diversity on your panels, and in your shortlists.