This Week in Talent (4th August)

Hi!

I’m Mitch, some of you may know me from such LinkedIn posts as “what’s your favourite biscuit?” and “jam or cream, which goes on the scone first?” but for those who don’t, it’s an honour to be in your inbox. I’m currently the Head of Talent Acquisition for Aussie Tech Startup Linktree and have wasted spent the past 14 years in recruitment and TA life.

I’ll be the guest editor for TWIT through all of August so make yourself a cuppa and I’ll try my best to keep you warm via a few words and articles that caught my eye.

Keeping warm feels like the priority at the moment, as even up here on the “sunny” Gold Coast, it’s been colder than a positive Covid test the day before a holiday and all of these layoffs in the tech space are making it feel extra frost. Like you, I’ve been seeing the news daily but then also still seeing plenty of jobs advertised and competiting with other companies on those hard to fill roles.

So I put my Tracey Grimshaw pants on and went investigating for the truth. I found quite a bit that suggests the market isn’t quite as bad as it seems. There is positive recruiter sentiment, data that shows numbers aren’t really down except compared to the peak madness in the US and here in Australia. It might just be that in today’s social media world, bad news travels really fast and we should have never expected the instane growth in tech to continue forever.

Speaking of our friends at SEEK, they have just announced that nominations for the 2022 STAR awards are now open*. We know it’s not always easy for TA teams to get the recognition they deserve so these awards are a great opportunity to highlight the hardwork and dedication that goes into our work. You and your team could end up as a future success story too!

Something that did warm my heart this cold winter has been the increase in companies trialling 4 day working weeks. A huge 6-month trial has started in the UK from June to November and is about to kick off in Australia. All of us that aren’t involved are cheering and praying for good results from these trials, well I know I am at least.

My wife also tried to get warm by going to see the latest Top Gun Movie, all she could tell me about the movie was something about volleyball on the beach though. I looked into a bit more and now I’m not sure if this was just another Hollywood blockbuster, or the world’s most expensive recruitment campaign. If this is a recruitment campaign for the US Airforce, I’m drafting the first script for a movie about Software Developers next weekend.

With all this frost, it might be worth checking out my colleague Linda Kelly new side business selling the worlds biggest blankets.. These things are so big that you could not only work under them, but you’re whole team could fit under without even having to worry about playing footsies. You know what they say, TA teams that stay cosy together, produce the best results. 

*sponsored