recruitment-location

Every Placement starts with ‘Place’

• Job location is the number one priority for every candidate. What does this mean for recruiters? Will agencies that act local have to start ‘thinking global’, if they want to compete?

• Australia’s recruitment industry is one of the world’s most asymmetrical. Find out what the experts are saying are the best strategies for coping with a changing jobs landscape.

• Should recruitment be a bit more recreational? Candidates want recruiters to get creative with the candidate experience.


Recruitment: it’s all about location

Recruitment – like real estate – is a matter of location. That is what new research by corporate consultants at Gartner discovered this week.

The firm recently published its Global Talent Monitor review. It discovered that the location of a new job was the number one priority for candidates the world over.

Globally, 54.3 per cent of applicants prized the location of a vacancy above considerations such as pay and holiday leave. While in the UK the figure was a slightly lower 53.5 per cent, it was still the top attraction for candidates.

Paid leave came in a distant second place, with 43 per cent of Brits saying it was a factor in any job move. A healthy work-life balance (41.9 per cent), and workplace friendships (41.4 per cent) were also high among the deciding factors in Britain.

Interestingly, the global runner-up spot was none of these secondary considerations. For the rest of the world, it was employment stability that was next highest – with 45.7 per cent of respondents rating its importance.

What can we draw from these numbers? Are we Brits so starved of holidays compared to the rest of the world that it factors into our professional choices? Are we more comfortable with flexible, unsecured work?

While the report is inconclusive, the figures provide a fascinating glimpse into the shared – and contrasting – interests of the world’s workforce.


Identifying Australia’s recruitment worries


What do talent managers and recruiters worry most about these days? Location, incentivising your candidates, and finding the best recruitment software. At least, those were the answers given by Australian recruitment agency FutureYou this week.

Their latest online report provides a thorough overview of what it takes to be a top recruiter in Australia today.

High among the list of priorities are: open, borderless recruitment practices and an eye on job location (see previous article).

The FutureYou experts see an increased level of cross-state recruitment as the primary solution for Australian skill gaps. Borderless recruitment is a topic which has taken the spotlight in Britain recently, as Brexit looms large on the horizon. But the issue is perhaps of even greater significance in Australia. 75 per cent of the nation’s entire recruitment industry is focused on talent acquisition in Melborne and Sydney.

The study also echoes a cultural shift we have mentioned several times recently. Namely: that money is not the incentive that it once was for the modern professionals. The conclusion is simple enough. Find an enticing new offering for your candidate, and you will out-perform pay incentives and improve your talent acquisition processes.

FutureYou also cites the growing need for technological solutions to address traditional hiring problems. Reducing costs and duration of the hiring process are not just aspirations, but deal-breakers.

But, while automation is an invaluable tool in today’s industry, the report suggests that the best recruitment software is one which doesn’t remove the human touch. A personalised experience will win the top talent, every time. That fact is especially true for high-value, For executive searches.

As developers who work tirelessly to build systems that free up valuable time, the eBoss team can strongly agree with this sentiment.


Want to improve your candidate experience? Embrace the unconventional


Interesting think-piece of the week comes from The Knowledge Academy, via Onrec.

We often talk about candidate experience as a part of recruitment. Just recently we have looked at its growing significance in the success stories of recruitment agencies.

Now, the Knowledge Academy has put forward a set of survey data that identifies an ideal candidate experience for the new generation of young professionals.

No prizes for guessing that gamification features heavily in the idealised recruitment process.

But perhaps more amusing is the style of gamified interview process that would find favour among today’s applicants. 76 per cent of candidates would be happy to participate in an ‘Escape Room’ challenge as part of their assessment. If you are unfamiliar with the phenomenon, escape rooms are areas filled with puzzles. One puzzle leads on to the next, so each must be solved in turn. Teams of players need to co-operate to analyse and complete each task.

Perhaps surprisingly, 68 per cent of employers were receptive to the suggestion. The opportunity to assess soft skills like leadership, teamwork, and communication ranked highly among the benefits of gamified assessments for employers. Quickfire interview sessions modeled on speed-dating events were also popular with candidates and employers alike. ‘Capture the Flag’ contests were the least popular of the fun interview techniques being considered. Barely half of candidates and a third of employers said that the team challenge would be appealing to them.

There is one statistic that should be your take-away reading from the report – whether you subscribe to the notion of gamified recruitment processes or not. 82 per cent of candidates want recruiters to move past traditional assessments and try something a little unconventional.