After almost a decade in my role as a Recruitment Solutions Advisor at Employment Office, I’ve met thousands of HR managers, hiring managers and recruiters from a range of industries.

Every organisation is different when it comes to recruitment and all face unique recruitment challenges. From regional businesses that find it difficult to get any exposure or interest for a role, to industries suffering a significant skills shortage; organisations of all types and sizes need a tailored recruitment strategy to suit their circumstances.

Despite the diversity of challenges across different businesses, a few key questions are always asked in my discussions with hiring managers, no matter their industry.

Here are the most common questions HR professionals have when it comes to choosing a partner in recruitment:

1. How are you different to other agencies?

We don’t charge a percentage of placement fees.

We sell a process, not a candidate. Typically, agencies will deliver you a candidate from their existing database or they post a generic job ad on Seek – which they may also use to source candidates for higher paying clients; your competitors! At Employment Office, our clients don’t compete for candidates. Our advertising targets your candidates specifically – all applicants are collated especially for your role.

We’re open with our process.

With Employment Office, you have full access to the recruitment process and know exactly where each candidate was sourced. From initial applications through to interviews, you can view candidate data at any time, request specific information and play back video interviews at your convenience. Ultimately, you lose the stress and hassle that comes with internal recruitment, but keep full control.

You can make multiple hires – with no extra cost.

If you discover more than one outstanding candidate during shortlisting, why not hire them both? Due to the nature of our payment structure, you own your candidate data and can hire as many candidates as you like from a single campaign. And as we don’t charge a percentage of salary, we save you thousands of dollars. If you’re ready to expand your team now, don’t let agencies hold you back with extreme costs –  Employment Office can help you realise the full potential of your organisation.

2. Do you specialise in our industry/ sector?

We don’t specialise in one particular industry or sector – and we don’t pretend to. At Employment Office, we’re the experts in delivering the best candidates. We use our skills and expertise to market your role more effectively across a broad range of mediums, and uncover outstanding candidates that meet your criteria, all while leaving you choice and control over the process.

3. How does your process work?

At EO, we provide so many services for a range of industries, so our process differs for each client according to the type and scope of services they select. We don’t approach recruitment with a ‘one size fits all’ mindset.

Our products are designed to empower our clients to attract the very best candidates in the most cost-effective way through high quality recruitment campaigns, shortlisting and employer branding services.

Here’s the low down on some of our most popular products.

Recruitment advertising

Our recruitment copywriters will bring your opportunity to life, then your professional vacancy web page will promote and position you in a unique way, all while our experienced team handles all applicant enquiries and feedback on your behalf, saving you time and ensuring exceptional candidate care. Learn more about our recruitment advertising services, here.

Shortlisting and selection services

We can deliver a full end-to-end selection process or specific services, including background and reference checks, candidate screening, video interviews, behavioural and skills testing and group assessment days. Your Shortlisting & Selection Specialist will partner with you throughout, providing guidance to help you assess candidates and make the best hire. You can learn more about shortlisting and selection services here.

Recruitment Technology

We even offer recruitment technology solutions for you to use during your hiring process to make life easier. Gone are the days of scrolling through thousands of candidate emails, losing information on your talent pool and manually communicating with every single candidate. Your recruitment team will benefit from one easy-to-access candidate management system with tailored features enabling timely, personalised and professional communication with candidates that will highlight your employer brand. Partner with us to overhaul your recruitment process with our cutting-edge recruitment technology that was listed in the top 100 recruitment software technologies to watch in 2017.

Evidently, HR teams and hiring managers share common concerns. They want an outstanding recruitment partner without the outrageous fees who can deliver customised recruitment efficiently – stress-free. Whenever I hear these concerns, I say, “Welcome to Employment Office.”

Editor’s Note: Do you have a question for us? Talk to the recruitment experts today and discover how we can enhance your hiring process.

 Author: Sacha Price, Recruitment Solutions Advisor

According to a 2016 Workible study, flexible working arrangements is number three on the list of important factors for job seekers when applying for a new role, behind salary and location. With three out of four office-based workplaces in Australia reportedly offering negotiable working schedules, flexibility is increasingly expected by employees across all office-based industries.

Major corporates including Deloitte, PWC Canberra, Cisco and Expedia have all embraced the move to alternative working arrangements, including working from home and hot desking, and have significantly reduced their office space as a result.  Other organisations have chosen to offer workers flexible hours/working from home arrangements on a case by case basis as requested.

Ultimately each organisation has to determine what’s right for their operation, however flexible working arrangements are a growing trend in the candidate market. If you do offer any benefits in this space, it can give you a competitive edge when it comes to attracting talent to your organisation, and positively impact the perception of your employer brand in the market place.

In my current role with Employment Office, I enjoy a flexible working arrangement to suit my family arrangements and it’s made a huge difference to my home and work life.

My advice to organisations that do offer any employment flexibility, whether it’s on a case-by-case basis or as a formalised agreement with all staff, is to make sure you share this with candidates during the recruitment process. In my experience a candidate will opt for a role that offers flexibility and location convenience over salary, as ‘life balance’ is more valued by individuals than salary.

Read on for my tips on how to communicate workplace flexibility to boost your talent attraction strategy.

• Showcase both full-time and part-time employees on your careers website. Employee stories that include a more personal element paint a strong picture for candidates. Use these people stories to highlight how your organisation values each of their people’s personal life and endeavors to support them.
• Advertising vacant roles in both the full-time and part-time categories on job boards. The key words ‘part time’ is a highly searched across Australian job boards. By including your role in the part time category, you’re tapping into highly experienced candidates who are looking for flexibility.

• Include workplace flexibility in your recruitment advertising content. Many organisations that offer flexibility on a case-by-case basis won’t advertise it, and this is a mistake. Don’t miss out on the perfect candidate because they don’t know what you can offer them.

Whatever your organisation offers in regards to flexible working arrangements, the important point is to ensure you communicate your offering throughout the recruitment process. In an increasingly candidate-driven talent market, anything you can do to keep up (or stay ahead) of the competition is critical to attracting the best people to your organisation.

 Author: Sacha Price

Editor’s note: Employment Office provides cutting-edge employer branding services to help organisations attract the very best candidates. Contact us to find out how we can discover your employee value proposition and establish your organisation as an employer of choice.

 

Corporate wellness programs are no longer just a “fad,” they are here to stay. In order to keep wellness activities fresh, creativity and innovation is flourishing in this space. In 2017, the emphasis seems to be on a more holistic health approach. In particular, we are seeing a rise in employee flexibility, healthier work environments and improvements in technology.

Here’s our top five health trends:

1. Flex Working – the trust and autonomy that goes hand in hand with flexible working hours goes a long way to delivering better work-life balances. Flexibility seems to be key to our happiness and wellbeing, we are all unique and have different responsibilities and schedules outside of the workplace. From flexible leave arrangements to physical work environments – through hot desking and collaborative workspaces – many impacts can be measured including increases in productivity and decreased levels of stress.
2. Wellness Tools  – sleep pods, stand-up desks, treadmill desks and fitness apps are popular ways to physically improve wellbeing. Check out APPs like Keas, Workplace Challenge and Wellness Champion Hub that enable employees to record and track their exercise, nutrition and sleep against individual and team goals.
3. Decline In Sit-Down Meetings – The stand-up meeting has also evolved into the walking meeting. Not only are these both great ways to get people on their feet and away from their desks, they can be highly productive and a more efficient use of time. With tasks designated, decisions made and information shared whilst on the go, many organisations are finding these quick daily or weekly catch-ups fit well into busy schedules.
4. Giving Back – Providing opportunities for staff to fundraise for their favourite charities through organised events meets CSR objectives for organisations whilst creating feel-good outcomes for participants and beneficiaries alike. Some larger organisations take this to the next level and offer gift matching programs, ensuring staff realise the impact and value of their efforts. Consider also the food-drives, community working bees and used clothing/goods collections that many organisations run annually that make staff feel more connected to worthy causes.
5. Healthy Snacks – As many companies do away with the traditional vending machines filled with sugar and salt based food groups, encouraging healthier eating choices as part of an overall wellness approach for staff is definitely on the increase. Fruit bowls, nuts, herbal teas and filtered water are fairly commonplace in most workplaces. For those who still love the idea of the vending machine convenience, try Apple Vending or All Real Food for some great options using fresh foods including gluten free.

This article is provided by Tour de Office Foundation. If you are looking for more ways to get your staff active and health aware at work, register for their webinar https://tourdeoffice.wufoo.com/forms/m1h9foki0cj5ntf/  or visit www.tourdeoffice.com

Group assessment days (GADs) are great for making multiple hires easily and more efficiently…but not without a lot of prep work.

Successful GADs are meticulously planned and focus on the requirements of the role with tailored exercises typical of the position.  All of this gives top talent the chance to stand out and you the ability to see who will perform best in the role, making for a more effective hiring decision.

To help you prepare for a GAD we spoke with our shortlisting and selection specialist Amber Dique-Bellette.  Amber has drawn on her extensive experience running GADs – 50 to date! – and has provided her top tips for getting the most our of your group assessment day, below.

Design the GAD around the competencies of the role: Successful GADs are designed and tailored to the skills and characteristics required of the vacancy.  Work backwards to first identify the mandatory key competencies and ensure there are activities planned to assess the aptitude of candidates against each one.  Without this, your hiring decision will be compromised as you won’t know if your candidates will perform in every aspect of the role.

Lock in the date, the candidates and the assessors: Candidates and assessors alike will need some notice to reserve the time for the GAD.  Play it safe and book the time and date in the calendar well in advance.  From here, get the invitations out to your candidates and make sure the assessors and hiring managers have it booked in their diaries.

Pay attention to the details: Getting a GAD right is all in the detail.  There are a lot of moving parts from what time food is required, what housekeeping items need to be covered and what documents are needed (and how many) to ironing out potential technical issues and setting the timetable.  To make the day flow, put some effort in before the GAD to create a run sheet.  It’s also important to brief any presenters well in advance of what is required and have a digital copy of their presentation as a backup in case it doesn’t work on the day.  Other details to cover off include booking a space if you don’t have a room to host everyone in, publicising the location to attendees, locking in catering and bringing enough hard copies of any handouts for the day.

Strike a balance with wide-ranging activities: A major advantage of hosting a GAD is the ability to assess competencies like teamwork, emotional intelligence and cultural fit that can’t easily be evaluated during an interview.  If your GAD includes a variety of activities like team-based problem solving, paired scenarios and individual exercises, your candidates will show you through their actions how competent they are in situations relevant to the role instead of just telling you about their skills in an interview.  To do this effectively, it’s important to vary the types of activities, but only include those relevant to the role.  Some activities to consider include group teamwork, role plays, scenario responses, written tasks and presentations.

Score candidates objectively and fairly with a tailored scorecard: Set your GAD up for success by creating a scorecard from which all candidates can be consistently and objectively assessed.  It’s important all assessors are on the same page, so take the time to outline what you are looking for on the day, what to watch out for and how to judge the performances so everyone understands the objective of the day.  An effective scorecard should be broken down by the competencies you are looking to assess in each exercise. It’s a good idea to provide examples of what a ‘poor’ vs ‘outstanding’ result looks like so assessors can score candidates fairly and a consensus can be reached about the successful candidates.

Provide lunch and mingle: Keeping your attendees well fed should be a given – they will likely perform much better if they have enough coffee, water and food to fuel them.  But providing lunch and tea breaks throughout the day also offers another assessment opportunity.  During these times, the atmosphere is more relaxed and defences are down, giving you the chance to get to know them personally and see what sort of cultural fit they will be.  Allowing time for more relaxed conversation also means you can see their communication style.  This is an important factor to consider if the roles up for grabs are ones in which they will be representing your business, like those in sales, retail, hospitality or customer service.

Review the day and provide feedback to all: If you can, carve out time immediately following the GAD to go over the details of the day and of course, the candidates.  Leave it any longer and you run the risk of forgetting key details.  Aside from discussing and evaluating the candidates as a group, you can also identify any problem areas of the day and make a plan to resolve them for next time.

GADs are an invaluable recruitment strategy that can save you time and money when making bulk hires from a vetted pool of candidates.  If you are interested in hosting a GAD and looking for assistance, our specialists can design and run a tailored assessment day for you.

You can learn more about our assessment days by following this link.

A positive and well-articulated employer brand, excellent candidate experience and a mobile-first approach have emerged as the top trends in recruitment for the year ahead according to Employment Office.

After analysing industry developments in 2016, Employment Office’s recruitment experts have put the spotlight on the up-and-coming areas deserving recruiter attention in 2017.  

Employment Office’s managing director Tudor Marsden-Huggings explains that the unifying factor to next year’s trends is that employers need to deliver the experience candidates expect.

“Ultimately, job seekers are pressed for time, spoilt for choice and more demanding than ever, expecting potential employers to do the work for them in terms of luring them to the opportunity, communicating why they should apply via a compelling employer brand and caring for them throughout the application process,” Mr Marsden-Huggins said.

“Adhering to industry best practice next year will require employers and recruiters bring more to the table and invest in their job seekers as they do their customers.”

Here are Employment Office’s top six trends in recruitment for 2017.

• It’s All About the Experience

Today’s job seekers value user experience and personalisation more than ever so the job seeking experience will significantly influence which employers attract the best talent.  Therefore, an expedited recruitment process that puts the emphasis on pre and post candidate care is more important than ever.  Job seekers are also turned off by a protracted interview experience and expect job boards (and career sections of the employer’s website) to be easy to navigate, mobile optimised and personalised.  Employers need to think hard about the candidate experience and put their job seeking ‘customer’ first with a convenient process facilitated by sophisticated recruitment software, skilled recruitment professionals at the helm and good candidate management.  

• A Strong Employer Brand

What was once a luxury is now a crucial must-have in the fight to secure and retain great talent.  How an employer is perceived by job seekers is more influential than ever, and the perception can work for or against the employer.  With the rise of employer review sites like Glassdoor, an employer’s brand is more visible than ever before and in the current climate, candidates are more likely to decline a job offer from a company with a poor employer brand.  Having a solid employer brand is a company’s selling point to job seekers and what helps keep good employees around for longer.  Getting it right and promoting it to job seekers is the key to attracting top talent, reducing recruitment costs in the long run and retaining quality staff as positive advocates.

• Social Media Makes the Advertising Mix

Social Media is the key to getting in front of passive candidates, especially younger job seekers who resist traditional recruitment channels and methods. The use of social media in the recruitment advertising mix is expected to increase in 2017 as recruiters and employers cotton on to the visual impact, influence and targeting opportunities platforms like Instagram and Facebook provide.

• Job Ads That Stand Out

There are more avenues for job seekers to find out about vacancies than ever before and as the competition to attract quality candidates intensifies, so too does the importance of having job ads and InMail messages that cut through the noise.  Personalising the message to the job seeker and outlining ‘what’s in it for them’ will be critical to attracting more applications.  Spam-like communication (primarily through LinkedIn) and bland company-centric job ads won’t cut it.  In 2017, the successful recruiters will be the ones who leverage the information and motivations associated with the behaviour archetype of their target candidate to create impactful and meaningful impressions via their job ads and InMail messages.

• Mobile is the New Frontier

The all-conquering mobile phone demands webpages be optimised for display on its screens, including job boards and careers pages. With more job seekers conducting their searches and applying for jobs via their mobile than ever before, recruiters should push towards a mobile-first approach in 2017 to keep pace with demand.

• The Paper Resume is Dead

In 2017, recruiters will rely less on traditional resumes as they move to using recruitment software.  To aid the expedited and convenient candidate experience employers are striving to cultivate in a mobile-first environment, the duplication of resume and LinkedIn profile will need to cease.  Instead, candidates will be expected to apply with links to their up to date LinkedIn profile that acts as a digital resume with tricked-out enhancements that make it superior to its two-page paper cousin.