Get Smart About Staff

Minchington says it is imperative that the organisation genuinely believes that employees are a company’s only truly sustainable competitive advantage, and understands that an employer brand must be built from within the company. Collaboration with staff and management are critical, and CEOs and MDs, though not necessarily driving the process, must be engaged in it and champion the program.

Broad Mix

Advertising in newspapers and using recruitment agencies are only part of the recruitment communication mix available today. Employers have a diverse and exciting range of advertising mediums at their fingertips.

In fact, many jobs are just a click away. Few industries have embraced the internet as wholeheartedly as the recruitment industry’s online job boards, and players such as Seek, MyCareer, CareerOne, Monster and Yahoo! HotJobs have shown steady growth over the past six years.

Talent pools and candidate databases are becoming more prevalent and online specialised databases abound, with many targeting specific markets and industries for jobs, such as engineering, building, IT, government, and secretarial, while others target specific types of people, for example the over 40s, expatriates, career mums, indigenous, contractors, and people with disabilities.

Telstra and Talent2 are continuing the push towards the transformation of traditional recruitment methods with the establishment of a world-class recruitment centre that utilises leading edge technology, people and processes.

Recent changes to the parenting payment from Centrelink means more parents are looking to return to the workforce on a part-time or full-time basis. These candidates come from a range of backgrounds, many with valuable experience. Employers can tap into this new pool of skilled workers by calling the Hotline on 131 715, or visiting www.needstaff.gov.au

The Victorian Government’s My Business, My People offers free assistance to businesses with five to 100 employees for finding and keeping good staff. For information phone 132 215 or visit www.business.vic.gov.au/mybusinessmypeople

Online recruitment is visible anywhere, anytime, making it a powerful recruitment tool. Job boards are convenient to use and access. Interactive multimedia content offers a rich emotional involvement for the targeted user while enabling employers to shortlist candidates from a wide geographic area, with minimal cost and time.

Online job advertisements allow the recruiter to showcase their company, target a specific market, and provide a full description of the job and the person they are seeking. Some sites like Seek have set up a pre-screening facility to save time for both job seeker and recruiter. ‘Job alerts’ sent to potential applicants ensure that appropriate and interested candidates see the advertisement. Applications like online screening and testing tools plus database capture and retrieval, make internet recruiting a dominant medium.

Companies are increasingly using job boards to their advantage by drawing potential candidates back to their own websites and allowing technology to filter, sort, and process the applications. There is an increasing trend for companies to set up their own websites, or exclusive recruitment micro sites, for attracting candidates.

Many companies who are finding success in recruiting are using a mix of strategies dependent on their target applicant. They might use their own website or an online job board or print advertising, because these mediums are an excellent opportunity for building their corporate brand in the community and the marketplace. Or they might choose job or career fairs that target specific skills and a select demographic.

Online initiatives are excellent for Gen Y and Gen X who are prolific and adept internet users.

Consider the variety of recruitment options below:

• professional and industry magazines

• local, regional, and national newspapers

• recruitment agencies

• college and university job boards

• radio

• videos

• intranets

• job and career fairs, events

• podcasts

• virtual sites

• career websites

• corporate websites

• talent pools and candidate database systems

• government skills databases

• internal referrals

• client, customer, stakeholder, agents or vendor referrals

• social and business networks

• word-of-mouth