Sources of Talent in Australia report findings - do you care?

[Paul Jacobs]

I've just read the inaugural Australian ‘Source of Talent, 2009′ (downloadable from the Source of Talent web site), launched this week. I've been a big fan of the CareerXRoads annual Source of Hire Study (USA) for many years, so it was refreshing to glance upon a survey conducted closer to home. However, as a Kiwi I find it hard to reconcile the term 'talent' with Australia - a bit of an oxymoron really ;) Seriously, my first impression of the Australian report is that it is a very professional document and I thank the team behind it for sharing the results with the wider community. It was also good to see some industry comparisons for the various recruitment sources. I encourage the team to conduct a similar survey with NZ participants - or find some NZ partners. If not, maybe a NZ vendor or consultancy would like to lead the way.

The general findings, and the comparisons with US data, don't surprise me. Instead the report for me raises lots of questions, like whether Australian employers should be satisfied with the comparatively low use of referrals as a source of talent? I hope to see some dialogue around the results. Just because job boards, for example, are highlighted as a key source of talent in Australia, does this mean that an employer should be less concerned about their corporate careers site and not worry about getting their employee referral program working properly? Should an employer or agency not advertise in the newspaper if it is not translating into hires? A big question I have is why are recruitment agencies using job boards so much (more so than employers)? I would have thought that agencies should be using a wider range of approaches. If an employer used job boards more, would this negate the need to use agencies and translate into more hires (without the need to pay agency fees)? Thought I would pose that question.

Though I'm a real advocate for these types of surveys, I also have a healthy level of cynicism (I'm a Gen X). I believe job seekers may consider a number of sources in their decision making process. For example, they may have visited a careers site, seen an ad in the newspaper, developed a positive disposition towards an employer, and then used a job board as a means to apply. I don't believe any one source should be considered in total isolation completely. Also from my experience with NZ and Australian employers, many don't measure their sources of hire. I concur fully where the report alludes to the point that just because an Applicant Tracking System is in place, that it is necessarily used (or used properly). I often see employers measuring the wrong things or not measuring at all. Of greater concern are those employers that don't want to capture any recruitment metrics and don't give a damn about the ROI of different sources of talent. These HR and recruitment professionals / managers exist in higher numbers than we envisage - in my eyes this is not acceptable.

I look forward to seeing how future surveys compare. Are we going to see social recruiting feature more prominently? Have you seen this recent US poll? (are these poll results satisfactory?)

Do HR and recruitment professionals feel the sources identified in the Australian survey and their relative rankings are about right? Is the balance of the various sources where they should be? What should change in the future? Will you change your practices based on the results? And more importantly do you care about these results?

[Kunal Malhotra]

Interesting to read with a few caveats of course... I must say I'm a little confused about how you attribute placements just to the "internal recruiter" without also attributing it to another source???? I mean where does an internal recruiter find candidates if they aren't on the database, through a job board, headhunt/engage them through social networks/blogs etc.? I'm quite curious to find out... any thoughts? the other sources don't just happen by themselves, its usually an internal recruiter/HR professional who drives them...