Aaron Dodd's Page

Much has been written of late about the many flaws in the contingent recruitment business model. Last week I experienced first-hand just how seriously poor the model is. Those that promulgate it and try to run their recruitment businesses with it will ultimately fail their businesses, clients and candidates. They also act as the best advertising money can’t buy for those recruiters who operate with better proven exclusive and ideally, retained models. The case story follows;

Preamble; Mindset o… Continue

Over the last few weeks Mindset’s talent division started to receive an unusually high number of applicants from a large American medico-pharma company with a significant presence in Australia. This was unusual as this company has until recently had a high reputation for good HR practices and high staff engagement. Their employees have been hard to attract!

Our consultants started to probe deeper as to the reasons for the sudden change. It seems that with the GFC the company’s margins were bein… Continue

Prior to the GFC we saw articles almost daily on the so-called talent shortage. Such clichéd headlines as “Winning the War for Talent” were commonplace. My own company, Mindset used them as did everyone else. These headlines and articles have subsided of late but the talent shortage is still there. It's like a wild beast hibernating; waiting for the thaw - which will be here sooner than most Australians think. In fact, many would argue that it’s waking now as the extra cold metaphorical winter w… Continue

This week has seen us witness the hilarious and ongoing Kraft iSnack2.0 marketing debacle. Although no longer Australian owned, the Vegemite brand is an icon in Australia and New Zealand. Like any icon brand, it takes a brave marketer to try and change it. The only comparative episode I can think of was the global “new’ Coca Cola of few years back. This was met with such significant public uproar that Coke eventually dropped the “new” Coke and reverted back to Coke “Classic”. Arguably iSnack2.0… Continue