Employee complaints about being overlooked for roles in favour of external talent has led global tech firm Oracle to add a team of internal recruiters who just target existing staff.

"It came to light when we were doing a major hiring of about 1,000 people across Asia Pacific," says senior VP of HR, Asia Pacific and Japan, Alison Sibree. "We had feedback from our internal employees that they didn't get as much consideration for these roles, and we realised we needed to address that."

In response to the criticism that its 300–400-strong TA team were prioritising external candidates, Oracle implemented a new division of TAs who are 100% focused on internal candidates.

"So when there's an opportunity, they will have visibility of that first, and will search internally [for candidates], and if we can't find anyone internally then the external recruiters take it on."

In the highly competitive tech industry, Sibree says her organisation has some work to do when it comes to educating the market on all that it can offer candidates.

"Oracle isn't in the forefront of everyone's mind when they think 'cloud' – people think Google, Amazon, for example. So when [recruiting] people we have to sell the story about our cloud offering."

Curiously, she adds, the same talent keeps circulating through the top tech firms, as each employer targets top talent. "So we have to make sure the offerings we give people will bring them onboard and then retain them and develop them."

Something must be working, as this year LinkedIn listed Oracle number 17 on its list of top companies Australians want to work for.

Sibree suggests it has a lot to do with the career development available. "We offer a lot of career opportunities for people, so while they may join in one capacity, we offer the opportunity for them to move, either horizontally or laterally, and change career directions."

Millennial candidates and graduates, in particular, are also attracted to the opportunities to work overseas, she says. "It doesn't matter whether they join in Sydney, if they choose to, they can continue to grow their career in Sydney or if they want to go to Asia or the US, that opportunity exists as well."

Learning and development opportunities are also promoted to lure (and retain) talent. "Oracle offers a lot of learning opportunities for people to keep their skills current or move on to new skills, and that's an attraction."

A recent initiative Sibree implemented in Singapore, now being replicated across the APAC region, was a two-day employee career fair, where employees take advantage of Oracle technology to assess their career development options.

Corporate social responsibility is also an important attraction tool, she says, especially for the youngest two generations of employees at Oracle. As part of its onboarding program, each region runs a CSR exercise once a month for new hires to come together on a project, such as building bicycles for underprivileged children.

Other key attraction benefits include competitive salary, medical and insurance benefits, and an employee assistance program that also covers family members.

To help boost the number of women in the male-dominated sector, Oracle focuses on developing female leaders with its Oracle Women's Leadership (OWL) program, and has gender-based hiring goals, especially in management positions. "We don't have targets, per se, but we certainly have goals about the number of women in management positions," Sibree says.

Get in touch to share your news with Shortlist.