The latest trending recruitment, labour hire and talent acquisition news is highlighted below.
Read the full stories with your Shortlist subscription.
Not a subscriber yet? Get access to all our content by subscribing here.
Scrapping KPIs leads to burnout and low performance
A growing number of agency leaders no longer set KPIs for their teams, but an industry trainer warns this approach increases the risk of burnout and low performance.
It's common these days to see agency leaders promoting that they don't want to have "one of those KPI-driven companies", Younique Coaching director Sophie Robertson tells Shortlist.
And in her work she comes across agencies and recruiters that don't even keep records of their daily activity, but she says these leaders are "missing the point".
"If you were an athlete, there's no way that you would go out and train every day and not know your numbers. That would be ridiculous, because how can you sustain the effort?"
When recruiters are tired and run-down in doing their jobs, "part of it is because they can't see the small incremental gains they're making on a day-to-day basis", Robertson explains.
And when they can see that they've got the right activity levels, knowing that with this activity results will soon show – for example their interviews-to-placement ratio has improved – they can "rejoice in that".
The no-KPI approach often stems from leaders wanting to be liked more than they want to be respected, Robertson notes.
But "when you shy away from those conversations because you think 'we're not one of those companies', you're actually robbing [consultants] of being able to be better"...
Non subscribers: Read the full story - sign up here
Paid subscribers: Read the full story here
IPA Personnel Services acquired
IPA Personnel Services is in the process of being acquired by a European-headquartered recruitment and HR company.
Financial details of the deal haven't been revealed, but the prospective buyer is Synergie Group.
IPA started in Melbourne in 1984, operating in the facility services, government, and manufacturing sectors, among others. It has since grown into a team of more than 100 employees across 12 branches, mainly on the east coast of Australia.
In 2016 it became part of disability support services provider GenU, which has signed an agreement to transfer its ownership of IPA to Synergie and its subsidiary Synaco.
(Synaco, previously Acorn Global, launched in Australia in Adelaide in 2012. It has since expanded to NT, WA, Queensland, NSW and Victoria, including through the acquisition of Entire Recruitment in 2019 and Acorn Human Resources in 2020.)...
Non subscribers: Read the full story - sign up here
Paid subscribers: Read the full story here
Paxus diversifying from pure IT to new sectors
Paxus is soon to expand beyond IT and digital recruitment, dividing its business into five key areas to enable further growth, and in the process is completely overhauling its leadership structure.
The five chosen sectors fit "the landscape of the existing business, in terms of where we have historically over the past 50 years dealt", as well as Paxus's client base and geographies, says Praanesh Prasad, who has been Australian MD of parent company Adcorp since late 2022 (and was formerly MD of WorkPac).
Transformation manager Gary Whittaker, who joined this week, notes that Paxus hasn't grown at the same speed as some competitors that were comparable in size 10 years ago...
Non subscribers: Read the full story - sign up here
Paid subscribers: Read the full story here
Where agencies go wrong with their websites
Most recruitment agency websites fail to define what the company offers that's different from competitors and quickly deliver the information clients need, says a business coach.
Recruitment Garage founder Belinda Kerr says many recruitment websites are still based on a "brochure-like" approach using "vanilla" terms such as 'we offer great service', or 'we're different', and don't give visitors to the site a compelling reason to stay.
Rather, the language they use should be specific and focus on the benefits offered by the agency, with clear information about its expertise and achievements, she says.
A phrase like "we place the top 10% civil engineers in [this city]" for instance, is better than ones that start with "we partner with our clients to...", Kerr says…
Non subscribers: Read the full story - sign up here
Paid subscribers: Read the full story here
Sourcr addressing 'misleading' recruiter reviews
Following complaints that its platform is creating an uneven playing field for recruiters, Sourcr says it is in the process of fixing an 'inadvertent' issue with its Google review integration.
Shortlist has received complaints from several recruitment industry leaders that the ratings and feedback on Sourcr are not credible because the platform allows users to add false dates to reviews that are imported from third-party sites, such as Google.
The issue is particularly significant given that Sourcr is owned by Seek, which displays the reviews and ratings alongside its job ads, giving those recruiters an unfair advantage in the market, leaders say.
In a previous article, Shortlist published two of the numerous examples of Google reviews up to six years old appearing on Sourcr, but dated as though they were received in 2024...
Non subscribers: Read the full story - sign up here
Paid subscribers: Read the full story here