ORGANIZATION NAME

Talent Solutions

2012 Recruiting Trends – Australia Snapshot

Methodology

May - July 2012

India: 255 Australia: 280

Canada: 299

France: 224

UK: 334

Spain: 100

Germany: 97

Netherlands: 226

Nordics: 113

Italy: 99

Surveyed 280 recruiting

professionals in Australia

with a LinkedIn profile.

All respondents:

work in a corporate HR/recruiting setting

represent an even mix of small, midsize

and large enterprises

have at least some budget authority

focus solely or significantly on recruitment

Brazil: 226

USA: 755

2

6 notable trends in Australia - summary

3

1. Hiring surprisingly healthy

2. The (competitive) heat is on

3. Passive talent and pipelining remain essential

4. Quality of hire the name of the game

5. Employer branding the hot topic

6. Data-driven decision making is Achilles heel

1. Hiring surprisingly healthy

Among those who are hiring, growth slowed slightly

from 2011 – but majority still say volume up or flat

Hiring same

Hiring less

“Considering only full and part-time professional employees, how do you

expect the hiring volume across your organisation to change this year?”

5

15% 30%

33%

35%

51%

35%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2011 2012

15% 28%

35%

34%

50% 38%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2011 2012

Hiring more

Budget growth roughly in line with hiring volume

growth

“How has your organisation's budget for recruiting solutions changed from last year?”

6

16% 32%

38%

41%

46%

27%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2011 2012

14% 27%

45%

43%

41% 30%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2011 2012

Same

Decrease

Increase

2. The (competitive) heat is on

Biggest obstacles to attracting top talent

Competition 1 54% 1 41%

Compensation 2 42% 2 39%

Lack of awareness or interest in our employer brand 3 26% 3 25%

Location 4 19% 4 25%

Recruiting team doesn't have the right tools/systems 5 13% 6 13%

Inability to effectively use data to improve our approach 6 13% 8 9%

Recruiting team too small 7 11% 5 15%

Quality of talent currently at our company 8 8% 9 7%

Lack of awareness that we're hiring 9 6% 7 12%

Recruiting team skills 10 6% 11 4%

Company performance 11 5% 10 6%

Other 12% 11%

Top obstacles to attracting top talent in Australia

reflect highly competitive landscape

8

Chief competitive threats

Build and nurture strong talent pools or pools or pipelines

Invest in their employer brand

Learn to use social networking and social media more

effectively

Recruiting leaders in Australia are most concerned their

competitors will…

Better passive candidate recruiting tops the list of

long-lasting industry trends

Top long-lasting trends

Finding better ways to source passive candidates 1 40%

Utilising social and professional networks 2 36%

Recruiting globally 3 25%

Boosting referral programs 4 24%

Training recruiters and hiring managers 5 22%

Upgrading employment branding 6 21%

Optimizing your career site 7 20%

Using CRM technology to manage talent leads 8 19%

Reducing dependence on traditional job boards 9 18%

Reducing spend on staffing firms 10 15%

Measuring quality of hire more consistently 11 15%

Using mobile for recruiting 12 12%

10

Recruiting through the eyes of Australian talent

acquisition professionals

11

“Recruiting is…”

3. Passive talent and pipelining remain essential

58%

42%

Passive talent

Passive talent a focus

Passive talent not a focus

81%

19%

Pipelining talent

Engaged in pipelining talent

Not engaged in pipelining talent

Most believe in the importance of passive talent and

the practice of pipelining talent

13

4. Quality of hire the name of the game

Quality of hire is the single most important metric for

corporate recruiters; cost per hire surprisingly low on list

15

Single most important recruiting metric

Quality of hire 1 45% 45%

Hiring manager satisfaction 2 26% 22%

Time to fill 3 19% 21%

Cost per hire 4 8% 8%

Other 5 2% 3%

Fastest-rising source of quality hires: social professional

networks; Fastest falling: legacy job boards

Best sources for key quality hires Biggest YoY

changes

Internet job boards 1 51% -8%

Internal hires 2 43%

Employee referral programs 3 39%

Company career website 4 35% +6%

Recruitment agencies 5 35% -4%

Social professional networks (e.g. LinkedIn) 6 23% +10%

Your ATS/internal candidate database 7 9%

Print newspapers/trade journals 8 8%

Your CRM system 9 5%

General career fairs 10 4% +2%

College recruiting programs 11 4%

Internet resume databases 12 3%

16

5. Employer branding is the hot trend

Employer brand seen as critical in hiring great talent

91% 83%

73% 69%

18

Agree that employer brand has

significant impact on ability

to hire great talent

Agree that employer brand is

a top priority for their

organisation

Despite the climate of ‘more with less’, companies

investing in employer branding

96% Increasing (61%) or

maintaining (35%) their

investment in employer

brand in 2012 91%

19

6. Data-driven decision making is Achilles heel

Despite employer brand importance, measurement is

inconsistent – especially candidate surveys

33%

25%

33%

32%

21

Regularly survey candidates

to understand employer brand

position

Regularly measure the health

of employer brand in a

quantifiable way

In general, talent acquisition must become more data-

driven in order to lead the business

21%

79%

26%

74%

22

Believe their organisation

utilises data well to make

hiring decisions

Believe they are average,

or poor at using data to

make hiring decisions

6 notable recruiting trends in Australia - summary

23

1. Hiring surprisingly healthy. Despite macro trends, Australian hiring is relatively strong. 70

percent are either seeing increased (35 percent) or steady (35 percent) hiring volume

compared to 2011. Budget growth is roughly in line.

2. The (competitive) heat is on. Competition and compensation are cited as the biggest

obstacles to hiring top talent; respondents are most worried their competitors will invest in

pipelining talent, employer branding, and using social platforms more effectively.

3. Passive talent and pipelining remain popular. 58 percent say passive talent is a focus,

and over 80 percent do some form of talent pipelining.

4. Quality of hire the name of the game. 45 percent cite quality of hire as most critical metric;

online professional networks and career sites are rising as quality sources.

5. Employer branding the hot topic. 91 percent agree employer brand has a significant

impact on ability to hire great talent; almost three-quarters say it’s an organisational priority.

And 96 percent are either increasing or maintaining employer brand investment.

6. Data-driven decision making is Achilles heel. Despite the importance of employer

branding, only 33 percent regularly measure, and only 25 percent survey candidates. Only

one in five say they use data well to make hiring decisions.

Additional resources

http://talent.linkedin.com

24

On how to dial up your

recruiting impact on

LinkedIn

http://talent.linkedin.com/passivetalent On how to recruit

passive talent

On best practices in

employer branding http://talent.linkedin.com/employer-brand

Follow us @hireonlinkedin

Read our blog

See more research

http://lnkd.in/talent-blog

http://lnkd.in/hireonlinkedin

Sampling and methodology

Survey fielding occurred between late May and late July 2012

N=280 talent acquisition professionals located in Australia, who

– work in a corporate HR/Talent Acquisition department

– have at least some authority in determine their company’s recruitment solutions budget

– focus exclusively on recruiting, manage a recruiting team, or are HR generalists who spend

more than 25 percent of their time recruiting

Comparisons to 2011 data are taken from 2011 Global Hiring Trends research, which

fielded between late April and early June, 2011

– n=227 talent acquisition professionals with identical sampling criteria and methodology to 2012

Global numbers are reported as un-weighted

averages of corporate recruiter responses from the

following countries:

– Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India,

Italy, Netherlands, Nordics (Norway, Sweden,

Denmark, Finland), Spain, UK, & US

Participants are members of LinkedIn who have

opted to participate in research studies. They were

selected based on information in their LinkedIn profile

and were contacted via email.