RECRUITMENT PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES IN AUSTRALIA.

Running head: RECRUITMENT PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES IN AUSTRALIA
RECRUITMENT PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES IN AUSTRALIA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
Executive Summary
In this report, the aim will be to discuss about the recruitment procedures and practices of the
Australian companies and the challenges they are facing to cope up with the issues faced
while recruiting the people. The recommendations will also be provided at the end of this
report, so that the companies can follow this to avoid the circumstances.

2RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Statement of the Problem...........................................................................................................4
Details of the Chosen Options....................................................................................................4
Challenges faced by the Employers...........................................................................................7
Recommendation......................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11

3RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
Introduction
In this report, the discussion will be on the recruitment practices in the companies of
Australia, their style of approaches, their selection methods as well as the problems they are
facing in the modern competitive world to recruit the people for their respective organizations
and providing some recommendations for the human resource managers to avoid those
circumstances faced in the recruitment process. The term recruitment involves the overall
process of drawing attention of the candidates, shortlisting them, selecting among the
shortlisted candidates and appointing the suitable candidates from the selected candidates for
temporary or permanent jobs within an organization. It can also be said that the process of
recruitment includes in closing the individuals for unpaid roles in a company. Managers or
the human resource and recruitment specialists are assigned to recruit people for an
organization, but help of public-sector employment agencies, commercial recruitment
agencies or specialist search consultancies are needed to perform some stages of the
recruitment sometimes. The usage of online platforms has become popular to recruit people
over the world by the companies around the world. The total process includes the job analysis
part, where the overall knowledge, abilities of the candidate, skills required for the respective
job role and other information or characteristics required are analyzed to provide the
information of the criteria of the different kind of vacancies available in an entire
organization, and accordingly the information is distributed to source people. Sourcing is the
way or process through which the candidates are identified for the interview to be held for the
various kinds of vacant positions within an organization. After that, the candidates are
screened or shortlisted, where some of the candidates are shortlisted by the company among
the overall candidates attended for the interview process for the final stage, which is
selection. The selected candidates are offered the vacant positions according to their abilities

4RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
and skills requires for those particular posts. After the selection of the candidates, the
recruitment process gets over (Katsikitis et al 2013).
Statement of the Problem
In modern competitive world, the process of recruitment can be termed as a mixture
of easy and difficult scenarios. All the workplaces are changing day by day and the
recruitment practices, automatically are changing or forced to change to cope up with the
speed of transformation of the work culture and business operations of the organizations. The
steps followed or will be followed have a huge impact on the operations of the companies in
Australia. To increase the efficiency as well as the effectiveness of the recruitment process is
a major challenge faced by the companies in Australia. As the organizations are transforming
from a local or regional company to a multinational one at a fast space, the recruitment
practices are also changing and that too have to match the fast growing steps of the ever-
changing of the technology. Some factors like social and demographic factors are affecting
the practice of recruitment in Australia. The employee engagement is very much a
challenging job for the human resource managers not only in Australia, but everywhere in the
world. The Australian employers are facing or have faced an exclusive set of pressure with a
compact labor market, pressure related to the economy and volatility after the global financial
crisis. To cope up with those scenarios, recruitment practices have been adapted. The
strategic human resource advices the strategic plans of an organization as well as the major
markets will help them to identify the labor market and job families from where the employer
needs to recruit the people for their company (Parkinson et al 2015).
Details of the Chosen Options
Recruitment strategies help an organization to gain a competitive edge over its
competitors, as the competitive advantage through the process of recruitment arrives from the

5RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
internal capabilities and the attributes of the organizations, like employer branding. Major
drivers behind the changes in the recruitment practices as employers focuses to achieve the
competitive advantage which includes cost and efficiency and differences in the product or
service. The cost and efficiency drivers involves the e-recruitment systems, which helps to
manage the large number of applications received from the job aspirants. On the other hand,
the differences in the product or services involves drivers like employer branding. To enlarge
a flexible workforce as well as ensuring person-culture and skills which fits an organization,
the employers must improve a set of organizational competencies. These are the
competencies which can be termed as the core or basic skills and attributes which should be
held by each and every employee. The level and type of vacant positions usually helps to
determine the advertising mix. A large mixture of sources helps to enlarge the potential
recruitment base for the vacant positions available in the organizations of Australia. The main
flow in the recruitment channel in Australia are identified as (Kerr and Kelleher 2015):
1. Usage of technology
2. Outsourcing, Insourcing and Private Recruitment Agencies
3. The ‘War of Talent’
4. Improving the Human Resource responsibilities
5. Recruitment in Small Business
Social media has a huge impact in the recruitment processes in Australia. The diversity
among the Australian workforce has increased hugely over the last 30 years, mainly the
increase in the number of emigrants from South-east Asia. Accordingly, the usage and
dependency on the technology has gradually increased. The print media was the dominating
form of recruitment advertising, the flow has shifted to the usage of internet and online media
platforms. It has been found that almost 90% of the employers in Australia are using the
online media platforms for recruiting the talents from around the world. Though

6RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
advertisements are given in the newspapers or magazines, the online advertising has become
popular, mainly due to the millennials. They are young generation, also known as Generation
Y or Gen Y, having their birth years in between the early 1980s and nid-1990s to early 2000s
as the ending birth years. They are the tech-savvy generation and have a dominating presence
in the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These has become the
core platforms for attracting and recruiting the candidates across the country, to attract the
eyeballs of the people, according to the criteria of the vacant positions available in the
different organizations of Australia. Social media as well as new information technology
platforms are playing a major ole since 2007 in Australia. The online versions of the
newspapers and magazines are also used by the employers. The employers who give
advertisements regarding job vacancies in the careers or vacancies websites have gained from
their process due to the increase in the use of smartphones. The number of Australians who
are using smartphones to access the social media platforms and online browsing has
increased a lot, from 75% in between 2017 and 2018 (Amon et al 2014). Usage of mobile
phones has increase a lot to search for jobs in Australia. The job seekers can look for the jobs
available in the respective websites while in a public transport or moving from one place to
another, or anytime in the day. Nowadays, most of the internet pages can be viewed on the
mobile devices. The details can be send via emails about the details of the interview, which
can be viewed from the smartphones or through messages. The mix of all these advertisement
strategies can be adjusted according to the results obtained from the recruitment processes (
King, O'Rourke and DeLongis 2014).
Applicant tracking system, also known as e-recruitment, has developed to manage the
online recruitment activity by the Australian companies. IT systems are generally used to
manage the number of applications and resumes received from around the world. Applicant
tracking system is used mainly to conduct the initial shortlisting of the candidates applied for

7RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
the different posts in the Australian organizations. This system offers fresh metrics to develop
or improve the chances of better aspirant to job as well as organizational fit. The recruitment
agencies have grown to a huge extent, as many Australian organizations outsource the
recruitment function to them. The process of recruitment is also outsourced and insourced by
the companies of Australia. Insourcing, which is also called employed consultant model,
indicates to a recruitment agency which provide their own recruiters to work in the location
of the client employer. The recruitment agencies also play a major role in decreasing the cost
and increasing the efficiency of the overall recruitment process on Australia. The employer
branding and the employer of choice image also helps to attract extra attention from the job
seekers, and this is also used as a recruitment process by some of the Australian companies.
This also helps to attract the job aspirants with higher qualities. Employer branding by the
Australian companies helps to increase the quality as well as quantity of jobseekers.
Employer branding hugely uses the social media platform as well as crowdsourcing to
involve the jobseekers directly through the sites of career information. For example,
Glassdoor assembles job applicants as well as evaluations of employer of more than 250,000
companies, kind of jobs, amount of salaries and interviews of the employer as well as the
employee who are getting posted. Winning an award of employer choice is an acceptance of a
range of factors which helps to attract the jobseekers to the relevant industries and particular
companies in Australia other than the salary package offered by the companies. For example,
The Randstad award 2013 was awarded to the ABC for improving the quantity to attract the
jobseekers across the whole population of Australia with particular success coming in
recruiting women and older workers. The major attraction drivers for the ABC were content
of the job, learning and career improvement opportunities, a healthy workplace culture and
proper work-life balance (Ahsan, Ho and Khan 2013).

8RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
Challenges faced by the Employers
The choice of the recruitment strategy depends on the financial health or the
availability of finance for the purpose of recruitment. The financial conditions have troubled
each of the six industries in Australia differently, with construction, manufacturing and retail
and hospitality sectors suffered the economic uncertainty to a great extent than the education
and training, health care and social assistance and professional, scientific and technical
sectors. Worker visas has become a n issue in case of recruitment, especially in the mining
sectors of Australia. New regulations have created challenges for the specialist recruitment
firms belonging to these sectors. The other sectors are facing some issues and challenges
while conducting the process of recruitment. The usage of social media platforms has also
become a challenge for the employers in Australia. The employers, if allowed to view the
candidate’s online profile, can reject them if any negative online material is found in the
Facebook or Twitter page, thus losing an opportunity to hire some candidates who are
qualified enough and possess all the necessities to fit for the relevant vacant positions just for
some adverse effects in the platform of social media. The arrival of cloud media and search
engine optimization also raised the issues like ownership and data management across the
social network system. For example, the recruiters might be in doubt whether their ‘friends’
(Facebook), ‘followers’ (Twitter) or ‘connections’ (LinkedIn) are noticed as personal or
business contacts by their employers (Ahmed et al 2013). Ownership of these social media
platforms or networks becomes important at the time when a recruiter with a database which
includes the specialized contacts alters the employer. The law is still developing around the
social media, commercial ownership and the intellectual property. Due to the altering nature
of global mobility, the placement process of employees internationally faces a lot of troubles.
The Australian companies has to keep in mind the local demands while coordinating with
global systems. The integration of diverse workforce is very essential for greatest

9RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
performance of the individual and the organization. The fast change of business situations in
worldwide markets obstruct he rapid recruitment process, development and reduction of
workers. The HR officers of different organizations of Australia face a real challenge to
gather the correct skills for their organizations excluding the topographical locations and
identification of able people who can work effectively irrespective of several values, attitudes
and risk taking in the global market.
Cultural awareness is an essential factor as it gives an overview of more planned and
more effective global operations as people from diverse cultures has diverse assumptions of
work attitude and relations between the employees and the management. Working with
several cultures paves a way for the acceptance of separate cultures with different values and
alternative viewpoints. Therefore, the Australian organizations must recruit effectively and
select workers carefully to employ and retain satisfied candidates. Local recruitment is an
easier process as the local market is better understood by the managers. When the local
recruiting process is appropriate, HR managers need a depth of knowledge in business, legal
and cultural practices for the employment in that country. Both the international consistency
as well as national customs and practices are essential to gain. Psychological and educational
tests need to be done to adapt a varied linguistic and cultural context. The HR managers need
to have an added knowledge and responsibility for the functioning of foreign operations.
These contain the knowledge of language, regional and national legal norms, currency
exchange rates, company profits, incentives and mostly the ethics of foreign business
communications. Another issue of engaging the employees is its incalculable ROI. But there
is neither any rulebook which gives a proper view of the negative organizational acceleration
by the workers. The employment (37%) and reward (36%) are sources of anxiety of workers
in the year 2019 (Saifalislam et al 2014). Employers cannot rely on their rewards when it
comes to the problem of sourcing the in-demand candidates. In case of retaining an

10RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
employee, it is an age old question that how long is it possible to hold back the workers from
walking out of the organization. The HR managers must give the employees enough space to
work and develop and trust them in their work. Moreover, there is another issue with the
attendance of the workers. When they attend the workplace even when they are seriously
unwell, it causes a serious influence on their morale, productivity and mental wellness.
Therefore, it is extremely essential to have an honest communication between the managers
and the staff for their wellbeing (Rose Cherney and Worrall 2013).
Recommendation
The human resource managers need to devote more time as well as effort to develop a
proper and effective rewards program. This will help the employees to engage in the work, so
that less people will leave the organizations, hence will the company has to invest less time
for recruiting the candidates. The time is needed to gather information about the character of
the vacant jobs. The purpose of the job, the outputs required for the job holder and the extent
of it’s fitting into the structure of the organization. It is also very much necessary to take into
considerations the skills and personal attributes required to perform the role efficiently and
effectively. The proper job defining and description will benefit the recruitment process of
the Australian companies by providing the information to the potential jobseekers and
recruitment agencies on their behalf. For example, while framing the assessment activities
and making solutions among the candidates, the recruiters includes subjective judgements in
their decision making processes in order to make it sure that the selection is done fairly. It
can also help to communicate assumptions about the performances to the employees and
managers to help in ensuring the effective performance in their respective jobs. The
employers need to invest their time with the placement offices of the university, other
recruiting partners and the executive search firms, which actually helps a lot by watching the
online job boards for the potential candidates who may have their resumes online even if they

11RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
are not looking for any kind of job change at that particular time. The employers of the
Australian companies may use more professional websites and magazines to give
advertisements for recruiting professional candidates. They must hire the candidates who can
perform even though if proper training is not provided by the company. The companies must
look after their recruitment practices for retention, accountability, motivation, reward and
recognition, promotion, involvement and flexibility in work-life balance. The practices
should be maintained in such a way that the people will believe the employees even before
they believe the corporate literature. The recruiters need to educate their employees about the
cost and value of the benefits of them so that they can appreciate about the employers of the
organizations. Many employees are looking for cafeteria-style benefit plans where they can
balance their choices with the working spouses or partners. There should be stock as well as
ownership opportunities for each and every level of employees in the organizations of
Australia. There should be bonuses and profit sharing policies and plans that the employees
pay to measure the achievements and contributions. The references and the backgrounds
should be checked properly by the recruiters before selecting the candidates for their relevant
jobs, to avoid any complications in future aspects of the Australian companies (Treweek et al
2018).
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be said that there will be challenges which will be faced
by the organizations of Australia, and the situations should be handled tactfully. It is learnt
that there are many fresh ways available for the employers to recruit people from the market,
still there will be complications too. The organizations have to formulate their recruiting
policies to compete in this modern competitive world and to match the pace of the ever-
changing technology globally. To have the right candidate in the right place at the right time
will help the organizations to flourish properly, but for that, proper recruitment policies

12RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
should be laid and maintained efficiently. Recruitment is a very critical activity, and
International Human Resource Management is an ever-growing field in the multi-national
business operations performed in Australia, which will offer excellent employment
opportunities to the organizations in Australia. The changes in the workplaces should be well
evaluated in the organizations, so that the disputes can be handled properly and will help the
companies of Australia to grow properly in the modern competitive world.

13RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES IN AUSTRALIA
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