Permanent Recruitment 

To attract high-quality permanent talent, you must understand what the top-most desirable job factors are on the minds of great candidates. Right now, those are: 

1. Work-life balance and flexible work arrangements 
2. Salary and benefits 
3. Generating positive environmental or social impact 
4. Professional development opportunities 
5. Working in a great team 

Key to improving employee retention in any team is to first understand the key factors driving people away. Generally, the best way to get these insights is to find out from your people, either through one-on-one meetings or anonymous feedback surveys. 

In our experience, these are four of the top factors affecting employee retention in Australia: 

1. Uncompetitive pay or benefits 
2. A lack of pay increases 
3. Seeing no future at the company 
4. Toxic workplace culture 

When you understand your key problem areas, you can then begin to implement strategies that directly address the root cause of these issues. Common strategies we see include: 

1. Offering pay on-par with competitors 
2. Providing desirable benefits to top up any pay discrepancies 
3. Creating a transparent, inclusive work culture 
4. Ensuring each employee has a clear career progression pathway 

This always depends on your business objectives, budget, time and the complexities of the market. 

In-house permanent recruitment can be both highly efficient and very cost-effective, giving you total control of the hiring pipeline and a sense of ownership over the process.  

However, if your team lacks the capacity to run this process effectively, you’re hunting for niche or hard-to-find skills, or the market is experiencing heavy competition, a specialist recruitment partner can provide that extra level of certainty. This is because recruitment teams like ours have spent years building vast talent networks across the country (and globe), enabling us to: 

• Access hidden talent pools 
• Circumvent market competition to headhunt right-fit talent directly 
• Negotiate quickly and effectively with top professionals 

These factors make specialist recruitment teams very popular for finding reliable permanent talent, key skills areas and talented leaders. 

Retained, exclusive and non-exclusive search models primarily offer different levels of prioritisation and customisation, as well as different fee structures. 

Retained search offers the highest level of both priority and customisation, ideal for finding rare, niche, high-level or executive talent. Here, the fee structure is split into three parts – with one third payable upon commencement, one charged on presentation of shortlisted candidates, and the third payable on a successful placement. 

Exclusive search uses the traditional recruitment fee structure, where the full fee is charged on successful placement. Except, both parties agree to work exclusively with one another, enabling the recruiter to devote more time and resources to the talent search. 

Non-exclusive search is where multiple recruiters may be working in tandem. This is often a quicker service as recruiters prioritise filling the brief urgently, with the full fee payable on successful placement. 

Choosing a recruitment agency is all about knowing what result you need, then working backwards from there to find the team which can deliver those results. 

Things to think about include: 

1. Clearly define your needs – such as the skills you’re looking for, and the experience level.
2. Look for agencies which specialise in your industry. 
3. Check their track record – what do reviewers say, or your industry peers? 
4. Ask them about their processes. Do they sound thorough, and do they communicate well? 
5. Meet with their consultants. Try to find a team you enjoy speaking to. 

Yes, we provide tailored permanent recruitment support for organisations anywhere in Australia – including rural and regional areas. Our five-step recruitment process is designed to find precisely the right professionals no matter where your business is located, and we can help you negotiate not just for pay, but for relocation support too if required.