The True Cost of a Bad Hire

Looking for recruitment tips? Tanya Abbey is the CEO of Recruitcorp, a recruitment expert and a career mentor. In this episode, Tanya shares her knowledge of 15 years of experience in the recruiting world, the importance of being honest both as a recruiter and a candidate, and her tips for a successful job interview (Spoiler alert: Don’t bring your bird).

🎙️Talking points:

(01:44) How to get a job in today’s market

(04:11) Are cover letters important?

(08:38) What makes a good recruiter or headhunter?

(10:43) The cost of a bad hire

(14:10) Transitioning into a new role

(27:34) Do’s and don’ts in a job interview

(35:47) Recruiting industry in 10 years

🔗Connect with Tanya:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tabbey/
• Website: https://recruitcorp.com.au/

🔗Connect with Tom Finn:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/therealtomfinn
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/therealtomfinn/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@therealtomfinn
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealtomfinn/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealtomfinn
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/therealtomfinn
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@therealtomfinn

Tom Finn:

Welcome to the talent empowerment podcast and thanks for tuning in. We are here to help you discover your true purpose, step up your game at work and live your happiest life possible. We unpack the tools and tactics of successful humans to help you guide towards your own purpose, find happiness and empower your career. I am your purpose-driven little host Tom Finn. And on the show today, we have my friend, Tanya Abbey. Tanya, welcome to the show. 

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Tanya Abbey: 

Thank you so much and thanks for having me Tom appreciate it.

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Tom Finn: 

Well, we are thrilled to have you. I cannot wait to get into your background and all of the details and components about around recruitment. And if you don't know Tanya, let me just introduce you to her. She is a recruitment expert and mentor and the CEO of a company called recruit corp and she's also the CEO and founder of a company in career consulting called place me.com.au She volunteers her services as a small business mentor under the Queensland Government Mentoring for Growth program down under in Australia. And she's got 15 years of recruitment experience. Her commitment to both the client and the candidate is centered on a passion for customer service and backed by authenticity. And I think you'll feel that right away. She's a little old school and a true 360 degree recruiter and has had great success in all aspects of the industry. 

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So with that, I've got to ask a very straightforward question. If somebody was looking for a job and trying to get a manager's attention in today's market, what are the three ways that they would go about doing that?

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Tanya Abbey:

Thank you so much for that intro that was lovely, I always feel exhausted when I hear everything that I’ve done but then yes it's always good to hear, thank you. Look I think three things, look there’s something more as well but when you're applying for a role at any level the basics like you're updating your résumé or your cover letter on your CV and ensuring that you have a really detailed LinkedIn profile. I tend to say to executives or, you know, specialists in their industry, if you are looking for a role if you see a company that you just really want to work for, reach out to the hiring manager on LinkedIn or alternatively talk to a few people in the company see what the process is, how did they feel about working there and, you know, what would be the best way to reach out to the hiring manager. I think a thing that people don't do as well is really I guess reaching out to the hiring manager after they’ve applied. To go: hey, you know, my name is Tan, I recently applied for the role would love some feedback from you. I would love to meet with you. In my experience when people have followed me up for a role whether it was with our company or for a client I've always been really impressed and they're the ones that remember, so a few tips there. 

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, that's, that's super helpful. So what I think I'm hearing is pick up the phone and call the hiring manager, leave them a voicemail. They may not pick up your call, leave them a really nice voicemail, let them know who you are, why you're interested and that you'd love to have a quick chat. Um, is that the pro move? 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah, and send an email as well. I think LinkedIn is a wonderful thing. We can really get a lot of contacts, and get a lot of exposure to companies that we wanna work for through LinkedIn and get an understanding of how they work. But even if you can’t get through the hiring manager just simply call in the main line and just having having a chat with someone there, and asking who the best person is to speak to as well.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, so a little reconnaissance homework on your way to getting the job. You said something that made me, I had to bite my tongue when you said it. You use these two little words that I'm not sure they exist anymore, but you used them, so they obviously exist. You said cover and letter. Do people actually read those darn things? 

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Tanya Abbey:

Look, I was talking to someone recently around why it's important that we hire people with transferable skills and soft skills as well as hard or technical skills, and how do we explain that? So typically, it might be different over there, but if someone interviews with us, after the interview with us we write a really beautiful summary on their interviews, their drivers, the things that they want to do and that allows the client to understand this candidate that they haven't met and it bridges the gap. It narrates their story essentially. And the cover letter does that too, I really enjoy reading and writing so I like to read cover letters. But, you know, for example, maybe a caregiver returning into the workforce, how do we explain the gaps on the résumé? A cover letter is essentially the summary on the top part of your LinkedIn profile, I think where people go wrong is when they kind of copy and paste the same cover letter for each role when they apply for different roles.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, and that's a natural thing to want to do, especially if you're looking for a job and you're unemployed. You're looking at all of these jobs, you're feeling like a number. Certainly here in the States, you know, you go onto LinkedIn, you can auto apply pretty quickly, or you go into Indeed, which is a big one here in the US. 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah, it’s our second biggest one.

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Tom Finn:

And you, yeah, and you kinda, you go through the process and you feel like a number. So I think the hardest part for people that put their heart and soul behind that application process is that you don't hear anything back. You might write the most beautiful cover letter that's really authentic and really shows you, and if we had a perfect profile, you'd fit it, but nobody ever reads it. I think that's the hardest part for candidates. Would you agree? 

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Tanya Abbey:

I think too, I’m sure it's the same there as well and and you mentioned earlier before we started that recruiters or headhunters aren’t typically used for the more lower level roles, and what I find here, so I’ve been doing it for almost 16 years now, I do find sometimes the hiring managers aren’t necessarily experienced in recruitment, or have the foresight to understand what a candidate goes through, so even for me, I haven’t applied for a role for 10-12 years, but I still remember what it's like to feel that way because I ask people in the interview. So I think that there needs to be a sense of mindfulness, and you know a lot of people have been asking me that the AI thing, you know, is it great that we use AI in recruitment, I disagree. I feel that hiring for your team is so important, no matter what you sell: people are your product. They’re your everything. So if you're going to use AI computers to filter through people it's not very personal, and from a candidates perspective it sets a tone of how they feel the employment will go: will my performance reviews be automated? Here we do a lot in the mining space some of the best diesel fitters that work on the really big machines they’re dyslexic, so if I had gone through the AI process I wouldn’t have hired them, so I think we shouldn't cut corners with recruitment like it's really difficult and it's hard I guess with hiring managers not having that experience, there’s a lot of recruiters here that are straight out of school. They’re interviewing people 40, 50, 60 with so much experience, and  they’re going through generic interview questions. I do find here people just simply don't know what they want in terms of their next staff member and they don't know how to recruit, which is - is good to use a recruiter as well for that purpose too because we rep your brands as well.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, there's so much to unpack there. Um, but let's, let's start with where you sort of ended, which is what makes a really good recruiter or headhunter. If I'm, if I'm looking for a job, I need some help. I know I'm a little over my skis. What do I look for? 

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Tanya Abbey:

I think whether you’re a company that's looking to engage a recruiter or you're looking for someone to help you in a crew consulting sense, you should really vet your recruiters or any supplies or anyone that you use that represents you, so I guess when you're talking to them, asking them roles they’ve recently recruited, you know, what their success has been in those past companies they’ve recruited. Examples of great stories where they have placed candidates into certain roles, what their process is as well. We do find here I'm not sure if it’s better over there, but we find here that people just do a phone interview for 10 minutes. For us is: phone interview, two face-to-face interviews, and then we essentially become their best friends. I’ve got candidates in our clients from 10 years ago, so for me I am a very curious person and  I'm in opportunist as well, but I would like to know the people that I'm one placing into a role but two the companies im working with. So if people are spending their time writing beautiful cover letters and resumes then spend the time to really grill the recruiters. A good recruiter will stand up to it as well, and they should be proud of what they do. Recruitment is sales so a lot of people focus on the salary or what their commission is going to be. You want someone that looks beyond that, that actually cares about impacting your career in a positive way. 

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, well, well said. You really want to find somebody that impacts your career in a positive way. I think that's the underscore there. Because the reality is this person is filtering information and helping you understand if you're the candidate, that this is a good place for you to earn a living. This company has a soul you're looking for this company has the leadership you're looking for, you're going to excel there. And if you miss as a recruiter, I've always felt this way. If the recruiter misses, It hurts everybody, right? 

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Tanya Abbey:

You know we talk about the cost of a bad hire, and I'll talk in Australian dollars, but essentially the cost of a bad hire can go up to, if not, beyond half $1 million, and I say that to people and they’re “how’s that possible?”. So if you have two managers that their core role is to do something else but they’re training this new person that's a cost as well if it takes 3 to 6 months to train them because they're not doing their core role you then pay the recruitment fee or your time’s spent for 30 days trying to find this person then you put the person into the team, they’re not a good fit, the team becomes toxic, three people leave, you have to replace them, you finally get rid of the person that isn’t suitable, and then you've lost 10 clients. If recruiter whether they're internal or external they have a responsibility to do their job well and be honest about it too like I don't have a problem educating candidates on salary expectations. In Australia we see a lot of  people, we were talking about this before, but a lot of people jumping for higher salaries and businesses just offering it to them because they really needed the stuff. But then when I say the candidates, look you know you're probably not at that level if you are seeking a 20, 30,000 more and the reason for that is when you come to your review you'll be held to, you know, your performance, or your tasks that you need to do in your KPI's, and actually sets you up in a bad way. You're getting paid, one by your experience; but two for the work that you’re doing. So if you're not confident in your delivery or you can't hit that mark then there's going to be a decision made with with a company that your employment may or may not continue. And it happened a lot last year here where people tried to go back to the previous roles because they just overcommitted, and the more you get paid, the more responsibility you have. And if you’re not skilled as a manager, or a senior in any role, you're responsible for things that you don't know how to do, so we always say work hard, ask for feedback, be open to receiving feedback as well, but also know where you sit in the market against your skills and experience. I say to clients you wouldn’t pay a doctor who’s doing a data entry role a doctor salary. We pay the person for the work that they're doing, coupled with their experience, but you wouldn't pay them at that level because he's got that background if he's doing a certain task that isn't that. 

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, well, well said. I love the way you talk about being patient in a way around role title and where you are in your career, because I feel like a lot of employees, a lot of folks out there are looking for a title jump. They want a title jump because that in their mind equates to a compensation jump. Right. And a lot of times you're just not ready for it. You want it, but you don't know what it is. And you- you're not able to meet the expectations of that role. Do you see that happening a lot? 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah and I think look, you know, even when I started in recruitment marketing which is very simple you know it was print media, billboards, and newspapers, and magazines and it's so complex now, but even if we take - I recently recruited a medical role in Seattle for a BDM, a sales person, but even simply that title, BDM is Business Development Manager, are they managing someone? No. Sales rep, sales executive, sales consultant, there's all these titles. I don’t really get caught up in the title side and even recruiters have so many different titles, but we do see people jumping for that, but again, like you said, if we go from a digital paid specialist to a senior digital paid specialist and then they try and apply for another roll with that title, the new company is gonna be like, you don't have the skillset, why are you called that? Why is your title that? So we do see it a lot here, and I think it's it's starting to settle down more because I think people have realized that you can't really blow the market out in terms of salaries because it just means that businesses are closing they can’t afford to keep their staff, and the other thing too is if they do hire people at that higher salary level, the team will find out and then you have to pay more to that team member to retain them, so that's the other cost of - it’s what we say to clients and it's probably against white recruiters and headhunters do, but I always say hey, offer the person a little bit less or in line with what the industry is, then in six months go “hey you’re doing a great job let’s talk about a 20k increase” or whatever it might be because people enjoy progress and that's exciting too for someone to get that as well. So the fine thing being patient and knowing your worth but if someone comes to me and they say I'm worthless you know this is how much money I want, I'll be really having quite a lengthy conversation around their technical skills and seeing if they can actually do what they say they can and then differing it to my client to do  even more intensive interviewing, so if you if you are going to say that's what you're worth you should really know what you're doing.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, that's, there's a chuckle behind that comment if you missed it, but I think you mentioned something earlier around balancing detailed competency and job, core job skills with soft interpersonal development leadership skills. Where do you put a percentage on what's more important? Is it 50-50? Is it some other number or ratio? 

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Tanya Abbey:

I think it's always controversial, right? We have people that struggle to hire and I always forget what gen they are but you know the 20 to 28. I'm a millennial, and apparently that’s not great to be a millennial either-

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Tom Finn:

By the way, we love millennials on this show. We love Xs, we love Boomers, we love Ys. I mean, if you've got a letter, we love you. So you're in the right place.

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Tanya Abbey:

You know I have a lot of clients and they’re like “look you know I don’t want someone that’s straight out of their uni or you know kind of in their mid 20s” because you can't manage them, and I feel sorry for them, but these younger adults have been brought up on Instagram and Facebook and likes and comments and a transactional, so they’re just managed differently and I think what I find out, coming back to your question is, their technical skill is very important but I think that ability to be able to transfer your skills but also have a really good attitude towards work as well that is so important, but putting your hand up, being part of a team, that doesn’t take much, right? I had a client the other day and he’s like: “Tan, I just want someone that if they see a cup in the kitchen sink or a piece of paper on the ground they pick it up. That's what I want”. Which is so simple, but it means that you’re contributing to the company, the atmosphere, the overall vision. So to answer your question, look, is important to have that technical side, but I think in terms of interpersonal skills that's really important but it's a struggle at the moment because people have not been around people for so long, you know, a few years, and it’s not great to not be around people, so we’re almost relearning as well, but i think communication is so important, even if someone is “look, I really want to get a promotion Tan, in the company, i don’t have the skillset for the role that I’m thinking that I could do to contribute to the company , but I want to learn how to do it”, if someone said that to you, you would be like: “oh my gosh”- or “I might learn outside of-” There’s a lot of free studies here in Australia to support people coming into the workforce, but you know I'll grow, I’ll learn outside of work, or could I take an airway to that- no one would say no to that. That foresight to have that.

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Tom Finn:

It is powerful. So I think the pro tip here from you to the universe is if you are growing in your career and you really want to make an impact, first of all, pick up the piece of paper in the hallway  that's fallen down, which really just speaks to your character, right? Your overall character, the way you were raised, how you view the world, taking care of other people, having an open heart and an open mind. That's all that piece of paper is, is showing your character. But. But what was really meaningful in what you just said was that if you're open to listen, to learn, to open your mind and your heart and ask others for help along your journey, people will respond. I know I've done it many times where I said, look, you know what you're doing here. I'm the new guy. Can you please help me figure this out? And whether I was 22 or 32 or 42, it works every time and it's not a game. It's that you're just, coming with an open heart and an open mind and people respond to that.

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Tanya Abbey:

I think it's being curious. I had my PR manager do my stats I think it's like 8 1/2 thousand interviews and three thousand roles I’ve filled, I don’t know how many client meetings, but even any new role that I interview for I'm so curious and it’s probably that opportunistic side as well, but it’s being curious, you know, how does that work? I get my team to help me redo processes because I'm so in the recruiting world and field that I can't really step back from it at the moment, anymore, cause I love it so much so I get them to help me change things because I have a different perspective,  and if you think how people receive information or deliver it so different no one does it the same, so if you're open to just simply learning about a role or a company or you know I want to be in management but then you don't talk to your manager or try and see the challenges they go through. If you're curious, from the receiver's side, it's like wow I feel great that they're excited to learn it from me but from your side knowing that you know nothing means you learn everything every day I can't know nothing. It's great.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, it's a great way to live actually curious and learning all the time because you constantly grow your behavior shifts. You grow, you learn from other people. And I've learned as much from great people as I've had from people that are not so great in my career as well. I mean, you can learn what not to do and the behavior not to take on. Right?

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah and what kind of manager you don't want to be as well, I think I think that that's really important to kind of go because that's how I manage my guys here because I know what it feels like to not feel supported or heard. Sometimes I get too mother-y but I am getting better at that.

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Tom Finn:

That was a moment of self-reflection right there, Tanya. Well done.

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah, and looking back I think it's definitely being open to feedback. People you know I think maybe it's Instagram I don't know putting out this false sense of yourself, it's OK to be vulnerable. My general manager, she's exceptional at excel spreadsheets and there’s this rolling joke that every time she sends me one I break it I don’t know how I do it and she spends time teaching me like I'm great with numbers and sales and strategy and everything else I don’t know how I do that with a spreadsheet, so we we find that funny you know and that's OK for me not to know that or try and learn that and I want the guys to see me try to learn new things as well cause it encourages them, you lead from the front.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, it's really important, but I wonder with all the weight on your shoulders, you run a, you run a business, you're a leader, you're female, you have a couple of kids, two boys, right? How do you, how do you keep it all balanced? Because you're, you're at risk, like many others of running in the red quite a bit. 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah I think,  it sounds really corny right but I genuinely love what I do I love it so I don't see it as work but it's really finding the time to make time for everything, and also a coffee, right? Getting up early, planning your day, going to the gym, I read a lot so I read about two or three books a week as well so I'll read while I'm at the gym, when I'm on the treadmill and then I go into work after I spend time with my boys, breakfast with them, coffee with them. And then going to work and catch up with the team, making sure that I have breaks, I've got a few blocks out in my my calendar, and not overcommitting too much, but at 6 o'clock when I come home the phone’s off my clients try not to call me unless it’s really urgent, and that’s family time. Because we say we have no time but then we'll sit in front of the TV for five hours and watch a big series. So it’s about what you put - and also who you surround yourself with too, but if people feel like their career or being a leader is important enough they will find balance and I like working. I started working after my kids very young which was not - for years I didn't talk about that, but my children have — but they’re perfect, and they’re very communicative and you know they’re lovely little boys, but at the same time too it was important to me to show them that mom works and mom travels because that’s how you set that standard as well. you know that you have that equality with with people working whether they’re parents or not. And I've always been quite honest with them even though they’re quite young, that I do work but on the weekends we can still have fun. So you have to find balance you should know where your tipping point is, I have a lot more energy than everyone else, but I just I love it, like I get to help people find jobs so they can send their kids, I don’t know, ballet lessons, or buy a car, like the impact of that how wonderful that we get to do that for people. And then to also see a client who’s been really stressed, lost five staff members that impacted his business badly and then we’re able to build his team and his like oh my god I’m able to sleep at night, like that's wonderful, but I love recruitment - in a very sick way I think.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah. Well, you have a beautiful perspective on, on the space and you sit in a really interesting place in business, right? Because you, you sit in between, as you said very eloquently in between the client and the candidate and you get to play a little bit of roulette here with everybody and putting the right, the right cheeks in the right seats, right. Which is a fun game to play. Are there any major mistakes or whoopsies that you've seen along the way where you thought, this is a great candidate, and then you meet with them for a second time or a third time and you go, this person is completely out to lunch. Are there some mistakes that we should know about that we should never do? 

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Tanya Abbey:

Look, more recently, one of the girls here I was training her on how to interview, because it's important that I teach everyone different ways to do it and then learn how they do it and she had a video interview and the lady had her pet budgie on her shoulder during the interview.

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Tom Finn:

Her pet what? 

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Tanya Abbey:

Little bird, on her shoulder.

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Tom Finn:

Oh, okay. 

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Tanya Abbey:

So during the interview, one of my girls is asking me questions and every time she asked a question the bird wouldinterrupt because I could talk and look, you know, we love our pets but not ideal in an interview so that’s probably a faux paux, so many, but I think usually you-

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Tom Finn:

Okay, that's extreme, Tanya, that's extreme, okay? That's like, I hear you, but how many people out there are like, well, you know what? I'm just gonna bring my pet bird to my interview. That is the end of the bell curve. So I'm with you, that's a wild one. I love that one, personally. 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah but I think look whoopsies. On time is late, early is on time. Thank people for their time when you’re interviewing at a company, be nice to the receptionist, because you don’t know, the receptionist could be related, ask for feedback as well “is there any reason why you don’t think I’d get this role?”, be open to constructive feedback, and I said this to someone the other day because I recently started - I'm doing career mentoring, which was not my bio but it's very recent for a mental health institution in Australia, so it's helping youth students get into work, and one of the girls we’re doing mock interviews and she was really nervous and I say just say you’re nervous, like if you’re in an interview and you sit down and there's three people in front of you and you feel nervous just say it’s out there, they know what it's like, someone on the interview kinda might be nervous too. I think there’s a balance between being professional and candid, but probably just don’t talk too much about your personal life if it’s not appropriate. Or bring your bird.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah. Thanks, everyone. So much. Yeah, all right. So stick to the plan. Be honest and authentic. If I'm nervous, it's okay to say, thank you so much for your time. I'm so happy to be here, but I am a little nervous. I mean, a little intimidated. And then I always like this phrase, something to this effect. The reason I'm nervous is because it's really important to me. And I really value your company from what I've learned so far. And I'm just excited to have the opportunity and sit down with you. How does that play? 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah and that's great and I think too, if someone asks you a question, an interview question, and you just have a mental blank or you don't know how to answer, could be something very basic that you've done a million times, and you just say “Look, for whatever reason I can't think of the answer right now. So sorry can we come back to that question? I have to think about it. It’s nice and simple. 

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Tom Finn:

Nice and simple, and that's okay to do. You wouldn't scratch my name off the list if I said that to you in an interview. 

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Tanya Abbey:

Well it’s so much better than you making up a story that isn't true. So I always go with being as honest as you can. If you left a role for a bad reason, be honest. Use real references because people - the world is small, everyone finds out now anyway. Like I think if you do get stuck on a question, or ask them to reframe it as well, some of these questions are very stale, you know, tell me about your weaknesses like that could be so many different things, and usually the answer to that would be “You know, I haven't worked in the legal industry before I wouldn’t say it’s a weakness but it's something that I really want to learn more about”, or ,you know, my weakness that I feel is that I do get a bit caught up in the detail or something where I really wanna learn how to just do a job well but not, you know,I get crippled by perfectionism, something like that.

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Tom Finn:

Right. Yeah, I've used that one many times. That's my go-to, Tanya, on what's your weakness. I over detail things sometimes. I get really deep and I probably should stay a little more surface level. So I'm learning how to delegate. Yeah, that's a pro tip, another pro tip. That one's an easy one to use. Although I hope people aren't using those questions anymore. I feel like some of these stale kind of dated questions from the 1980s and 1990s should be put. aside, I, I always felt like when I was in big corporations and I used to, I used to be corporate Tom, and like wear the blazer and the whole thing, slacks, I'm telling you, it was, it was a thing. 

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Tanya Abbey:

Sometimes a tie.

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Tom Finn:

Sometimes a tie. Absolutely. That was very pre-COVID of me. Um, but here's the deal. Like I always felt like interviewing people. I just wanted to get to know what the puzzle piece would look like in the team. Because if, if I had the ability, If I had the ability to get somebody who's talented enough, maybe not the most talented, but talented enough who's got the ability to learn the curiosity, as you mentioned, and they fit really well with the team, the whole team can lift them up, not just me, right? And I always felt like that was my way of trying to hire. I don't know if it was right or wrong. It was just the way I did it. 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah, the culture thing that’s a thing that people are looking for, so you know this question is like what was the best team event you went to and why and what was your role in it? And what did you like about it? Talk me through a time where you took a really big risk what happened? How did it turn out? Because I read so much I like asking you know the last book they’ve read. If they had all the basic essentials what would they take to a deserted island if they stayed there for a year? Who would they want to meet in the world? Where would they want to travel? Because when I meet clients I actually ask them those questions, it's very natural, they don't know that I'm actually asking them those questions but I'll just be like “Oh, you’ve got a photo or France, have you been there?” So that's where I start to do the match to find out -  and then in the interview if they’re like “Oh, I’d love to go to France” then I’ll say “My client’s from France'' or whatever and that's where we start making that match. But the stale interview questions, I actually send my clients my interview questions now cause I'm like don't embarrass me. Use some of these creative ones, cause it’s all over Google anyway, right? Like you can get really good creative questions from anywhere or just think about some, or ask your team, like “what do you think we should ask candidates in the interview?” as well yeah it could be something completely - like here we enjoy league -  rugby league, and union, but half the time I'll ask them what team they go for and then try and get-

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Tom Finn:

That's an important question in Australia, as important as American football is here, stateside, right? You've got to know, or if we were in Europe and we're talking about the Premier League, you better know who your football, the real football team is. 

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Tanya Abbey:

And if it's someone or a team you don't like, can they hold up to the banter? That's where you find all that stuff at.

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Tom Finn:

So, Tony, I gotta ask, we're talking about present day and how things work and giving a lot of great tips. Thank you for giving these tips to everybody on how to think about recruitment for yourself. And if you're at a company and you need a recruiter, where's the industry going in the next 10 years? When you and I are talking 10 years from now and we're saying, wow, that last decade, what do you see as a futurist? 

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Tanya Abbey:

I'm not convinced that it will go into the AI because there’s just too many issues with it, the AI .Even video interviews where they have to talk to themselves and present a video résumé essentially. Some people aren’t comfortable doing that, we would be, but othr people wouldn’t be. So I think in 10 years you'll probably find that there's less recruiters I found that a lot of people and that I've known years have gone into completely different industries and people that are working internally as recruiters they don't feel valued by the companies that they're working in because the company is just like “Just find us the people”. I know what issue is, but the issue could be greater, like you know could be a cultural thing. So I think, the future of recruitment is probably more related to role specifics of very much an age, care, disability, mental health there’s gonna be a lot of roles coming up in that space. Marketing is so busy it's only increased they'll probably be more diversions into cybersecurity, IT, everyone’s just loving tech at the moment. I think we'll probably have more of that hybrid model, but I do find in Australian they’re starting to come back into the office because it's important as well. The only thing I would change that in 16 years it hasn't really changed that much, people still wanna hire people for culture, and candidates still want to stand out, but that's the thing so I think though in 10 years they'll be a lot of job hopping so you know for me I've held roles for 5, 6, 7, 10 years but I think it will see on resumes in the next 10 years a lot of people just jumping jobs every year because they want to travel, or they wanna try something different or they change their mind, that could be a generational thing. So it'll be interesting hopefully we talk before 10 years, but it will be interesting I think.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah. Well, well said. I, it sounds like an interesting decade in front of us, uh, certainly in the recruitment space, people trying to figure out where they fit, how they fit culturally, um, what they can deliver for the organization and quite frankly, what the organization can provide them. Uh, it is a two way street, my friends, a two way street and one person does not hold all the power. Uh, you have to be balanced in your approach, whether you are the, the organization or the candidate, uh, balance always wins the day and you typically. If you behave that way on both sides, you typically have the best relationship and find the best fit. All right, my friend, we're going to leave it there. We, we have gone through so many different topics and I love it. I love all things recruitment. Um, and I know that you're helping a lot of people with the good work that you're doing. So if somebody wanted to get in touch with you, where would they go about doing that? 

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Tanya Abbey:

Just on LinkedIn so it's Tanya with a Y and Abbey A-B-B-E-Y, and I accept everyone.

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Tom Finn:

She accepts everyone. That's nice. That's nice. I do not. Thank you for taking on that role. You know what? I just get pitched all the time. LinkedIn for me now, it's just a pitch fest. Anybody that's got a software development company or is a business coach or a consultant, you name it. You name it. Just get pitched. I used to get recruiters. I liked it when it was recruiters. 

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Tanya Abbey:

I think that, because I am curious, I like to read their pitches as well but also opportunist, what if they’re looking for a job or what if they need stuff? I'll talk to them.

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Tom Finn:

That's a very good point. You are in that role where you can play both sides of the coin. I love it. Yeah, well said. Well, thank you so much for joining the Talent Empowerment Podcast. You are clearly lifting up others and helping people find the right roles to help their families and their lives be happier and more impactful. So thank you very much. 

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Tanya Abbey:

Yeah, thanks for having me Tom, I appreciate it.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, great to be with you, Tanya. And thank you for tuning in to the Talent Empowerment Podcast. We hope you've discovered your true calling, or at least got close, found your dream career, and are living your best life. Get ready to dive back into all things career and happiness on the next episode. We'll see you then, my friends.

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