Adam Queay

A new financial year has a familiar rhythm. Fresh budgets land, last year’s numbers get a hard look, and the mood across the market is cautious. When money is tight, the instinct is to trim - and the things trimmed first are often people and recruitment. It feels prudent. But it usually is an expensive mistake. Here is the paradox at the centre of this financial year: the costs easiest to cut are the ones that carry you through a downturn. Reduce your capacity to find, keep and develop good...

The Australian hiring market is shifting again, and the pattern is familiar to anyone who has been through a downturn. Permanent headcount is harder to approve. Sign-off cycles are longer. Boards want optionality, not commitment. The result is an unmistakable contractor shift, and a useful moment to question one of the most ingrained habits in corporate hiring: writing the job description before you've defined the problem. What the data says Australia's labour market is holding up better than...

Why do HR always hate me? Hopefully, that is not actually the case. But I completely understand the scepticism. For a long time, the recruitment industry standard has been synonymous with "salesy" practitioners who treat every job as just another vacancy to fill. With over 8,500 recruitment businesses operating across Australia, the market is hyper-fragmented, and the noise level for any People and Culture leader is overwhelming. The last thing you need is another transactional agency that...