Perfect match

Speed-dating recruitment a game changer for manufacturers.

Imagine this. On one hand, you have a bunch of manufacturers who are screaming for tradespeople. On the other hand, you have job seekers who are hungry for work.

How do you get them together? Simple. Upskill the job seekers, then put them in a room with the employers in a speed-dating style recruitment scenario and let the magic happen. In 2022, AMTIL and several Melbourne-based employers began exploring opportunities to recruit particular skills into their businesses.

And just like that an idea was born to run the ‘Skill up and Placement Program’. For the pilot, employers were specifically needing CNC machine operators.

Unemployed individuals from Workforce Australia (formerly Jobactive) did a four-week training program in how to operate a CNC machine through Chisholm Institute, then visited prospective manufacturers to learn more about the companies that might employ them. “For these people, there were a lot of doubt in their mind,” says AMTIL Corporate Services Manager Greg Chalker. “They’d been through this many times before. People had promised them lots of things and often times very little nothing ever came of it. “I told them there was employment at the end of this, you just need to get through the program.” The job seekers were given background information about the companies, then it was time for the big day. Over the course of 2.5 hours, participants had a chance to be interviewed by six to eight employers. Each party had 15 minutes to pitch each other. It meant there was no time for nerves on the part of the job seekers.

The employers could knock over six to eight quick interviews and narrow down the pool to one to two candidates to follow up with. For TRJ Engineering Group, the speed-dating style of recruitment was a game changer. Managing director David Murphy says because employers are often time poor, they need more efficient ways of employing people.

“If I can get into a room where there are 15 people who already want to do the work and all I have to do is pick which ones I want to work for me, I see it being an absolute no brainer,” says David. “This is the easiest way to employ people ever. It’s a cracker tool. You’re getting the right people in the right room with the right results.”

Out of the pilot, three quarters of the cohort that completed the training were employed. AMTIL has since refined the program and is seeking Commonwealth Government funding to take it national. Chalker says there are literally hundreds of employers on his books desperate for tradespeople. It’s just a matter of bridging the gap between them and the job seekers.

“They can’t get tradespeople because they can’t get apprentices,” he says. “They can’t get apprentices because we’ve done a bad job of promoting careers in this space to school leavers. This program was put in place to try to overcome that. It’s a start. It’s a different way of getting an apprentice.”

Greg says there’s no change without change.

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