Two Cents

2009 was a tough year on the career front for many Australians. Redundancies were widespread as companies endeavoured to cope with an uncertain economic climate.
 
The employer marketing and recruitment advertising sectors were highly sensitive to the economic slowdown, with reduced marketing budgets calling for smarter thinking, greater ROI and diversification across the board. The job market had taken a big hit, shifting the dynamic for HR professionals who had previously been dealing with skills shortages and a candidate short market. Inevitably, print media suffered a free-fall in advertising revenue.

From our own agency experiences with employer marketing, the job market appeared to be in recovery late last year – hopefully a barometer of an improving economy – even prompting expert comments of forthcoming skills shortages in some sectors. The credible medium of print, still preferable for sourcing the elusive ‘passive’ candidates, should continue to perform when targeting the baby boomer and senior executive markets but for the rest, the migration to online looks set to continue.

Companies and recruiters alike are continuing to use popular job boards such as SEEK, CareerOne and MyCareer to advertise vacancies, as well as many other niche and industry specific boards.

Mirroring a shift in B2B and B2C communications, we are also seeing social media assist recruiters in candidate vetting and appraisal (so watch those privacy settings on Facebook!). Equally, job seekers are using networks such as LinkedIn – where it really is in their interests to publish (rather than hide) as much relevant information as possible – all to improve employment prospects.

A recent innovation, Brazen Careerist, allows the modern professional to not only showcase their CV but also share ideas and engage with peers in their field, giving them control in a social network that they are happy to share information with.

Another interesting site is KODA, the imaginatively titled “opportunity community”, where employers can take a closer look at young professionals with talents beyond posting a CV in Word format.

This brings me to the latest example: Hire me, HeadBlade (which unsurprisingly led to the sequel, HeadBlade Hired Me!).

This recent success story in how to score your dream job in the new economy is further proof that people can create their own cut-through in competitive fields if they treat job seeking like an industry project or campaign. The bottom line: identify what it is you want to do and where you belong, and go the extra mile.

With innovation and increased usage of social media channels by job seekers, so too increases the need for businesses (as employers) to understand and be actively using these channels to their benefit to source the best available candidates. As the economy improves and, if as predicted, skills shortages make their presence felt, so the spotlight will turn back on employers as they strive to position themselves ahead of the competition. We might then see increased traffic to employer review sites such as JobVent, Glassdoor.com or Vault – and a return to larger budget employer marketing websites and campaign microsites as employers work harder to attract the right candidates.

As every employer would be aware, their human capital is the most important asset they have.

Steve Jennings is an Account Manager at BCM Brisbane

Given the continued success and growth of our Sydney office, we are pleased to announce the appointment of three new people to our Account Service team.

Simon Jarvis has joined as a Group Account Director, having previously worked with BMF in a senior Account Service role on the Lion Nathan (Hahn Super Dry) and Dairy Farmers (Dare Iced Coffee, Moove, Coon and Cracker Barrel) accounts.  He also brings with him considerable Account Service experience gained at DraftFCB, Lowe, and Rapier in London where he was involved with the Saab, General Motors, Stella Artois (global) and HSBC accounts.

Mitchell Stanmore will join us early next month as a Senior Account Manager.  Mitchell was most recently with McCann Erickson working on the Uncle Toby’s and Taubman’s accounts and has also held Senior Account Manager roles in the UK (managing brands such as NIKEGOLF Europe, Miller Beer International and Appletiser).  Prior to his UK stint, he was with Singleton Ogilvy & Mather for five years.

We also welcome Bianka Webb who recently joined us as an Account Co-ordinator.

Congratulations to you all – we’re glad to have you on board!

Paul Cornwell is a Partner at BCM

Given the rapid growth of our Sydney office over the past year, it made sense for BCM to have a Creative Director looking after the creative aspects of our Sydney accounts.

This is why we are pleased to announce Geoff Reid, a highly awarded Senior Creative with nearly 20 years industry experience at leading agencies Leo Burnett, Batey Kazoo, The Campaign Place, JWT, and most recently Human, as the new Creative Director for BCM Sydney.

Geoff has worked on many well known Australian and international brands including NRMA Insurance, Kellogg, HSBC, Nine Network, Target, Audi, Telstra, Singapore Airlines, Subaru, Coles Myer, Woolworths and the ABC.

‘Greidy’ joined BCM Sydney in October last year as a Senior Writer and he’s been responsible for producing some great work.

In addition to his new CD responsibilities, Greidy will continue to partner with our Senior Art Director Tony Sutton, managing the creative requirements for BCM’s Sydney accounts including Radio Rentals, bigbrownbox.com.au, Surf Life Saving Australia, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Pelikan Artline and Sunbeam Foods.

Congrats Geoff! We’re happy you are filling this new role and to now have two CDs, with Nick Ikonomou remaining as Creative Director for BCM’s Brisbane office.

Recently the agency took a moment to celebrate Malina Redwood’s 20th anniversary with BCM. Malina is a fantastic part of the agency and has (obviously) been incredibly loyal. She started with us at just 19. These days she is a Senior Channel Planner. She has a fantastic relationship with the clients she works with. She knows and understands them and they love her for it. Given her history she has often acted as their corporate memory, particularly where media planning & buying and media effectiveness are concerned.  In business, it’s often said that finding and retaining great people is an important ingredient to success. In the ad business I think people aren’t just AN IMPORTANT ingredient they are THE MOST IMPORTANT. Get the people right and success will be just as assured as night following day. CEO Online estimates that the cost of staff leaving, is on average, 1 to 2 times their salary. As we celebrated Malina’s 20th last week, I looked around the room. How great it was to see so many faces that began with the agency 5, 10 and even 15 years ago and still here today. In fact I was curious to establish the average tenure of our senior team across Creative, Channel planning, Production Services and Account Management. The answer is an amazing 11 years.  In an industry well known for job hopping, staff stability is rare. Yet how often do we hear clients talk about wanting stability in their agency. And why not? They invest significantly in the agency’s knowledge and education. And quite obviously the more an agency knows the more meaningful the contribution.
So to Malina and the loyal band of BCMers, sincere thanks for the reassurance, stability and great work you deliver to clients day in, day out.