Finding the right person for the job

Martin Lynzaat explains why recruiting
methods for jobs way outside Australia
will work with jobs way inside as well.

Remote Recruiting was started up as a joint venture between Julalikari Council, the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory and the Overseas Service Bureau. The OSB is a non-government organisation that for 30 years or so has run the Australian Volunteers Abroad Program.
Under the AVA program, people are recruited to go and work as volunteers in developing countries around the world, usually for two years and across a whole range of different countries and different sorts of jobs.
About ten years ago OSB started to talk to Aboriginal communities about their recruitment problems and staffing needs on the grounds that OSB was in a good position to fill some positions. As it specialises in recruiting people to live and work in remote locations and in developing communities, it is able to find people who work well in a cross cultural setting.
In 1989 we started to recruit for Aboriginal communities and since then about sixty people have been recruited in the Kimberley, the Top End and down in the Centre. We've grown steadily since then and it's become a bit harder with the service being run from Melbourne. We're finding that it's been costing us too much money.
We needed to get it off on a more business-like footing, so we got some support from ATSIC, through Julalikari, to establish an office up here and we also got support from the Department of Housing and Local Government, which came through the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory. For some time their members have been asking what we can do to assist small Aboriginal communities to recruit council clerks, mechanics, etc. Our job is to find people who can work well with Aboriginal councillors, and who are ethical, capable, staff who will be around for more than a few months.
Councils can talk to us about a jobs that need filling. For instance in Barrow Creek we've recruited a Co-ordinator and a C.D.E.P. manager recently.
If we are successful in finding someone for them and that the person is in the job and they're happy with them, then we'll ask for a 10% fee, so that's payable once the person's been appointed to the position, if someone's not appointed to the position then no fee is paid.
The organisation is a 'not for profit' organisation still and we don't issue dividends or anything; we're not in it to make money. We're not seeing this as a way to fund our other activities. It's sort of self contained, it's being supported by the organisation. If it does generate income it will be to support the activities of the remote recruiting, it hasn't been designed to support the other activities of the organisation.
Our main area of expertise is being able to work with people, to work on job descriptions, to ensure that they are realistic. For 30 years we've been interviewing people and putting them in strange places overseas. So it's just being able to assess people for their suitability in that area.
Our head office is in Melbourne, but there are offices in capital cities, which provides an advantage for us in terms of recruiting for Aboriginal communities. When the applications come in, we've got people based in capital cities who are available to do face-to-face interviews with the applicants.
We ask the important questions like how their families feel about it, often you're talking about the whole package. Someone might really like the job but if their family gets there and doesn't like the community, then it's not going to last, so you've got to think a bit more broadly about that.
You've got to spend time discussing with people their expectations, letting them know they're not going to be changing the world when they enter a place, they'll be learning a bit for the first six months maybe. There's a process whereby applicants find out a bit about the place first, so that when they arrive, they're better prepared.
We're also recruiting within the Territory, that's important. We're not just bringing southerners in. We try to fill a position with the best applicant and if the best applicant is from the Territory, then that's an advantage in terms of being on the ground.
The trick is to match the expectations of all the parties; the prospective employer, community or organisation, and the potential workers. We want them to stay in the job!