Green, green grass of home

When Kiwi’s abroad or those that have travel to here think of New Zealand they will invariably think of the ‘greenness’ of the country. We like to think of New Zealand as being an unspoilt landscape, beautiful beaches, glistening rivers, deep native bush, mountains and an ever changing environment from sea to snow.

This love of the environment is beginning to influence returning job seekers when they seek out prospective organisations. Having been overseas and witnessed the impact that large corporates can have on the environment, New Zealanders are becoming more concerned about an organisation and its corporate social responsibility policy.

In the current market conditions candidates have the ability to be choosy about their employer of choice.

We all know that having a strong employee value proposition is important, however, it is no longer enough to provide a good salary, nice work environment and a bowl of fruit a week. Having a commitment to the community you operate in is becoming a necessity for organisations to differentiate themselves from their competitors and attract the best talent.

There are a number of New Zealand organisations that are doing really well in this area, organisations that encourage the use of environmentally friendly bags, provide volunteering days for their staff and sponsor various charities.

More and more organisations are also asking to get the ‘buy-in’ of staff when choosing how give back to the community. Recently LINK Recruitment, surveyed their entire staff to see how they wanted LINK to support the community.

From a hiring manager point of view, this commitment to corporate social responsibility will also help you attract and retain Generation Y. Studies have shown that corporate social responsibility is high on Gen Y’s list when choosing prospective employers

To close, if you are a business leader in New Zealand, what are you doing to be socially responsible? Looking at your CSR strategy will not only lift your profile as an organisation but may be the difference between securing someone over another organisation.

If you are seeking a role and looking to align yourself to a culture similar to your own ideals, then are you asking the recruiter or the hiring manager what they are doing to give back to the community?

‘Take hold of the strands the link you to New Zealand’

Have you ever ‘googled’ yourself?  It can be a surprise just how much information there is about you on the Internet and it is not always information that you would like your current or prospective employer from seeing!

From paying for a car park via a mobile to becoming almost a cashless society, New Zealanders are famous for being early adopters of all sorts of technologies and using technology to their advantage.

Being a nation of travelers New Zealanders have  embraced social networking to keep in touch with friends, colleagues, past contacts and now increasingly to open up job opportunities.

Whilst online networking is useful for keeping in contact with friends, it can be a very successful means of assisting you in finding a new position.

Around 80% of roles are never advertised and key to tapping into this ‘hidden job market’ is to position yourself appropriately online and utilise professional networking websites in actively finding a new position.

As of January 2008 there were over 300,000 users of Facebook in New Zealand. Professional networking sites are also on the rise, with sites such as LINKEDin hosting over 8,500 New Zealanders, and growing.

New Zealand job hunters now need to ensure that their online presence will help boost not hinder their career.

Here are some ideas to get you started:
•    Google yourself and review what comes up from the eyes of a prospective employer.
•    Start a LINKed in profile, or update it to keep it current.
•    Do a search on your industry and find any relevant local blogs or social sites – participate by replying to posts or submitting your own comment.
•    Sign up to Kea – ‘New Zealand’s Global Talent Community’ – they connect with over 23,000 Kiwis in over 174 countries around the globe.

Whether you are thinking of returning to New Zealand in the short term or the long term when it comes to online networking the Kea website sums it up well:

“Kapohia nga Taura here ki Aotearoa – take hold of the strands that link you to New Zealand”.

Grainwaves, pineapple lumps, kumara and feijoa’s!

Having successfully made it through week one back home I had forgotten how many unique “NZisms” such as the food, the relaxed approach and way of doing things.

Returning back home has been like a rediscovery of everything kiwi, I had forgotten about how open and supportive New Zealanders are.

As a new business to the NZ environment we have received a welcome openness to both me returning home and a new organisation on the Auckland recruitment landscape.  The support from prospective clients, candidates and even competitors wishing us well has been amazing.

The well publicised ‘war for talent’ that exists in NZ is a real issue in the success and progression of many organisations.  A pleasing factor my first week back is that I have noticed businesses being more savvy and more open to new and innovative ideas of finding staff.  Organisations seem to be more aware now of the need to create a tight employee value proposition and focus on attraction and retention.

We have already been approached by one large NZ company to work on an exciting project, and one which the previous company they had engaged had placed in the ‘too hard’ basket.

The reality is there are good people out there, they just need to be uncovered, be that through attracting staff to return to NZ or attracting using more innovative sourcing strategies.  The pleasing point from a LINK perspective, is that prospective clients generally want to hear what we have to say and how we can help make their business grow.

Whilst I have no doubt that this year is going to be a busy one I am confident that I have made the best lifestyle choice and the best career choice by coming home.  Furthermore, I am optimistic about our ability to assist our clients in securing the best talent and assisting our candidates in growing their careers.