Brainfood Live On Air - Ep428 - How to Hie in New Zealand in 2026 & Beyond

0:04Yes. It's like 100 different apps that might be, you know, hundreds of millions of value has just been eaten by one rollout so very very different way to to do things um as it was back in your day if you don't mind me aging yeah it was a long time ago hey we're going back to the mid to early 2000 2014 it wasn't that early it's a similar because i think you and i first kind of crossed paths a little bit in that era and i was doing tech tech at that time as well but unlike unlike you you managed to make a success of it and I made a catastrophe of it. It's a slight different thing. But here we are on the other end of the pipe and still trading away.

0:49Yes, reconnected. Indeed so. So folks, welcome everybody to Brain Food Live on Air. We bring it to you every Friday, no fail. It is episode 418 and we've got a special here today because I am in New Zealand, the first time in this beautiful country and I'm really delighted to be here and as ever when I set foot into a new country we always do a how to hire special because I think it's very important that we speak to local people local recruiters people who understand the local market to educate everyone else from the outside what it's like to be in recruiting in country the the discourse in recruiting generally is overly dominated by a few countries and a few sectors.

1:36And it's not the full picture as to how recruitment works. So we need to hear from locals wherever they are. So delighted to be here in Auckland, New Zealand. A quick shout out to my mates here at Haines, by the way, I'm using their office and their Wi-Fi simply because the hotel Wi-Fi was really bad. And so I had to sneak out and they were very kind to book out a few rooms for us. So thank you for Haines on that. and yeah I'm pleased to be here with Dale. Dale Kleber, how are you doing Dale? I'm doing really good. Yeah and feeling pretty excited about this and feeling very inspired after TalentX yesterday.

2:15How good was that conference right? So good. Folks if you are not aware of TalentX in Auckland, I think they do it every year, if you don't get a ticket when they come out, you're missing out because it was a fantastic one day event, very different from my experience of other ones. So I actually liked the silent disco approach. I know a lot of people feel weird about it, but it allowed more talks to happen in a smaller space. And if you were a speaker, you put the headphones on as well, you just kind of zoned in with everyone else. So I thought that was really, really good. Talks were fantastic.

2:55People were great. Great catering, great location everything fantastic um so i'm going to actually share the link to talent x i'm not sure whether they'll probably use the same website going forward but uh basically if they're doing this again next year you should really uh get yourself a ticket um dale you need to introduce yourself for the few people who don't know you the few people yeah the small percentage of kiwis who don't know who you are who are you what did you do my dear oh i'm dale dale clebert i'm the program director at accordant accordant is uh the group that sits behind some of the largest recruitment brands in new zealand absolute it madison recruitment awf hobson levy jackson stone partners and i'm leading innovation automation and ai modernizing the way that we work and sit behind the brands that we're supporting basically I'm sort of predicting the future I'm trying to understand the future of recruitment and talent and then making sure that we get there first yeah that's really really interesting and actually fantastic that they have kind of created the space for this sort of role because you do need to have someone who's outside of the operations to really investigate what's happening at the leading edge so that you can bring the the right tooling and the right methods into into group, which is great stuff.

4:14I've just shared Dale's LinkedIn, by the way. So if you're not connected with Dale, please make sure you do and are connected there. Okay, I should do some sound checks really before I go forward. Folks, if you're watching this on Crowdcast, let me know whether the audio and visual is okay. I think it is because I can see Dale okay. But let me know in the chat if that's fine. We're also broadcasting this live on LinkedIn. So we are LinkedIn Live and we are streaming it out on a number of different streams there. So if you're watching this on LinkedIn, and you can hear and see me and Dale on screen, do let me know in the comments there whether the audio and visual is okay.

4:52Okay, Michael, Vanessa, thank you very much. It looks like we're good. Great stuff. Okay, we have to thank our sponsors, because without our sponsors, we cannot run the show, folks. And every week, Brain Food Live is sponsored by some amazing recruitment tech business that wants to keep this conversation going. And today's sponsor is one of our very good sort of local-ish, not quite local, but local-ish type businesses. It's an Aussie business called Checkmate. I don't know whether you know Checkmate folks, but they automate your background screening and your compliance stuff whenever you're hiring candidates.

5:27I think it's one of those areas where AI can absolutely take sort of a lead on. No need to do all of the administrative work to chase up on whether the person is who they say they are, do the references, check out. Can we get that information solidly acquired? We can do it today with technology. So if you're still wrestling with manual process, check out Checkmate.tech. Okay, cool. On to the show. Dale, you've been, and you were born here, right? You are like a Kiwi Kiwi. I am a Kiwi Kiwi. Kiwi Kiwi. Tell me about your, but you've also got like a global purview. You've got a global experience, global experience, sort of perspective.

6:13What do you think is unique about New Zealand from a recruiter perspective? How is it different for recruiting in a UK, Australia or anywhere else? What makes New Zealand particularly different in your view? Well, size is certainly a factor. We're in a smaller market. we all know each other, we're probably only two or three degrees of separation in New Zealand. And so I think that that can be a blessing and a curse for us. We're a very multicultural place and we are spread across the country, although we do have most of the population and city centres, but we do have some regional challenges for our customers.

6:56We've also got, we need more people. So we need to get our immigration going as one of our tools. There's not enough people for the jobs that we have. So we've got a high unemployment at the moment, one point higher than our friends over the ditch in Australia. But we can't only be solving that problem with immigration. We have to have a bit more of a combined workforce strategy. We are starting to see some really good things, though. I'm seeing that we've had 47 new roles added to the national occupation list, which is kind of cool because we hear about there's not new jobs, but there are new jobs coming.

7:35And now we're seeing those. Sorry. So these are new jobs, right? So they're new job titles. Yes. It's basically innovation driven type jobs, right? Yeah. Yeah. I had a little look this morning. We've got the chief of staff is now being added onto that list. Chief remote officer being added to that list. VR engineers being added to that list also ice cream machine operators but I think what it's really telling us is that for a long time our skill shortage lists wasn't really reflective of some of the jobs we had so when we're looking at being accredited as employers and we're bringing people in for job titles we're trying to match people to the titles that were on the list and now we're starting to see that those titles are catching up with what we actually have which I think is really cool.

8:20Yeah it's always a little bit out of date isn't it in terms of where we're at with things so it's good that there's catch-up but dale you mentioned a few things i want to kind of um a good platform for us when we bring our uh panelists on board um but there's a couple of things that were very apparent there so firstly the geographical dispersal of the people is significant because i think people from outside of new zealand may may not understand how big the country actually is from a geographical perspective um and you map that against the overall size of population, which I think is around four or five million or so.

8:54Five million, yeah. Five million. So we've got like basically a very large landmass per capita. And that obviously requires certain advance. I mean, you're going to have to have people, when there's certain jobs that are embodied jobs, like they need to be physically in location, I'm guessing things like healthcare, for instance, you're going to have different problems in hiring for specific locations where perhaps people don't want to gravitate to. So super interesting on that aspect. Also, you mentioned the general sort of size of population means people tend to know each other, which, as you mentioned, are strengths and weaknesses.

9:34So what are the strengths on that, Dale? Basically, you could reference easily, I guess, you know, but that's also a weakness in a way because maybe, you know, there's a lot of gossip going on. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, well, as you mentioned, I've been in the industry for a really long time, maybe 30 years. And referrals is now the number one way that people prefer to do recruitment. If people can avoid putting a job ad up, then they will. And so we're finding that people are managing to gain entry points into organisations through coffees, referrals from friends and family or people that they've previously worked with.

10:11And that is much easier in an environment or in a population as small as ours. On the weakness side, we've got to understand that 5 million, so there's 5 million people in this country. That means that every candidate that we interact with is a potential employee or co-worker, a customer, an advocate. And we need to make sure we recruit like we understand that. So that means we're not forgiven easily if we don't get back to our people who are applying for jobs, if our processes aren't good, if they're not personalised. We've got to get the basics right, because if we don't, it's very memorable.

10:46and there aren't as many people here. Yeah, and the bad information can travel fast in a small network, right? So the candidate experience aspect is important and you need to be very precious or care about that because word travels fast in a tight network like this. Sure does. Super, super interesting. Okay, let's bring on some of our guests here, Dio. We'll switch this into a kind of a lively, I want to say debate because we're all friends here, but let's talk about some of these topics about what the uh the key things are ben tinker let's get him on but raj singh here as well um and we've got vanessa vanessa i'm going to bring you on here anybody else by the way wants to join the conversation please do sort of just raise your hand on this um and if you're a local recruiter or you're just a local person within new zealand and you want to come and chat with us um uh do you uh do you just raise your hand this is going to be open mic kind of thing um okay ben uh raj and vanessa if you want to switch on your your cameras basically and your your mics and when i see that then we'll pop it on um oh we can see raj there let's do that raj good to see you sir how are you i'm doing good mate how are you good very well great to see you um we have vanessa here as well great to see you hello hi vanessa hi dale speaking of a small world hey here we are yeah small world indeed i love it let's do some intros ben uh fiddle around with the uh the webcam and your your mic there we'll get you on as well but raj why don't you quickly introduce yourself who are you what it is you do yes so the name is raj singh and as i always say that you know looks can be very deceiving i can promise you that i'm not an uber driver I don't know why but I love this sort of introduction but fortunately like you know I am a talent sourcing advisor with Health New Zealand that is Tefato Ora and you know my role basically involves identifying and engaging with the clinical talent so particularly like you know certain geographical areas that I focus on places like the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and few more European countries and the idea is to find those right people like you know for the healthcare system that we are a part of.

13:26So that's very interesting Raj let me dive into this because it sounds like you're actually recruiting from outside of market to bring into new zealand and that already just from the dialogue i had yesterday with some of the folks at talent x was another thing that was remarkable about it in the sense okay we don't have enough workers it's the raw demographic issue here um and you need to just get them in targeted immigration essentially um and uh and targeted head hunting so to say so super super interesting raj okay we're going to dive into that in a separate let's introduce Vanessa here Vanessa great to see you can you quickly introduce yourself who you what it is you do cool yeah hey everyone I'm Vanessa Radich I am the head of people and culture at a startup called Appetize here in beautiful Christ Church so I've probably spent the last I want to say 10 years in maybe a little bit longer than that you can't see my grades on this um uh working in venture-backed uh startup companies companies that were founded in New Zealand and have staff around the world.

14:30So like Australia, the UK, the US. I'm like a generalist HR person, you know, like a reluctant recruiter. Yeah, that's me. Great to have you on the show and fantastic stuff. I've just shared LinkedIn, sort of Vanessa's LinkedIn on chat there. Make sure you connect with her. And we have Ben Tinker here as well. Ben, great to see you, of course. and thanks for creating the space in your office that we can do this call. Can you quickly introduce yourself? Who are you? What did you do? Yeah, sure. Thanks, Hung. Hi, everybody. So yeah, Ben Tinker, I lead strategy for Haynes. Haynes is a New Zealand resident around for 130 plus years, was the first advertising agency in this country.

15:17And now we do three things. We do employer brand consulting strategy delivery we do media strategy globally and we do operational recruitment and when we're at our best we're doing kind of all those three things together so yeah my job I get to spend time with our customers understanding what it is that they want to achieve and how those three things might fit together and deliver. Great to see to Fatou Ora being represented on this conversation, a really important customer of ours. We do their international recruitment marketing. I'm proud to say. So yeah, glad to be on. Thanks, Han. Great stuff, guys.

16:04Just again, connect with Ben on LinkedIn and share the chat there as well. Okay, let's do a quick overview. State of the market, 2026 versus 2025. What does it look like? Has it been better or worse, easier or not in terms of hiring people? What's the general sentiment? I mean, we don't expect sort of granular economic, labor market economic detail here, but just from a vibe check point of view, how are we feeling about this year as we're coming to the end of it? Has it been better than 2025 or is it more of the same or is it kind of getting worse? What's your view on that? Dale, let's go with you first.

16:43I think it's getting harder in some ways. So we are, from a recruitment perspective, we're getting lots and lots of applications for generalist roles, but it's still really hard to find some of that hard to find, hard to fill stuff. So tech roles, health sector, Raj will probably speak to that. And we're seeing salaries really go up for those roles as well. And there's a bit of an imbalance for across businesses. we might see a role and I think Vanessa will speak to this actually but that the salaries for some of those high tech roles are starting to climb but it really depends on whether you're venture backed or not and then there's competition for some of the institutions trying to get that same talent but the gap is getting bigger because we've got all these people out of work with that high unemployment that I mentioned but we've still got these roles over here and we also know we've got some skill shortages, some really, really big ones with our aging population coming up that need to be filled.

17:45So maybe there's a training gap there. Don't know. But I don't want to take all of the talking points. No, great summary, Dale. And this kind of describes what people are calling the K-shaped economy, aren't they? Where if you imagine the economy going K-shaped, I guess that's a K, right? Where you get certain people actually getting more opportunity, getting more salary, wage inflation and then you get a bunch of other people that are actually really grinding through and struggling and in fact i've been sort of i've had two conversations with random people here in in ockland because my style is to basically just uh you know start conversations with folks um and and two of them were like again one guy was out of work for five years and we had a long conversation um and he was feeling really bad about sort of things uh this morning i got up at five o 'clock or needed a coffee in the hotel and ended up chatting with one of the the hospital the hospitality guys there out of work for two years before he recently got that job in the hotel um and so yeah it can be very very tough in certain sectors but then very high demand in others um raj you're working for a high demand sector right so i mean i guess you by recruiting externally there is this high demand uh tell us about that aspect why is it that there's a healthcare shortage in New Zealand?

19:01Like, what's the story there? A lot of, you know, talking points over here. Like, you know, I mean, as Dale started initially, we were saying that, you know, it's the population of the country. Like, you know, that makes a lot of a difference for anyone planning to come over here. And besides that, I would say the kind of registration, the authorities that we talk about, it's not so easy processes. So the processes are still kind of engulfed with a lot of long decision making and bureaucracies. And so that is one of the reasons why we always find ourselves on a shorter ground. and in the last uh three to four years like you know what we have been experiencing is that we are losing to australia in terms of how much money that those guys can get in australia so anyone coming from the uk anyone coming from ireland or any other uh you know western part of the world when they come on this side of the world both new zealand and australia are on their plates and they would speak to the employers in both the countries you know because the and then they end up comparing you know unless if the incoming person like you know is completely sold on the fact that you know they want to pursue their career in New Zealand or they have trained initially in New Zealand and then gone back to their home countries and then they want come back again or they have a young family and they want to raise their family over here a few points here and there yes of course we win on them but uh overall in the last three to four years i mean it becomes very very difficult uh to match what australia can pay off like you know so that's one of the reasons why why there's an acute shortage there's there's actually a bullet point in my notes saying the australia problem um and we are aussie friends of course um and and we don't want to be overly critical but there is like a discrepancy in terms of just salaries right so compensation seems to be a big gap um does anybody can someone give us an illustration of what that looks like for instance like an equivalent job uh in in um in auckland versus an equivalent job in is sydney or melbourne like what what would the salary differential be uh senior medical officer here in new zealand would earn anywhere in the range of 270 to 350 okay or uh and australia ends up paying you one and a half times plus they get 13 and a half percent superannuation sorry to interrupt and we get on top yeah yeah okay yeah so sorry i'm gonna have to dumb it down for me even as a superannuation?

22:07What is this? Like contributing to your pension fund. Okay. New Zealand, you don't have this. We do, but the minimum contribution for the employer is 3.5 % in New Zealand. In Australia, the minimum contribution is 13.5%. Right, right. Okay. And in terms of people might then say, yeah, but cost of living is higher, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, it's not the case. cost of living is, I mean, are we literally talking about just the raw differential? It's more expensive to live in New Zealand versus Australia? Is that right? Depends on where in Australia. But Rabinisa, you've got people you're employing in Australia, haven't you?

22:52Yeah, we have our full go-to-market team in Sydney. So we definitely pay a premium for those roles. So that's sales, customer success and marketing. And our founders are now in Australia. but so we yeah we would pay more for a role in Australia for sure than we would in New Zealand plus the super plus they have a 38 hour work week we have a 40 hour work week by default if you get any this is not our situation but if you get any sort of like weekend work if somebody was to work in hospitality and they work on a Saturday they get like additional compensation for that that we don't get in New Zealand so I don't think it's like quite as simple as saying yes but the cost of living is higher in Australia as well like I don't think even when you balance the cost of living I don't think I think in New Zealand I think we still come out worse off yeah so there's so there's two problems with this number one these highly desired inbound immigrants you're competing for for them but you're competing kind of with one hand time behind your back a little bit because you might have a similar organization in Australia similar employer that's also competing and quite simply they can beat you on the total comp.

24:02And then you've got the brain drain situation where obviously you've got talent in New Zealand that is lost to Australia. And I guess a lot of the trained healthcare workers might do that where they get trained up here and it's like, oh, hang on, I've got to look after myself on my own and I can increase my salary, my total comp there, do 10 years in Australia and Bob Junko. And is it the case that any Kiwi national, do they get insta sort of ability to work in Australia, right? Is that right? Yeah, if you're a New Zealand citizen, you have the right to work in Australia. Right. So, yeah, that's, you know what, this is actually very similar to like what we find in Europe a little bit back in the EU, where Eastern Europe particularly have a massive brain drain problem.

24:51and even a depopulation scenario where basically if you're an engineer in Romania, economically it makes total sense for you to go to Germany because you've earned like times three the amount and you can just go there, literally take a train ticket and you're there. And it's like, okay, no barrier to entry. So really - A little bit more than a train ticket here, but yes. I mean, that's the, In 2023, we had 135 ,000-ish people coming into this country. That was at the peak. And the economic situation was different. We've obviously had a tricky few years since then. I think this year is 22 ,500, something like that, in terms of migration in.

25:40So that's something we've got to solve. But at the same time, the Australian economy is starting to slow a little. whereas there's a feeling here and I don't know if the rest of you guys feel the same there is a feeling here of a thawing, of a change in mood of a change in business confidence and so the pendulum will swing a bit and I think from our point of view that means that we've got to tell a fantastic story because there are big differences between the countries culturally there were no snakes you know there's plenty of things to promote here and that's the year we spend a lot of time thinking about that but I think Dale you made the point earlier we've got big population in the urban areas most of our population is from the Waikato up so you know that's where we're all crammed in and there are a lot of large employers particularly in primary industries who need people in other places around New Zealand, in what our South Island friends would call the mainland, and in the meatpacking industries that are really important to this country.

27:02We're a food-producing nation. So, you know, the likes of Ontario are important to the economy here. We need to be able to put people into the smaller parts of New Zealand as well as bringing them to the bright lights of Christchurch and Auckland. So, yeah, that's something our customers are talking to us a lot about this year. How do we get people to move to some of the smaller places in the country where we're talking about lifestyle decisions? and you know Raj I'm sure you're often doing this you talk you'll be talking to the experience of where you're going to be living so you know as well as telling a story marketing a good story our recruiters need to be you know coaching people through the process of understanding hey what's it actually going to be like to come and to come and live somewhere where I don't know Raj, you jump in.

28:01What percentage of the people do you talk to actually know where New Zealand is on the map or know anything other than Auckland? Do you know what... Exactly. What are the different things that you can experience here? I might not have a real percentage-wise breakup, but I can share a story with you what happened last week when I sent an email to someone And the gentleman replied, like, you know, after having understood everything, he says that I might not be interested in coming to Australia. That was his answer. Like, I was like, OK, how did he how did he manage to think that I'm in Australia right now?

28:47That, you know, someone from Australia is talking to him. And many a times, like, you know, I mean, in the world map, you know, the geographical world map, many a times you don't even have New Zealand in there. You know, so. Still? Is it still happening? No. It is still happening. And it's not even there. Yeah. So it is it is it is quite difficult. Like, you know, but then, yeah, as you know, Ben was saying that, you know, we need to create that sort of a story, you know, to share with people. And the way Tefatoora or Health New Zealand has been performing or the way we found success is by having those testimonial videos.

29:31okay you know instead of me talking about the role you know how about i have a specialist clinician who is in a particular remote area and if i can go up to him i can i can record his story you know in his own voice so there are no paid actors who are doing these testimonials like you know so these are actual people on the ground so that we have found for some reason uh that speaks volumes like you know to the people who are listening to you because they feel that someone of their own tribe is talking to them yeah we we know that there's very good evidence that basically candidates don't want to hear from marketing they don't want to really hear from recruiters uh they want to hear from the people who are doing the job um that they may be applying for so this is what user generated content right this is what we call um and maybe one of the things that um you know new zealand companies need to do is to really try and push that like how do we create more great user-generated content um that is from people on the ground it doesn't have to be like a polished piece of work it could just be mobile phone shot but um that would be a good way to describe it i think in in a weird way sort of the primary industry stuff um kind of lends itself if you like to more interesting video content you know um because if you're working in an office like you know we're sitting in front of a computer now like how how how many videos can i do here um that is not me sitting in front of a computer uh typing into a keyboard um but if i'm like driving a tractor or something or i'm doing something you know physically interesting um you can create some good stuff so um this is good mileage i think for for ideas uh that i think would really resonate at home i've seen benissa like oh sorry i was just going to say about great ideas uh you've been doing some great stuff with it later yeah yeah i wasn't sure if you're on the agsa there's been some pretty great stuff coming out of that because that creativity is there yeah just to add one sorry just to add one more point oh sorry please go ahead vanissa were you asking about employer brand stuff dale yes about that and some of the recent stuff with your faces on food oh yeah the viral everyone's trying to go viral on linkedin eh yeah hopefully we're succeeding vanessa if you've got a viral linkedin post your face on it we need to see the link of that asap yeah no my one that was not a viral one from me although i did have a viral linkedin post um no i'd love to see it because yeah we'd love to see it simply because we sometimes need examples to get inspiration from, don't we?

32:12So, okay, so we know EB is important. Talent attraction is important, particularly directed externally because you want to bring external people in. There is a big, however, I need to drop in, which may lead us into some uncomfortable sort of territory. But there's a general global anti-immigrant vibe. And we've seen that expressed politically, of course, US, UK, different places, rise of the right in Europe and so on. and a lot of that is driven through quite frankly anti-immigrant type of impulse a sense that hey there's too many of those people here we want to stop that is that a conversation that is present here in New Zealand or is it a case where there's just a recognition that no we do need the people and we're going to welcome immigration what's what's everyone's sense on that coming from like a you know at appetize we're a like a well-funded venture-backed startup and we like i would say and look this might be a very bold thing to say but what are we doing if we're not here to say bold things i would say that tech is a very like most people that work in technology i would say are more like liberal with their political views yep um certainly in new zealand Maybe it's not taught globally.

33:35And so we need that talent from overseas in order to grow the types of companies that we want to grow. New Zealand is a nation of migrants, right? I mean, your post yesterday, Hong, the Maori arrived here in the 1300s. And people have been coming here ever since. I'm a migrant. I've been here five and a half years since I shifted over. I've been nothing but welcomed. This is a place of warmth, brandliness and openness, generally speaking. yeah there are nuts on the fringes but that's where they are compared to compared to perhaps my home country which is slightly more mainstream to be anti-immigrant unfortunately but that's also a big attraction for this country right and that's we're wanting we want more people into this country and big business wants more people into this country and is open about saying that and we're speaking to candidates all the time that are saying that they want to make a shift from the US, for example.

34:59And this is a couple of people I was talking to on a brand project for another health organization we're working with. They're saying this is a different life that I can aim for and it's not just about escaping the paperwork of the insurance world that health professionals work in in the US but the life that they lead there, not having to take their children to a school that has metal detectors on them to a place that's welcoming. I think that's one of the things that we really have to offer. There's a lot of nodding going on. Very much so. Yeah, nod, nod, nod, nod, nod. it's actually a big opportunity in this case because there's a when the anti-immigrant pulse getting gains kind of political mainstream you know where people i would say even in in europe now it's very difficult to make a pro-immigration case and achieve political power it's almost like you have to throw some some red meat to the crowd in order to get there um and that's obviously very difficult for for people who are immigrants uh particularly uh you know a conspicuous ethnic minorities, let's say.

36:07And we even have sort of scenarios, particularly I'm thinking US-wise, where, you know, clearly just like hauling people off on the streets and you're throwing them into gulags and dispiriting them off into random places. It's a powerful signal to people who, let's say, are not the right-wing ICP to say, you know what, I need to rethink where I'm going to go. and potentially that's an opportunity for Kiwi companies to think, right, let's get some of these fellas over here. Not just Kiwi companies. Sorry, I'll just say one thing and I'll shut up again. But it's New Zealand Inc. and New Zealand as a whole.

36:48I think we're at our best when we pool our resources, when we bring multiple organisations together and put a story out as a country because that's the that is also you're right that's our superpower that's what we can that's what we can offer sorry no that's okay I just think what I was going to say is like I wonder if it's a little bit like I believe what I said and I believe what everybody in the call has said but also Dale like to speak to your earlier point like we love a referral in New Zealand and so I don't know that those two things go hand in hand sometimes in terms of like what we say but what we actually do when we make that final hiring call okay let's explore that vanessa because um what you're saying is i mean you're right i mean you very few people refer someone from outside the country like we don't we don't the person doesn't have a social network there they're going to have to come in through the front door effectively in the legal sense they have to apply for a job or in rasha's case maybe they're head hinted in um but they're not going to come in with an endorsement from your mate who said this guy was amazing simply because you know there's too much distance there but what you're saying is maybe some employers are reluctant to go that way perhaps um because there's more trust in that i wouldn't say backdoor referral but we need the social proofing a little bit more here um and that can slow things down i guess um where you know um the person comes in with with none of that through no fault of their own simply because they're out of country that they're starting here for the first time oh yeah 100 i think like you know i i'm shocked that we've gotten 38 minutes into this and we haven't talked about ai yet like shopped in a good way um but i'm going to bring it up so buckle up folks um you know like the written application is essentially useless now right because everyone is just it's just like all three spider-mans you know that that gif the meme of all three spider-mans pointing at each other because everyone's ai is just talking to everyone else's ai um so when you are in this world of the written application is useless the take-home test is useless like what can not be faked a referral can't be faked or generated or whatever it is that you want to use ai to do human judgment judgment is still the part where human wins and that is uh but we can assume using AI, that everything that you've said, sourcing, screening, scheduling, first drafts, all of that, but judging, that judgment, advising, which is like referrals, isn't it?

39:26And I will say the other thing that we still have to do, that we do better at is the brokering, the closing, offer management, that whole part, that end part. But I think referrals work well. Do you think it's by sector, Vanessa? Because I think about the tech ecosystem, startup ecosystem. I think we're quite good at sharing and referring to each other. Oh, yeah. We all borrow from Peter to PayPal. Yeah. Everyone bounces around the different companies and you see like a lot of early people from the likes of Vend and Xero or Trade Me, you know, those like more institutional success stories now that have gone on to be in really senior roles and the likes of like the next gen tech companies like Halter and Traxo.

40:13And that's a great thing. like I you know this is how it works but um yeah it's a small it's a small poll it's a small world it is I think on the the referral side there is um it's again it's one of those uh conversations where there's a rhetoric and a reality to it that the reality is we all like referrals um you know if you're recruiting if I was recruiting for my team it would be amazing uh to have one of the teammates say, yeah, this guy's amazing, this girl's amazing. I'd definitely spend, I would immediately suspend analysis of any other sort of parts of CV, background, whatever, have a chat with that person.

40:54However, the sort of the wider aspect of this is people who say, yeah, that's great, but what about the diversity and inclusion angle here? Your mates are of this category of people. They tend to cluster like this, and you're not really opening the aperture for other people that, you know, simply come from a different region, a different country, speak differently, et cetera, et cetera. Is that a conversation that happens here? It kind of moves us towards a DE &I conversation in New Zealand. Like, how does DE &I work here? Are there policies that we need to achieve? What are the things that we care about?

41:31What are the diversity categories that matter most? Like, we know that's kind of different per country also. So, you know, some countries, I'll say UK-wise, probably gender is the most important aspect of diversity that people want to look at. Other countries, let's say US, it's more like ethnicity, right? So there's different countries seem to have different sort of way of shuffling what their criteria is when it comes to D &I. So let's shift to that. In New Zealand, where are we with D &I? What do outsiders need to know about diversity and inclusion policies in this country? I mean, the short answer is yes.

42:12That's a very live conversation. And you guys, I'm sure, will be a better place to talk to it. But it's a very... Oh, we've lost Steve. Maybe your earpods have died. Yeah, your earpods are lacking energy, bruv. I think...

42:35still yeah yeah you might need to get off bluetooth yeah yeah yeah how about now can you hear me now lovely definitely the airpods then um so the i was i was just going to say that the uh the other really important layer that i'm sure everybody's got in their mind is cultural um uh maori and pacifica um uh the the that that is um key to how organizations think about their inclusivity approach and making sure that we're not just talking to and attracting talent in from the wider population of New Zealand, but it also, you know, we were talking about it just before we went live on, it's about how organizations think about how they run themselves.

43:32There's the Faka Papa piece that we were talking to which goes into how we developed our own EVP and how lots of organizations talk to how they build strategies. We're working with the likes of Genesis who are a power company in New Zealand who plan ahead at least a decade in advance and talk to what they would talk about Te Ayo Maori, so the Maori worldview of how that's going to be developed and how that needs to be connected into the country that's a critical part of how New Zealand thinks. Yeah, this is perfect because this is an area, I mean, it's perfect. I'm ignorant of many things, but I'm super ignorant of the cultural sort of context of New Zealand.

44:29So I'd love to learn more about this. So D &I, obviously, this is a multicultural country from the get-go, but we can say something about sort of the Maori and Pacifica cultures in particular in the sense that these are the key areas, the key kind of population groups that we want to make sure have full access to opportunity in all of the sectors in the economy here. What are the policies, how does that translate into recruitment though? Like, is there a situation where, I don't know, in some Scandinavian countries, you have like hard quotas, you just literally need to hire a certain group of people at a certain number that needs to happen, otherwise you get penalized.

45:13Is it more like, okay, you've got to have certain people on the slate, an interview, for instance, there needs to be proportionality of candidates there. How does it translate to the recruiter actually at desk? I think it's organisation-led. I don't believe there's a policy. I know in Australia there can be, and there are actually tax incentives in Australia with minimum percentage of representation of Indigenous. In New Zealand, we don't have that. I think we have a broad approach, and there are individual organisation D &I policies. but we have to look to if we're speaking specifically about Māori and Pasipika looking at the organisations that are led by them and learning from them because I don't think anyone's got it perfectly figured out I think there is some goodwill in there and we need to look and learn still and we're still on that pathway and I think that just to summing up a lot of the things we're talking about here whenever we're looking at referrals and we're looking at diversity and inclusion and we're looking at all of those.

46:16We're such a small place. We need to have a multi-pronged approach when we're sourcing. And we need to ensure that our recruitment processes and policies are equitable. And we have to be considerate of all the different ways and the different people we're trying to attract at the top of the funnel and do what we can to ensure that there's that equitable access to the process for all. And there's a lot of consideration and a lot of angles on that. And I don't think anyone's got it perfectly figured out. I would also add that like, so for Appetize, we have two sides to our business. So we have a B2B side where we sell essentially consumer data to food brands.

46:56And we have a free app called Appetize. Find it on the App Store. Where you shop for, you plan your weekly meals, right? So you plan your weekly meals and it integrates with like Pack and Save and New World and Countdown. You can build a basket and it's all very smart, easy to use. So we want that to be appealing to everybody in Australia and New Zealand. And in order for that to be the case, we need to have a diverse representation of people that make up our business so we can appeal to that broad market. Because otherwise, we're just going to be appealing to ourselves. Right. And so that's, I would say, you know, I would say a lot of certainly a lot of tech companies and maybe I'll just speak for us.

47:40but like you know you take a business performance lens on what do you actually need to appeal to a wide range of people and new zealand is small so if you are not a great place to work it's gonna that's gonna haunt you for a while yeah yeah so so um i think that's a very significant aspect of of a small small country small network because news travels faster in a small network um and that's positive and negative right so potential attraction employer brand that's going great fantastic uh if it goes wrong then that's things gonna gonna travel far um okay cool let's shift tack again um how do uh qe candidates like to be contacted i'm always fascinated by this because this is one of the key areas that people make mistakes like is it email is it whatsapp do people do people pick up the phone?

48:33If I'm recruiting a candidate, how do I go about doing this? Is it pretty like prosaic? It's like, yes, Hung, we're not particularly exotic. You DM people on LinkedIn, you message them on email, you get them a call. How does it best work here in New Zealand? I don't think phones... Yeah, I was going to say, I'll say something that I found recently, just doing a bit of recruitment. I rang 12 people, one person answered. Because personally, I must be me, if a phone number rings me and it isn't a number I recognise, I will never answer that call. No way. Just no way. And that's because of scams and telemarketing and what have you, but there's no way.

49:18I will say in this country we are overly dependent on two sourcing strategies, which is LinkedIn and Seek. but there are entire markets that are nowhere near that, those products that don't use those products. They're way too dependent. And I think my other thing I will answer to that question is it depends. So we represent a blue-collar, high-volume, casual labour market. How to contact those people at scale versus Hobson-Levy, which is our true executive, very different approaches. So it really depends on your business, your brand, the candidates that you're trying to connect with as to what the best way to connect with them is.

49:59So we're looking at SMS for some. Texting is the best way. Don't send me an email. This is another category that is email versus another category that is phone or LinkedIn or online or GitHub or who knows. Healthcare as well, like I mean, it kind of gels well with healthcare because most of the people who are in healthcare, you will rarely find them on social media. they are not very active there they might have a LinkedIn account and they must have created their LinkedIn account when they were students you know somebody a career advisor would have come to the college and ask them to make their LinkedIn account and they have never revisited that again so we try to find their contact details and the first point of contact is always through an email you know send an email followed by many a times the text messages because I'm dealing with the people from outside of New Zealand so most of the times it's like WhatsApp you know so WhatsApp messaging or WhatsApp calls and but later on after the first point of contact has been made through an email then you can gradually get down to the next levels of conversation whether it could be a video chat or it could be a phone chat but then initially it has to be via an email and as Dale was saying if you call someone even i've tried doing that not just new zealand i mean outside as well i cannot even i've tried that i'm sorry to say this but no one answers the call i love i love michael's comment on the chat there i mean you only live once right michael um i love it i wonder whether your life actually gets better just randomly accept everything just say yes just say yes I love that the other thing I was going to say about particularly within New Zealand and this is part of being such a small place is that my experience of it coming here was that relationships take a lot longer to build here so the challenge with recruits is they've got to do that depending on what sort of environment they're working with Dale as you say whether it's scale or or exec or somewhere in between.

52:12But there's still a requirement to build up a rapport with people here that doesn't happen like that. That was a learning for me when I came over here that it took a while before someone was going to put some trust in you. Once they have done, then that's solid trust. But it takes a bit to build that up. And so it's part of the challenge for recruiters, but also, you know, when you're running businesses and trying to make sales, et cetera, it's the same feel. I would also say that we're kind of stuck in a weird spot between, I was on a KiwiSAS, like how are we recruiting in the age of AI call the other day.

52:59and like an overwhelming number of the tech recruiters on the call said that they have with the written application being essentially useless they've gone back to doing a lot of like phone screening and they said that they were they just like randomly call candidates like tech candidates and you could see like the audible like of the rest of us on the call because like what do you mean like they're not going to be answering these calls but they just have to because otherwise they have to call and verify that this person is not a bot. Yeah. And because otherwise they're just like wasting their time with obviously, you know, first interviews, they're going nowhere.

53:36So we want to talk to people and call them to verify that they are who they say they are. But I think a lot of Kiwis don't pick up the phone. But maybe we just put that in our, we need to put that in our outreach saying expect a call because we're going to do it. That might be the new strategy. I think the way forward is WhatsApp, everybody. I really agree. Because it's slightly different from a call in the sense that there's a texting option, there's a video note option. It feels like it's a little bit safer in a way than taking that sort of random call. And I agree. I mean, there's just too much scam going on with your phone.

54:18And, you know, we're moving away from it. And it's kind of getting towards email as well. So I do believe we're going to hit kind of an engagement crisis in short order because how do we actually get someone who we don't have a previous relationship with to engage with us when phone calls not happening, email, you know, it comes in. Increasingly, there's more AI gen email coming in. So we're all phasing our brains off that. It tells me a little bit that maybe personal branding from a recruiter point of view, personal branding might actually come into the fore again, where we've kind of got to get out there a little bit and demonstrate our humanity.

54:56I call it conspicuous humanity. As a friend of mine, I tell you what, you should check him out. It's a friend of mine called Ivan Gulenko. Ivan meaning as we're spelt I-W-A-N. He's a solo recruiter in Switzerland. And I think he is an example of a conspicuously human recruiter. and what I mean by that is that he's bloody rude he's got no EQ no filter, no EQ and I'm thinking you know what half the time I can't believe he said that but then I'm thinking you know what it's clearly you're not going to train an AI to say that. And he's memorable regardless. He's like a Marmite character like love it or hate it.

55:42A Vegemite I beg your pardon No, no, Marmite. Marmite here? Okay, good. As long as it's the right one, hon. No, no, not English Marmite. No, no, no. I'm now treading into very thin ice here. Kiwi Marmite only. I need to get a jar of this. But it's almost like you've got to be an exaggerated human to sort of not be a vanilla, could be a bot type of thing. And I think that's a different thing for a lot of recruiters, right? Like we've hid a little bit behind email. We've had maybe a generation of recruiters that were a little bit, oh, it's all on email. I'm not going to be out there. You're right.

56:22You've got to actually be a bit more of a contact person yourself. Back in the day, because I've been here in this industry for a long time and obviously left to tech in traditional recruitment, went to tech, back out into traditional recruitment. But the best recruiters, 80 % of people loved them and 20 % of people hated them. but it meant that they had an incredible personal brand and when and the phone rang for them and when they called people answered and and and i was a little bit your vintage recruitment you were talking about yesterday at talentex i was thinking about that relationships they're key and i will say also one other thing the return to in-person events and the and the quality of the in-person events that i've attended this year has been extraordinary yeah extraordinary there was a time where I couldn't be bothered I was I'm going to stay home I don't have FOMO and now I get annoyed when I miss something because I didn't know it was happening.

57:16I think if there is something good to come from our skepticism and dislike of some of the things that AI is doing it's probably that and I was simply reflecting on what you were saying yesterday Holden the different areas of of AI and the problems it was throwing up the solution seemed to be oh there's an opportunity there for us to put the human in there and solve that problem um that's the to the point you made uh earlier dale it's the it's the human that can make the judgment it's that the machine has got all of the information but it doesn't have the wisdom to uh to to to make that choice and i think that's that's it's gonna uh it already is coming back harder here and i think that that could be the real positive.

58:04If we can put the machine in its place, doing the thing that it's there for churning big data, doing those things and simplifying things for us and not creating those kind of bottlenecks you were talking to yesterday. There's too much information coming to a human that can't deal with it, but it's simplifying that and helping us in our process. And we can remain the front of it. That's, I think, where we can turn this into a much more positive picture. Events are back successfully, and I tell our team, the whole team is the recruiting team. When you go out to an event, it's your job to, like, represent us and for people to feel our culture when they meet you because that is by, like, you will, that's going to go far further than me trying to write a viral LinkedIn post, which we know I cannot really do.

58:57No one can do that now. It's a different story. Okay, we're coming to the end of this show, folks. Let's end off with a kind of a round robin, a bit of advice to a recruiter that's like entering New Zealand for the first time. Let's say I relocate to New Zealand and I decide, hey, I want to be a recruiter here. Like, what is the one thing I need to know about recruiting locally here that will help me get better faster? Any thoughts on that? Dale, let's start with you. That's interesting. I'm just trying to think about that one thing we are a humble nation what we don't we don't like to be hardcore sold to so uh this is as I mean Ben said it we are relationship driven and we're humble and understated um but we want to help uh and that needs to be the attitude that you bring in as a recruiter not a transaction we don't like it yeah so basically you don't like a loudmouth anybody who's like overly brash and stuff like that that's a cultural nuance that that is is well worth bearing in mind okay good stuff um okay ben how about you uh what's your thoughts you know if you give yourself a bit of advice i i guess as a transplant yourself you know if you can talk to yourself five years ago what would you do yeah i mean this is a it's a very different market and sees itself as a very different market 20 30 years of experience in Europe doesn't buy you an instant door open in New Zealand or by that matter, Australia.

1:00:31But the other thing I would add, if I'm allowed to, is that you're going from six degrees of separation to two, maybe three, and your reputation is everything. And so doing what you say you're going to do is super important. So that big difference. yeah really important like i said this is it like your reputation is good or bad but it's very important to be careful with it because um uh it's a small market and news travels fast uh in it okay very good point uh vanessa your thoughts one bit of advice um i'm arriving i'm relocating to new zealand what do i need to know play the long game with your like with your relationships with like putting good karma out there to people yeah i'm gonna keep it succinct that's what i'm gonna say no absolutely fair enough so again it's it's again not about the transactional views in it um making sure that i guess transience is something that's worth it we're talking about as well like when you have a country that has a lot of inflow and also potentially outflow as well um there sometimes is a there's a i wouldn't say a reticence but it's a sense of people might not be so easily to embrace you immediately because they don't know whether you're in or out you know so so it It could be that you've got to just bear with it and keep a signal that you're here for the long haul.

1:01:53Okay, Raj, your thoughts. What advice would you give to a person, you know, who's going to be a recruiter in New Zealand? Sure. I think that two things really worked for me as a migrant when I came into the country. The first thing which really attracted me, and I completely adopted that, was the, you know, as we say, that number eight sort of a wire mentality. that is required in New Zealand. So no matter how many resources you have, you have to focus on self-reliance, take that initiative of making things happen. Don't just give up. So be there, soldier on. So that sort of a mindset is really appreciated here.

1:02:40And second of all, my suggestion to people would be drop cricket and start liking rugby.

1:02:50Yeah, I was going to say, and get a lot of barbecues. I love that. I love that. And I think that's a great tip as well, because New Zealand obviously is a very sport-centric place. And, you know, maybe the rugby team, you know, the All Blacks actually were one of the great ways in which the country rallies around. It's a great icebreaker. Great icebreaker. When I came into the country, I spent six months learning rugby. And it was such a beautiful icebreaker for me, watching the games, developing those conversations and having a cuppa or having a beer. So it's a great icebreaker. Yeah. It is more than rugby, though.

1:03:33Amazing tech, amazing technology startups coming out of this country. And film. Yes. Yeah. Of course. Of course, film. Yeah. And I'm tempted to take a trip to see some of these things as I'm here. Pobiton. Pobiton. Maybe too far away. I don't know. Down to Matamata. Yeah, but I should check something out. But there we go. Listen, we've come to the end of it. A brilliant conversation. Thank you so much for educating everybody out there on what it is to be a recruiter here in New Zealand. Folks, I hope you found this useful. If you are thinking about New Zealand as a place to live and work, this show is for you.

1:04:12if in fact you are an international business that needs to hire people in New Zealand. And maybe this is also a useful thing as well. Okay, that's it. Thanks everyone for joining. Dale, Ben, Vanessa, Raj. Great to have you on screen. Everyone else, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. We're back next week. We are in, I'm gonna be in Australia, but I'm gonna be doing a show on skills-based hiring, folks. Where are we with skills-based hiring in 2026 and beyond? It was hot hype about three and a half years or so ago. Where are we today? Does AI render skills-based hiring irrelevant or does it bring it back into focus even more relevant?

1:04:52We've got some brilliant people on the show there to have that conversation. So make sure you sign up for that. Follow the channel if you like this type of conversation. If you're watching this on LinkedIn, you can just follow my page. It streams out there every Friday, every week. Okay, that's it. Have a good weekend, everyone. Bye, everyone. Thank you. Bye.