“Advertise a salary range”: Seek chief of people and culture on recruitment trends

Kathleen McCudden, chief people and culture officer at Seek, said while economic factors will encourage many Australian workers to stay put this year, the talent market will remain tight.

Job ad volumes this February dipped slightly year-on-year since February 2022, “however last year we saw a massive surge in job ads because everyone was emerging from the pandemic.”

“You really need to look at what happened not just in the last year but before the pandemic” to get an idea, she said.

“Pre-pandemic, if we look at February 2020, and we compare it to Feb 2023, we have seen a 35% increase in job ads on our platform. And that’s linked to what we see with the low unemployment rate. So, companies are still hiring and the job ad volumes are higher than they were pre-pandemic.”

Should job ads list salary?

“Salary’s important”, McCudden said. “We are encouraging our customers to advertise a salary range, because that typically gets more candidates applying for a role compared to if they don’t.”

There are, of course, considerations, and it’s not surprising that many employers still don’t list a salary range.

“If they advertise a salary, what might that mean internally for their organisation?” McCudden said. “So it’s not something that you would consider without thinking about the broader context.”

McCudden said at Seek the team sees that it is more common for senior roles not to list salary whereas it’s more important at the middle level.

“It’s an important thing for candidates. When they’re embarking on a job search, they’re interested to know how can they maximise their time. They only want to apply for a role where they think they’ve got a real shot at getting it, and one of the questions in their minds is: ‘is this going to pay me what I want and need?’

“So it helps if there’s a salary range because it helps answer that question right from the get-go.”

Will they stay or will they go?

Speaking of Seek and its personnel internally, McCudden said “We are seeing some of the lowest levels of voluntary attrition ever in the organisation.” It comes down partly to the work done to ensure Seek is a great place to work, she said, but is also a sign of the times — “sentiment around the economy makes people nervous to change jobs.”

But it’s still a tight market and that will take a while to change.

“It’s still a really tight market. So hirers, and organisations looking to hire, have to be thinking that you’re being interviewed as much as a candidate is going to be interviewed for the job.”

This article is part of a feature series on workplace and employment trends to support our Smart50 Workplaces 2023 program, developed in partnership with Employment Hero.

Download the ‘What are great employers doing differently in 2023?’ report to look at current trends in the employment landscape and best practices from Smart50 Workplaces Top Performers.