Our thoughts on recruitment, construction, engineering, and everything in between
I've been recruiting since 2005. Finding somebody who can do the job isn't always the hard part — with the better candidates, the harder part is getting them interested in doing it for you. Here's how I'd approach recruitment from the employer side of the table.
A practical guide for construction and property professionals on the five AI workflows worth building first — from never losing a meeting's value to using AI to challenge your own thinking.
As we head towards the end of another financial year, one lesson keeps surfacing across nearly 100 Building Talks Podcast conversations: the quality of our outcomes is heavily influenced by the quality of the things we choose to say yes to.
One of the biggest problems in interviews isn't dishonesty, poor capability or bad intent. It's interpretation. What one person asks, what they mean, what the other hears, and what they infer can be four completely different things.
There's a lot of noise around AI in recruitment at the moment. Every platform is "game changing", every tool promises to find better candidates faster. From where I sit, the real story isn't about AI replacing recruiters—it's about how the tools are changing the starting point of recruitment.
Most people think careers are built in a straight line. Start at the bottom, work hard, get promoted, earn more, job done. In reality, that's not how it plays out, especially in construction and property.
Stop Promoting on Opinion. KPIs, incentives and building a meritocracy—what construction can learn from elite sport. If you look at elite sport, nothing is left to opinion.
Every January, the same conversations start floating around sites, offices, and LinkedIn: “Big year this year.” “Time to step things up.” “Thinking I might make a move.” All good intentions, and most of them go nowhere.
(A thought piece for leaders who know coaching isn’t just for sport)
We all like to think we’re chasing the best version of ourselves. But let’s be honest, most of what we see online about self-improvement looks like nonsense. Perfect lighting, cold plunges, smiles for the camera, and not much substance. In the real world, particularly in construction and property, life is a lot messier.
If I’m brutally honest about my own career, my 20s were more about chasing pay packets and enjoying the weekends than consciously building a profession. I had stepped onto the escalator, but without much direction. When I moved to Australia in my 30s, I became a manager, went on a few leadership courses, and started learning the ropes of people...
If you want the best possible recruitment experience, whether you are hiring for your team or advancing your own career, exclusivity is the secret.
After more than 20 years recruiting in the built environment, and interviewing well over 4,000 candidates, I've come to believe one thing above all: the most undervalued career skill isn't technical expertise or industry knowledge. It's self-awareness.
Every year like clockwork, the same thing happens. We hit the end of financial year, and suddenly the air thickens with passive-aggressive calendar invites titled "Annual Review". It's Salary Season. And if there's one thing I've learnt over 20 years in recruitment and about 4,000 face-to-face interviews, it's this: Almost no one thinks they're overpaid.…
In footy, it’s the guernsey that matters. Not just because it says, “You’re in the side,” but because it says, “We back you.” And in recruitment, especially in Melbourne’s construction and property sector, it’s not all that different. After 20 years of interviews, briefings, debriefings, and coffees, I reckon I’ve got a pretty good idea who makes the cut.
It’s April 2025. I’ve officially been in recruitment for two decades! That’s 20 years of dodgy CVs, nearly 4,000 candidate interviews, around 1,500 client meetings, panicked Monday-morning phone calls, clients asking for “unicorns but on a budget,” and candidates ghosting like I’d asked them to help me move house on a long weekend…
Recruitment is a funny old game. I've spent 20 years placing high performers into top-tier construction and property companies, witnessing hiring trends come and go, watching businesses thrive (or implode), and listening to more job-hunting stories than I care to count. In that time, I've come to one unavoidable truth: people don't always tell the full story.
If I had a dollar for every time a hiring manager complained about ‘entitled’ employees, I’d be on a yacht right now, sipping something expensive. But instead, I’m here to tell you why leadership—not whining—is the real game-changer.
Potential. It’s that magical word sprinkled over resumes and whispered in boardrooms. Employers claim they want it, candidates say they have it, and recruiters like me? Well, we’re often the ones tasked with unearthing it like archaeologists digging through a desert of generic CVs.
AI is everywhere. From helping us navigate morning traffic to crafting Instagram-worthy captions, it’s revolutionising industries, and recruitment is no exception.
There's been a lot of noise on social media lately, debating whether Gen Z is wrong for changing jobs early and often, all in pursuit of higher pay. Some say this is the natural way of the world now—why shouldn't they be chasing the coin? After all, we all work for money, right?
One of the most common questions employers ask when I present a candidate for a role is, 'Why are they open to a new opportunity?' As a recruiter, I've learned that the reasons candidates give for seeking new roles often differ greatly from how employers interpret those reasons.
I've been recruiting since 2005. Finding somebody who can do the job isn't always the hard part — with the better candidates, the harder part is getting them interested in doing it for you. Here's how I'd approach recruitment from the employer side of the table.
A practical guide for construction and property professionals on the five AI workflows worth building first — from never losing a meeting's value to using AI to challenge your own thinking.
As we head towards the end of another financial year, one lesson keeps surfacing across nearly 100 Building Talks Podcast conversations: the quality of our outcomes is heavily influenced by the quality of the things we choose to say yes to.
One of the biggest problems in interviews isn't dishonesty, poor capability or bad intent. It's interpretation. What one person asks, what they mean, what the other hears, and what they infer can be four completely different things.
There's a lot of noise around AI in recruitment at the moment. Every platform is "game changing", every tool promises to find better candidates faster. From where I sit, the real story isn't about AI replacing recruiters—it's about how the tools are changing the starting point of recruitment.
Most people think careers are built in a straight line. Start at the bottom, work hard, get promoted, earn more, job done. In reality, that's not how it plays out, especially in construction and property.
Stop Promoting on Opinion. KPIs, incentives and building a meritocracy—what construction can learn from elite sport. If you look at elite sport, nothing is left to opinion.
Every January, the same conversations start floating around sites, offices, and LinkedIn: “Big year this year.” “Time to step things up.” “Thinking I might make...
(A thought piece for leaders who know coaching isn’t just for sport)