Two Recruiters, One Honest Conversation About the Australian Job Market

 

Most recruiters stumble into their recruitment career. They land in it by accident and stay because it gets its hooks into them, and then they spend the next decade or two trying to explain to people at dinner parties why they find it so genuinely interesting.

That is roughly the story Tavis Shearer and his guest Kylie Jasinski, Founder of Prime Recruitment, told each other in a recent episode of Tav’s Little Video Chat, and in doing so, they laid out some of the most honest and useful career observations that anyone working in or around the Australian job market should hear.

Perhaps you’re a recruiter yourself, or a professional in property, construction or infrastructure, or even someone thinking carefully about your next career move, this conversation has something in it for you.

 

 

The Rules In The Market Have Changed

For the better part of two years, the Melbourne employment market, mainly in property and construction, has been quite careful while businesses held off on hiring decisions and candidates who had expected one set of conditions found the market had changed significantly around them.

This is now changing. From around last year, job flow has increased with hiring timelines shortening the confidence in applying for jobs slowly returning. However, the market is coming back it’s just not the same as what candidates are used to, and if you don’t adjust expectations unfortunately you or those looking risk being left behind.

So, here is what’s changed. In the larger infrastructure sector, skilled candidates can still command decent salaries the demand IS there and the projects ARE funded. In the private sector, however, salary isn’t a primary motivator as it once was for many roles. What candidates in property, construction and professional services are increasingly judged on and what employers are paying close attention to is things like culture fit, learning potential, and the quality of the environment they are going into.

This is a market where asking the right questions at interview and showing keen interest in career progression will carry more weight than trying to negotiate that extra $10,000 on base salary.

What Are Employers Really Looking For?

Both Tavis and Kylie were direct about something that recruiters know but rarely say openly: most employers struggle to communicate what they need. A job description is often a starting point, not a destination. The role that gets advertised and the role that actually needs filling are different things.

This matters for candidates because it means the people who get placed and who stay placed are not necessarily those who match the job spec. They are the ones who show enough interest in the interview process to understand what the business is really trying to achieve, if you show how their skills address the real problem, and communicate clearly why they are interested in the company’s direction, not just the salary package.

Kylie made a point that is worth some consideration: employers want candidates who:

• can tell them what they are great at
• what they love doing
• what they have genuinely achieved.

Self reflection, as she described it, is the starting point for a productive career conversation. Candidates who arrive saying they do not know what to do next, or who present themselves as broadly capable of anything, are the hardest to place well.

The clearer you are about your value and your direction, the better a recruiter can go to market on your behalf.

Personal Brand Is No Longer Optional

This was one of the most emphatic points in the entire conversation. Both Tavis and Kylie agreed without hesitation: recruiters who do not build a personal brand will not be competitive within two years. Not ten. Two!

But this applies well beyond recruiters. For any professional in a relationship-driven industry, being visible matters. Candidates who are active on LinkedIn, who share insights from their work, who engage with content in their sector, are consistently easier for recruiters to find, easier to place, and more credible when they are put in front of a hiring manager.

Kylie’s team has implemented a deliberate LinkedIn strategy planned content, connection sequences, messaging workflows and has seen direct results from it. New clients have called Prime Recruitment specifically because they watched their video content over several months and decided they wanted to work with people who understood their space.

The barrier to starting is not skill. As Kylie put it, it was not comfortable in the beginning. It gets easier. The harder part is consistency, and making sure what you are putting out there is genuinely useful to the audience you are trying to reach rather than just broadcasting noise.

Why Melbourne Construction Businesses Can’t Find Trades Staff

The Honest Reality of Career Mistakes… And What They Teach You

Tavis shared one of his most significant professional failures openly in the conversation: he lost his Perth recruitment company because of too many handshake deals with clients who did not pay. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding invoices. A very strong business brought down not by poor performance, but by misplaced trust and a lack of commercial protection.

He rebuilt. He started TRS Resourcing in Melbourne from nothing, registered as a sole trader, and picked up the phone.

The reason this matters for candidates is the lesson embedded in it, not the drama. Careers rarely end where they go wrong. The professionals who come out ahead are the ones who treat failure as data, adjust their approach, and keep moving. Tavis’s philosophy from that period: backing yourself even when the circumstances are against you is a through line in how TRS Resourcing operates today.

Kylie made a similar point about her own decision to start Prime Recruitment. She was returning from maternity leave, considering a return to a partnership role, and instead sat down and asked herself honestly what she knew, who she could serve, and whether she had the confidence to back herself. She did. Six years later the business is growing into new markets.

Neither of these are stories about overnight success. Both are stories about self awareness, calculated risk, and the willingness to do the work over time.

Actionable Career Tips From This Conversation

• Know what you are genuinely good at before you engage a recruiter. Specificity makes you placeable. Vagueness does not.
• Understand that in most sectors right now, salary follows performance and career progression, not the other way around. Negotiate from a position of demonstrated value.
• Build a LinkedIn presence now, not when you need a job. Consistency over months creates trust that a single post never can.
• Do not let bad experiences with a past employer become the story you lead with to recruiters. Good recruiters will challenge biased feedback give them the facts and let them draw conclusions.
• If you are considering a move, speak to a specialist recruiter in your sector before you apply for anything. They know what the market is paying, which businesses are genuinely growing, and which ones have the revolving door problem.
• Recruitment as a career, if you are considering it, is one of the most useful industries to spend time in regardless of where you end up. The self-knowledge, commercial awareness and network it builds transfer everywhere.

TRS Resourcing partners with candidates across construction, infrastructure, property, engineering and trades to help them find roles that match not just their skills but their career direction. If you are thinking about your next move in Melbourne or Sydney, reach out to the TRS team for a direct and honest conversation about where the market is and where you fit in it.

Why Melbourne Businesses Are Choosing Boutique Over Big