What do you look for when you are looking for a job?
Salary? Career progression? Job title?
According to a new study of Australian job seekers, all of these are trumped by work life balance as the most important factor of a new job.
Recruitment agency Hudson has release its
Hiring Report: The State of Hiring in Australia 2015, which surveyed more than 3000 professionals and hiring managers across the country and found that work-life balance is the top priority for Australian job-seekers.
70% of respondents named work-life balance as their number one priority when looking for a job signalling a dramatic shift for Australian working culture.
“No longer just a buzz term or the domain of the working mum, work life balance is now fundamental to all Australian professionals and will be firmly on the agenda as we move throughout 2015,” said executive general manager of Hudson, Dean Davidson.
Higher salary took out second place in the survey with 67% of job-seekers looking at their dollar value followed closely by cultural fit at 64%.
“The fact that cultural fit – that feeling of belonging – is so far up the value chain, and is actually the most important factor for senior executives, demonstrates that fitting in and feeling valued are also important priorities for Australian job seekers in 2015,” Davidson continued.
The scarcity of talent in the Australia was a key concern for hiring managers with 90% of those surveyed noting that they need to look beyond active job seekers to find the right candidate for the role.
“In 2015 and beyond, hiring managers can no longer afford to take a vanilla approach to hiring. Instead they must take a strategic, tailored approach that runs wide and deep and makes use of the plethora of channels now available to really connect with talent,” Davidson said.
“Hiring managers who engage a mix of strategy, people knowledge and networks will be the ones who win the war for talent and connect with the cream of the talent crop.”
Online job boards remain the single most important conduit for sourcing new talent but a third of hiring managers surveyed note that these sites are less effective now than they were three years ago.
Employees are open to being approached with a new position rather than applying themselves as the report “shows three in four employees are open to being approached about a new job opportunity, while eight in 10 have an up-to-date CV and six in 10 have an up-to-date LinkedIn profile,” said Davidson.
The Top 9: What Australian jobseekers are looking for in 2015:
- Work life balance (including flexible arrangements) 70%
- Higher salary 67%
- Cultural fit within organisation and/or team 64%
- Career progression/training opportunities 58%
- Better benefits 46%
- A company whose values are closer to mine 36%
- Strong manager 30%
- Better brand 14%
- Better job title 13%
