Free guides for Australian employers
How Australian small businesses actually find good people
No jargon, no HR theory. Just what works when you're an owner or manager with a job to fill, other work to do, and no recruitment team — including the mistakes that quietly cost you the best candidates.
- ~$10.5k
- Average direct cost of an Australian hire
- 39 days
- Typical time to fill a vacancy
- 2–3 wks
- How long good candidates stay available
The guides
Five things worth getting right
Each one is a complete guide rather than a blog post — written for businesses hiring a handful of people a year.
Start here
How to hire someone: the small business guide
The whole process end to end, in order, with realistic timeframes: from deciding what you actually need through to day 30.
14 min readRead→
Complete guide
How to write a job ad that actually gets applications
The anatomy of an ad that pulls candidates — and the eight writing habits that cost you applicants before anyone has read a word about the role.
11 min readRead→
Complete guide
What not to do when you're hiring
Fourteen specific, common, expensive mistakes — from the eleven-week vacancy to the reference check nobody does — and what to do instead of each.
13 min readRead→
Complete guide
Australian job boards, compared
What SEEK, Indeed, Jora, LinkedIn and the rest actually cost, who they reach, and which one suits the role you're filling — including where the big boards genuinely win.
14 min readRead→
Complete guide
What a hire actually costs you
Advertising is the smallest line item. Here's the full picture — owner hours, vacancy cost, ramp-up, and what a mis-hire really costs — with Australian benchmarks.
10 min readRead→
What not to do
Most hiring problems are five fixable habits
None of them are about effort. They are about the ad, the calendar, and one or two decisions made by default.
Don't
Leaving the salary out of the ad
Instead
Publish a range. Pay is the first thing candidates look for, and silence filters out the ones with options.
Don't
Reviewing applications when the ad closes
Instead
Review daily. Strong applications arrive in the first 72 hours and are gone by week three.
Don't
Posting your position description
Instead
Write a new document for strangers. A PD is written for someone who already has the job.
Don't
A twelve-point requirements list
Instead
Three to five non-negotiables. Long lists filter out strong candidates and keep the ones who don't read.
Don't
Three rounds of friendly interviews
Instead
One structured interview, same five questions, plus a short paid work sample.
Don't
Counting only the ad spend
Instead
Advertising is 1–5% of a hire. Your time and the empty seat are the real cost.
Free tool
What does a hire actually cost you?
Most owners name the advertising spend, which is typically 1–5% of the total. The calculator walks through all six components — including the two nobody counts — and gives you a number for your business.
Open the calculatorTypical breakdown
- Your time (screening, interviews, decisions)30%
- Vacancy cost — the seat sitting empty35%
- Onboarding and training15%
- Mis-hire risk provision12%
- Equipment and setup5%
- Advertising3%
Indicative shares for a direct-advertised SME hire. Your mix will differ — which is rather the point.
Shorter reads
Specific problems, specific answers
Job ad templates you can actually use
Four complete worked examples, plus the reusable skeleton underneath them.
8 min readRead→
Should you put the salary in your job ad?
The objections, honestly assessed — and what to publish when you can't publish a number.
7 min readRead→
How to screen 80 applications in 90 minutes
A two-minute-per-application method, the signals worth reading for, and the ones that waste your time.
7 min readRead→
Interview questions that actually tell you something
Five questions, a scoring method, and the popular questions that predict nothing.
8 min readRead→
Where to advertise a job in Australia
Every channel open to an Australian SME, named, with what each costs and where it wins.
9 min readRead→
What do you actually have to pay?
Finding the right award, and what the legal floor actually is once loading, penalties and super are counted.
9 min readRead→
Casual, part-time or full-time?
What legally separates the four types, what each costs, and the trap of calling someone casual when they are not.
8 min readRead→
Advertising a role you might sponsor
What labour market testing demands of the ad itself, and the salary thresholds that decide whether sponsorship is even possible.
8 min readRead→
From our publisher · JobSearch.com.au
Put the role in front of local Australian jobseekers
We publish this site, and we also run JobSearch.com.au — an Australian job board of 20 years, built around how small businesses hire. No subscription, credits that never expire, and a free talent community. It reaches fewer people than SEEK; we say where each option wins in the job boards comparison.
Ad pricing
- Single post$149
- 3-pack$279($93/ad)
- 5-pack$389($78/ad)
- 10-pack$649($65/ad)
Incl. GST. Credits never expire. Every option includes a free talent community.