Is your application outdated? Job hunting in a modern world.

It may be that you are looking for your first job and relying on advice from parents, teachers, books, or online sources on how to go about it.

It may be that it has been some time since you last looked for a job. Perhaps you are looking to get back into the workforce, or perhaps you find yourself suddenly looking for a new job after a long stint with one employer.

The recruitment world has changed. And, like a lot of change, most of this has happened stealthily and quite unobtrusively. Below are listed some of the biggest traps that will instantly make your application look out of date.

Address

We used to start covering letters with polite addresses such as 'Dear Sirs' or 'To whom it may concern.' This can now be the very thing that puts a potential employer off hiring you.

What was once seen as mannerly is now viewed by many as indicative of laziness. Hirers usually prefer to be addressed by name and, if you don't know the name, there are many tools at your disposal to find out. The professional networking site LinkedIn can be a great help here, and even calling reception to ask is preferable to an impersonal address.

Language

Language is continually evolving, and there are several words and spellings that are rarely used any more. We don't usually put a circumflex or accent over French words that have been adopted into common English usage any more - such as role, or resume. You may argue that the latter now reads as "rezhoom" and the meaning is unclear, but context usually means that it is very obvious which version is intended.

We don't often say "I would like to work at your firm" when referring to a business. We tend to say 'business' or 'company', or use the company's name instead.

It is a tricky balance to get right - especially if, when you last hunted for a job, many of these things were the 'right' thing to do, both in terms of grammar and etiquette. We now prefer a more relaxed style, but the emphasis is still on professional conduct - just eschewing some of the more formal practices.

Listing tasks on a CV

Surely that's how you write a CV? You have your job title, company, and dates, and then you write bullet points with your main tasks and responsibilities on them, all in a list. No.

A good CV SHOULD contain bullet points. You only have 2 pages (no epics here, please) and that means they're a good way of breaking up big blocks of text. However, if I am recruiting a consultant to work for us, I do not need to see the job description of Recruitment Consultant wasting valuable space under each job heading (Responsible for client relationships, advertising, etc.). I know what one does. What can YOU do? What did you bill? Why should I hire you? List achievements that are relevant to your next job - not the duties that I would expect someone in your position to do.

Irrelevant information on CV

Do not list your age, marital status, or religion. All are irrelevant and can open you up to discrimination. Do not list family member's names, your height/ weight (unless directly applicable to the job), your hobbies, or casual/ irrelevant jobs. If you are applying for a senior management position then you do not need to list your Saturday job. I am more interested in why I should hire you, than whether you like reading and playing golf.

Only applying to a vacancy

This is how we used to find jobs. We would scour the paper/ hear of an opening somewhere, and write a letter with our application.

The modern world of recruitment is more fluid than that. Social media has had an impact, as it is easy to be connected to anyone in just a few clicks. You can now look on the internet to find your dream company, see who manages which areas, and contact them speculatively without a job ever being mentioned.

Most companies use recruitment agencies to find them staff. If you are only applying to individual jobs that are advertised then you may miss out on a lot of opportunities that are not advertised. A good recruiter will be able to put several opportunities in front of you, and take the hard work out of knowing who to contact. They will already have relationships with all the companies in your field, so you are immediately ahead by talking to them. Just make sure you find a good one! Recommendations from companies can be a great place to start.

Discrimination

We used to use 'he' to refer to either sex. E.g., "When meeting the interviewer, he will shake your hand." That would refer to either sex. It was less clunky than 'he or she' and use of a plural 'they' when referring to a singular was thought (by some) to be undesirable. Now it is thought of as sexist and outdated. So what do you write?

Where possible you can reword the sentence to make it smoother. Using 'he or she' is fine, but can be arduous if used repetitively. Use of 'they' is actually okay on the grammar front, and was once used commonly. Whichever you decide, don't assume that 'he' or 'sirs' includes the female equivalent.

So now I'm more confused than before

And what if I commit some terrible faux pas, when I'm only trying to be polite?

Well, there is no way that any of us can guarantee that we won't do that but, as the adage goes, forewarned is forearmed.

Try to use plain English where possible. Keep it simple, and think about what you want to communicate. Give the hirer a reason to want to meet with you. Speak to recruiters and ask their advice. A recruitment consultant will proof read your CV for you, and offer advice if there are changes to be made. Be sensitive of discrimination issues.

Good luck, and don't be afraid to ask questions!

Jobseekers: The interview (part 2)

Now, at last, you're in the interview room, and all that preparation can start to pay off. In 'Interview Tips' have a look at the section headed 'During the Interview', where you'll find some good and useful tips.

The relationship between you and the interviewer can be an uneven one. Your interviewer may well be formally trained in their role as interviewer – you have no formal training as a job applicant. And, he or she may have the job you want.

So it is important to try to establish a rapport with the interviewer – and you want them to establish a rapport with you as well. This involves finding, and developing, areas of common ground, but you have to discover exactly what the interviewer wants to see, so that you can build on it to your own advantage.

Perhaps he or she wants to see your passion for the job, or your loyalty, maybe your technical or interpersonal skills. Whatever it is, you need to find it. The interviewer's business needs someone to fill a vacancy and, on meeting you, they really want you to be that person. Interviewing is costly for a company, and most interviewees start the interview already having the job. You keep it or lose it over the course of the interview. You have to present yourself in such a way as to convince them that the search is over.

However, you must resist any temptation to lie, or significantly embroider the truth. Nor should you pretend to know what you don't know. Lies will always catch up with you, and honesty can be disarming. If you don't know the answer to a question, try saying something like “I'm sorry, I just don't have an answer at the moment. Can I get back to you in 5 minutes/ a day when I've had more time to think?” The interviewer will be impressed by your honesty and unwillingness to be forced into an instant answer – but you do, of course, have to follow through with your answer! And, in reality, there should be very few questions to which you cannot provide an answer. You have prepared for this moment, but won't look as if you have if you keep saying “I don't know ...”

Many interviews are based around behavioural or situational questions. The theory is that past behaviour (in a candidate) is a good guide to future work performance. This leads on to three particular types of question for which you should be prepared:

1. What have you achieved? Here we want details, backed up by documentary proof if possible, of what you have done, of significance, over the last few years, what significance your actions had for the employer at the time and how these actions demonstrate relevant core strengths that you can bring to your new job;

2. What is/are your unique points/s? You need to identify what makes you stand out from the herd, and where you can add significant positive value to an employer. You also need to work out how best to communicate this, both in the CV and the interview;

3. Tell me about a time when this (situation) happened. What did you do? What would you do in a particular hypothetical situation? What have you done previously in a particular situation?

We've already stressed the need to prepare for your interview/s, and to do your research. But you also need to beware the trap of being over-prepared. On the internet you can find a lot of advice about how to answer different types of interview questions, and some of this advice may be very sound.

However, interviewers commonly report a high level of stock answers to questions, and these are not what an interviewer wants to hear. They would much rather hear about you, even if your own, personal, answers are less 'perfect' than the stock answer. After all, the company will be hiring you, not the stock answer!

When you think the interview is over, it isn't! You remain on view and under scrutiny, potentially until you can no longer see the company premises. So, you should behave with decorum (no smoking, down-dressing, etc) until you are certain that no-one from the company can see you and, therefore, report back to your interviewer with an adverse comment.

When you get back home, sit down, relax and write down as much as you can recall of the interview, any follow-ups that are needed, any aspects that you think could have gone better, and so on. Use the notes you made in your notebook during the interview to help you with this.

So it's all over now, and you can just sit back and wait for your recruiter to deluge you with offers.

Wrong!

You may not have been the only person to shine in an interview, and the company might want you to undergo a second interview. This is really good news (OK, not as good as a job offer) because it shows you have successfully negotiated the initial hurdles and have been shortlisted for the position.

Also, a second interview will give the company a chance to assess you in more detail, perhaps by including, as part of the interview team, other people such as more senior staff, or staff with whom you may have to work if you get the job.

So now is the time for you to re-appraise your first interview. You know it went reasonably well, because if it hadn't you wouldn't be getting another one. But the first meeting will not have been perfect, and you need to be self-critical, albeit realistic, about what took place as you can learn from this analysis to do better second time around. That, of course, is one of the reasons for preparing your notes after the interview.

When the date of the next interview is getting close, do some fresh research on the company and its market. Things can change very quickly, in the commercial world, and the fact that you are aware, and remain aware, of current events can only impress those whom you need to impress.

If, at the next interview, other people are to be present then you should be told about this in advance, and you should have some idea of who they are and their status within the company. It will not be so easy to establish a rapport if more interviewers are present, but you should try to prepare some questions for everyone who is there (we suggest that broadly-based questions, rather than those addressed just to one individual, are preferable) so that you have a chance to demonstrate your ability to mesh in with a team of people, and that you can adapt to the prevailing culture within the business. This is also an opportunity for you to assess the image the company is presenting to you – is this an environment in which you would like to work, if given the chance?

All the same do's and don'ts apply to a second interview as to the first. In particular, you should not appear to be over-confident – you are just as much under judgement this time as you were last time. And don't forget to maintain the dress code, because you still have to impress the interviewer to get any further with your application.

The final comments on this part of the process involve what not to say during the interview, and we can do no better than suggest you look at our blog entitled 'What not to say in an interview', dated 23.2.2010. There is nothing complex here, just good common sense on how to avoid some basic blunders, so that the interviewer can concentrate on all the good aspects you're presenting.

If you've followed all of the suggestions in this series of articles, you, with the help of your recruiter, should have little difficulty in securing one or more job offers.

However, you might want to read the next (and last) in this present series, which is addressed more towards employers and how they can (or should) deal with the interview process. That will give you a different perspective on the process, and perhaps more of an insight into what will be required of you.

Jobseekers: The interview

Following on from our earlier article about getting your name out there, we now look at the next step - the interview itself.

Great news! You've just had the call from your recruiter to say that there are some companies that want to interview you. So what do you do next?

PREPARE! PREPARE! PREPARE!

One of the most common reasons for the failure of job applicants to get anywhere following their first interview is that they didn't prepare properly.

First of all, have a look at our blog 'Interview Tips', dated 27.1.2010. Then, set aside some quiet time for yourself and start work on your preparation. The seven bullet points in 'Interview Tips' are basic, common-sense points – and yet so many candidates trip up over these, so it won't hurt to go into a little more detail.

1. Plan your journey. Nothing says 'I can't be bothered with this job' quite like turning up late, or on the wrong day. And it's psychologically bad to have to apologise as the opening gambit in an interview. We all know that delays can happen, even to the best of us, so as soon as you know there's a problem you MUST contact the interviewer or their office;

2. Research the company. Any interviewer will expect you to have done your homework. He or she will, quite rightly, expect that you have some idea of the company's operations and, if appropriate, its corporate structure. So, have a look at the company's website, or see if there's any recent news about the company (developments, acquisitions, etc.) so that you can impress your interviewer by being well-informed and up-to-date.

   You should also research the competition ('know your enemy') as this is a significant part of the commercial environment you are trying to join;

3. The interviewer. He or she could be from HR, or could be part of the management structure. You need to know which, exactly, and how senior or junior they are (the company's website could help here) so that you can pitch your presentation appropriately.

4. Prepare some questions in advance and write them down in a (business-like) notebook. At the start of the interview, ask if the interviewer minds you taking notes - they won't. Straight away you will look well-prepared and efficient, and give the impression that you are serious about the interview. You can also use the notebook to jot down things you might otherwise forget to mention.

5. Take your CV with you, together with any testimonials or other evidence of the qualities you want to bring to your new position. Don't forget to read them, yourself, before you go in to the interview, just as a reminder of what you've said.

6. Dress smartly, but not flashily. Remember, you're trying to impress a future employer, not your friends on a night out! So dress in a business-like manner, and look natural – avoid the excessive use of aftershave/perfume and cosmetics.

   When you start out for the interview, take some deep breaths to steady your nerves, repeat the process when you arrive and then, when your name is called, you can move confidently (but not aggressively!) into the interview room, just as if you already had earned the right to be there.

   When you first see the interviewer, shake their hand and be conscious, at all times during the interview, of the image you're projecting. Remember the old adage “You only get one chance to make a first impression”. Indeed, recent research suggests that the first 15 seconds of an interview can be vital in making that impression.

   Note – no-one likes overt displays of nerves. We all know that interviews make people nervous, and your interviewer will of course make some allowances, but how you 'rise above' these and conquer the interview will affect the interviewer's judgement of you and how you cope under stress.

Now you're in the interview room, all that preparation should start to pay off. In 'Interview Tips' have a look at the section headed 'During the Interview' – there are some good and useful ideas here for you. And that's the area we'll be looking at in more detail next time.

Job-seekers: Get your name out there!

This is the first in a series of short articles on what to do to get yourself the job you want.

We make no apologies for re-visiting this subject - see our blog articles index, especially the postings in January and February 2010.

To get a job is much easier than to get the best job and if we at Skye Recruitment can help you to get the best job for you, then you are more likely to want to stay with your employer and to progress to higher levels, with all the benefits that can bring.

Of course, before you can get a job an employer has to know that you are out there, and recruitment agencies can be an excellent way to achieve this. So which agency do you choose?

You need to do some research. Have a look on line, go to blog sites for comments on particular firms, look at agency web sites and get a feel for their operation, find out how long they have been in operation, what testimonials or awards they have received, and so on. And don't be tempted by any that want an up-front fee from you. Or, save yourself a lot of time and trouble and come to us!

In particular, do beware of false recruiters, especially those that claim to guarantee work in return for an upfront fee. A Queensland gentleman was recently arrested and charged with obtaining, or trying to obtain, money by deception, and there are no doubt many more fraudsters out there.

So, you want a job – but do you know what, exactly, you want to do? Although there are currently estimated to be about 30,000 mining jobs to fill in WAand QLD over the next 5 years, you need to work out what your particular areas of interest (and ability) are, and how flexible you can be in matching these to what's available in the market.

And you should think about what you want out of your job. Is it money, or promotion prospects, or the ability to have career breaks for lifestyle reasons? You need to decide what your career is to be. By 'career' we mean how you see yourself progressing from the start of your first job to the end of your last, including any job changes, lifestyle breaks, work/life choices and so on. There is help available on the internet, or you can come to us for help regarding this – point scoring each of the various factors can often help you to reach a decision.

Now you can start to create your brand image. Just as companies create a corporate brand image for themselves, so should you. Your brand image will be the 'asset' that you will be trying to sell to a prospective employer.

You need to decide:

• who you are as a person (e.g., a leader, a follower, aggressive, thoughtful, impulsive, kind – those sorts of things);

• what you can do that will enhance the company that you join;

• how you deal with your own work-life balance, so that you are 110% committed to your job, but also maintain a healthy and fulfilling out-of-the-workplace life;

• what your target employer wants. Do some research, find out what prospective job areas involve, and what niche gaps or weaknesses there are which your skill-set can fill;

• If you are looking for your first job, you must research the field into which you wish to go. If, for example, your interest is in mining then, taking account of your existing skill set, look into what types of mining there are, where mining takes place (there may be some places where you do not want to work), what different processes there are, and so on. An employer won't expect you to know anything too specific, but he or she will expect you to be generally well-informed;

Now you can define your personal brand and this is what you have to market. Note – you also have to deliver, should you get the job!

The next stage is to prepare your CV. Firstly, have a look at our blog 'Writing a great résumé (28.1.2010). This will give you a great starting point for the document, the sole aim of which is to sell your personal brand. The better your advertising, the more likely the target audience will respond favourably.

Secondly, if you already have an old CV – THROW IT AWAY! This is not a time to be lazy. You must take a fresh look at yourself, much like an interviewer will do at an interview, and set about showing companies why they would be stupid not to employ you.

This is also a good opportunity for you to highlight your own achievements and successes. For instance, you may have suggested ways of improving efficiency, or reducing waste or costs, and if these can be brought out in the CV (preferably with testimonials or other evidence), and if the skills you used can be used in a new job, then they may give you the 'edge' that you need over other applicants.

Don't forget, also, that employers will want you to be technically adept, and technologically aware, so if you have proficiency in the use of particular equipment, or industry-standard software, then say so in the CV.

Your recruitment consultant will be able to help you 'fine tune' the document and it is then over to him or her to sound out the market and see what might be suitable for you.

The next conversation you want with your recruiter will be to arrange interviews with various companies. You need to prepare carefully for the first interview with each company – and that's the subject we will be looking at in our next blog.

Health and Safety in the Workplace

It's not a catchy title, perhaps, but it is a subject that should be very close to the heart of any employer, especially since the latest round of legislation on the subject which came into effect last year.

Since the 'Model Work Health and Safety Bill' was introduced last June, it has already been formally adopted by the Commonwealth, the Territories, New South Wales and Queensland, and the other states will no doubt follow suit before long.

At 216 pages long, the new Bill is a significant re-appraisal of what it means to be an employer, or an employee, and the responsibilities each has within the workplace. That word, too, has been re-defined, and basically covers anywhere in which work is carried out for a business and includes anywhere that the worker is, or is likely to be, whilst doing that work. So that includes, for example, an office, or an on-site location, or a vehicle of any sort, and extends to the waters “... and any installation on land, on the bed of any waters or floating on any waters.”

So that's pretty much anywhere that the worker can legitimately be whilst working. And all the relevant legal duties and obligations – and penalties – will apply to all those 'workplaces'.

Another concept introduced by the Bill is the function of an “officer”. An officer is a person who, by virtue of their position in the business, or because of their job description, has particular responsibility for particular duties, whether solely or shared with others.

The Bill says that these duties cannot be transferred or delegated, that the responsibility for implementing, or failing to implement, these duties is personal to the duty-holder/s, and that failures by the duty-holders can lead to criminal penalties. These penalties can work their way up the chain of command. So, for example, if an accident happens because Jim, the safety officer on site, wasn't seeing that the rules were being observed, then Jim will be responsible in law.

However, if Jim were under instruction from his line manager to get the job done quicker to save money, (“Jim, I don't care what it takes, get the job done today otherwise you needn't come in tomorrow”) then the line manager could also be held legally responsible – as could his Managing Director, or HR Department, perhaps, if they are similarly pressuring the line manager.

Incidentally, the Bill covers all types of workers – salaried, contract, part-time, voluntary, students, sub-contractors – all of them.

Before the new legislation, we had the concept of 'attributed liability'. This means that, if a worker suffers an injury (for example) then the liability could, in some cases be attributed to the firm or company for which he was working. Not any more.

Now, anyone who is classified as an 'officer', and we'll come to who that is in a minute, has personal liability even if the business itself is not part of any claim or litigation. Basically, more people are now legally responsible for health and safety in the workplace, more people have a legal duty to ensure a safe workplace (or, at least, as safe as can reasonably be provided, bearing in mind that anyone involved in certain sectors could be seen to be involved in a dangerous workplace, just by nature of the industry) and businesses must now take on the idea of a safety culture within their operations.

So, who is an 'officer'? That is defined under the Corporations Act 2001 and basically means a:

secretary or director of a corporation;

or anyone who makes, or participates in making, decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the business of the corporation;

or anyone who has the capacity to affect significantly the corporation's financial standing;

or in accordance with whose instructions or wishes the directors of the corporation are accustomed to act.

There are slightly different provisions for non-corporate structures, but you get the idea. The third of these is a tricky one, as this could be extended to anyone who writes a blog, or tweets, which is adverse to the company. Such a person could then be liable as an officer of the company if a workplace safety issue comes to the fore.

Officers must talk to other duty-holders, to discuss relevant health and safety issues, they must co-operate with each other to produce workable solutions to issues that arise and they must have a coherent strategy in place to deal with any problems that crop up. These issues relate to the whole of the workplace, and don't forget that, these days, this will include the internet, which sadly has been the scene for online bullying and other abuses.

Above all, officers must exercise due diligence. This is defined in the regulations as the process whereby reasonable steps are taken to understand and identify what is risky or hazardous within your business operation, do the best that can reasonably be done to mitigate or eliminate these hazards and risks, and to develop systems to ensure compliance with the regulations.

So, if you haven't yet got to grips with the new provisions, then you really should do so now – before an incident occurs and you are on the receiving end of a claim. We at Skye Recruitment would suggest to you the following course of action:

Nominate or identify the officers of your business;

Ensure that they know the extent of their obligations, the need to exercise due diligence, and the need to ensure compliance with the new regulations;

Set up training, and repeat the training periodically, to assist the officers in carrying out their obligations;

Create some form of monitoring and reporting process;

Include the new regulations in your training for all staff.

Safe Work Australia has a lot of useful information on its website, so perhaps that's a good first point of call for help.

Finally, although this sounds like a lot of work, which it probably is, the fact is that the regulations will affect everyone who works, or who owns a business, and if we can 'bite the bullet' and set up the right systems now, this will save a lot of time and, perhaps, money for us all in the future.

What do your staff want, exactly?

If you look at some of our past blogs, you will see that we at Skye Recruitment have talked about how to retain the staff you have engaged. And we make no apologies for raising the subject again, because it is such an important topic, affecting the most precious and fickle asset you will ever have.

We all know that it's getting harder, and not just here in Australia, to get good, reliable, well-trained people to fill the ever-increasing number of vacancies that are opening up. Once we have got the people we want, we need to try as hard as we can to keep them, because there are always other businesses out there who will snap them up in a flash.

Traditionally, the approach has been to seduce potential employees with the promise of good wages, generally 'spiked' with a few add-ons such as corporate housing, free trips back home, generous holidays, etc. But these cost significant amounts of money and impact on the balance sheet and on the price of the product. Also, when you pay an employee three times what he or she can realistically spend in a year, what is the real attraction to them of being offered, say, four times that amount?

Well, have a think about increasing the job satisfaction element. We admit that this is, perhaps, a harder option than offering more money, but it can pay serious dividends in both reducing employee wage expectations and increasing the chance that they will still be with you in 12 or 24 months time.

Over the last ten years or so, a number of organisations have emerged, such as Employer of Choice, Excellence for Diversity@Work, Best Place to Work and so on. They all have, in common, a desire to help companies improve the workplace by improving the way in which management of a company looks at its staff, sometimes with a particular slant towards minority groups, but always with the idea that people who want to work for a company are more likely to stay with that company.

So, to start with, a company should look at its brand image. Every company, we suspect, will have done this as far as its intended customers are concerned, but what about having an employer brand?

According to the book 'Employer of Choice', by Herman and Gioia, an Employer of Choice is one that people will choose to work for, who will choose to dedicate themselves to your success and who will choose to stay with you, even if they are being approached by other companies offering better pay and/or benefits. An Employer of Choice will inspire talented people to work for them and stay with them.

In 2001, the University of Sydney published a report into Australian workplaces ('Simply the Best Workplaces in Australia'), which identified 15 main factors that set the excellent workplaces apart from the rest. Amongst these factors are the quality of working relationships, clear values set by the company, a feeling of personal safety, and a sense of having responsibility and control over your own work, and that position being respected and accepted by others.

Recently, The Defence Force was nominated as a 'Dream Employer' in a national survey, after years of struggling to attract good quality staff. It turned itself around by examining how it marketed itself – in other words, looking at the image it was 'selling' to potential recruits – and found that only 38% or so of applicants were motivated by self-interest. Surprisingly, some 56% were attracted by the prospects of training and development, indicating that potential employees are valuing longer-term stability and security more highly than simple remuneration.

This leads us back to the matter of employer branding. We would suggest that companies who want to engage more staff should move away from the traditional approach of advertising for what they, the companies, want and look more at advertising what they can offer to successful applicants. Of course, you have to follow through, so that this approach requires a company to properly understand what employees really want, in today's economic climate, and to make good on their advertising promises by creating the environment for which the employee signed up in the first place.

And that is how you create an employer brand. Once you can be seen to keep your word, and create an environment in which employees aren't turning over at a rate of knots, then your reputation will spread before you, the awards will follow (which of course can then form part of future advertising campaigns) and, who knows, you may end up with more good applicants than you can take on!

Who’s going to talk to your clients?

When recruitment agencies take on new staff, it is usual for them to complete a contract of employment. It is also usual for these contracts to include, amongst other things, details of what the employee can and, more importantly, cannot do when that employment ceases. And that is when problems can often start, especially if you and the employee have parted on bad terms.

Problems often start when we look at what are known as ‘restraint of trade’ clauses. These clauses, common in contracts for many occupations, try to lay down restrictions on where and for whom the, by now ex, employee can work - the idea being that he or she should not be able to cherry-pick all your best clients and use them for the benefit of the next job.

Firstly, it makes very good sense to treat your employees well whilst they are with you - aside from the obvious reasons, this may also reduce the likelihood of their trying to damage your business when they have left you. Whilst there are legal rules about what an ex employee can do, in terms of how their actions can affect your continuing business, it is a fact that a disaffected ex employee can be damaging to you, can cost you a lot in terms of customer goodwill, trust, and so on, as well as having a serious financial impact on your balance sheet.

Secondly, you should be thinking very carefully about what you are putting in to your employment contract, because:

• You don’t want to put in provisions that are illegal;

• You don’t want to put in provisions that are so onerous that you won’t be able to monitor whether or not your ex employee is complying;

• You don’t want to give your employee the impression, as soon as he or she starts to work for you, that you are an overbearing employer who will try to ensure that the employee will never, ever, be able to work again in your line of business.

Let us say, for example, that you have made a job offer to Joe, that he has accepted, and that you have handed him the employment contract to peruse. (Yes, Joe must have the chance to read this, by himself, before he signs). After all the talk about pay, holidays, super contributions, disciplinary procedures and so on, he will get to the bit about what conduct is expected of him when he leaves your employ. Here he will find the restraint of trade clause which, usually, will say for how long he is prevented from working for a competitor firm, within what geographical radius this restriction is to apply, whether or not he can work for one of the firm’s clients, and so on.

This is where troubles so often arise, and unfortunately there is a lack of good federal law on such matters, so that to find out what you can and can’t restrict very often relies on state case law. Fortunately, however, the large number of cases that have come before the courts over the years have resulted in some degree of convergence between the states, and so some general guidance can be given concerning restrictions in the employment contract. New South Wales has gone one stage further by enacting the Restraints of Trade Act (1976) to formalise matters – to date, Queensland has made no comparable legislation, instead relying on common law principles.

Restraint clauses must, firstly, be reasonable in their scope and duration. What is ‘reasonable’, of course, is a matter of judgment given the circumstances involved but you cannot take away a person’s ability to work in the area for which they are trained and in which they have experience. You can, however, delay their ability to return to that type of work for such time as would reasonably allow you (the former employer) to cement your relationships with your clients to try to prevent them being lost to the ex employee, or to sever that person’s connection with those clients. Periods of 6 months or 12 months, for example, are often seen in restraint clauses and the courts have, in individual cases, found those periods to be reasonable.

What sort of geographical area is reasonable? This depends very much on what sort of firm you operate and over what sort of area you are represented. If you have just one office trading out of a village, for example, and you are catering to local clients then you might find it difficult to stop your ex-employee working in a different state, or even a different part of the same state. On the other hand, if you are a national company with national or international clients, then a restraint applying to the whole of Australia may well be regarded as reasonable.

The situation in New South Wales is special, because the existence of legislation means that the courts there have discretion to reduce the severity of unreasonable provisions within a restraint clause to a reasonable level. Courts in other states and territories do not have such discretion, so that if a restraint clause is held to be unreasonable then the only option available to the courts is to set the offending clause aside.

That is why ‘cascading clauses’ have come in over recent years. These contain alternative time periods and geographical areas, such as “… the employee is not to work in the recruitment industry (or whatever) for a period of 1 year, or 2 years, or 3 years or such period as the employer shall deem appropriate and nor shall he be able to seek employment within the recruitment industry during such period anywhere in Queensland, or Australia, or worldwide, the decision being subject to the employer’s discretion”

Outside New South Wales, the Courts can select any of the options given by the clause (assuming any are found to be reasonable) without the whole clause failing completely.

Incidentally, and for those on fixed term contracts, recent case law indicates that the restrictions within a restraint clause apply from the date of termination of employment, and not from the end of the contract period.

Whatever you do, as an employer, do not try to put in conditions or restrictions that are nothing to do with the protection of your legitimate business interests. Any such matters either belong elsewhere in the contract (such as expectations of conduct or dress) or in the waste bin! And don’t forget that an employee is entitled to take with him, for the benefit of his next employment, the skills and experience he has hopefully gained whilst working for you. All that you can try to protect is the confidential details, client relationships, etc., that he acquired during his work for you.

Also, as the employer you must not breach your own obligations under the employment contract. If you do, so that the employee would feel justified in ending their employment with you, then you may well find that your post-employment restraints are unenforceable – and you might find yourself on the wrong end of a constructive dismissal allegation.

If this all sounds a bit heavy, just remember that your employees are to be valued and treasured, not feared. Don’t try to tie their hands too severely when they leave you, because it will cost you time and money to fight a battle you may well not win – and you will gain an enemy you could really do without! Competition is healthy, and if you can gain a reputation for excellence and propriety in the way you conduct your business, you’ll always have plenty of work.