Deceptive recruiters kill off job hopes in Adelaide

Recruiters know very little about the competencies or capabilities of the advertised roles. Many have never been to a mine, a factory or know what an IT specialist does. If the recruiter doesn't know what the role entails, what's the point of talking to them in the first place? The brand damage to employers is incalculable.

When liberty's light falls full on recruiter's startled faces, they scatter like cockroaches and wait nervously for the danger to pass. Or else they stand like pious deacons, full of their own importance, with one hand in the client's pocket while humbugging the career aspirations of tens of thousands of South Australians.

A 2015 Four Corners program called The Jobs Game, found that some Job Service Australia (JSA) employees in Adelaide's northern suburbs put clients into courses run by the company's own registered agencies. There's no pretense of separation let alone transparency or accountability.

Some jobseekers believe JSA's have forged their signatures and turned in false paperwork. A 2012 government audit found only 40 per cent of fees paid to agencies could be verified. What happened to the other 60 percent? Australia's welfare to work program costs $1.3 billion-a-year.

Last year I emailed the reporter on the Four Corners program, Linton Besser, and he said that not one single local or Federal Government agency had done anything about it. It's a free for all with taxpayers money. One gets the distinct feeling that both the Government and the Department of Employment have put this in the 'too hard basket'.

The time is ripe for a class action by those who, with evidence in hand, are willing to tell a judge and the media how they have been abused and how this scurrilous and predatory practice has effected their life. It's time to name names.

We live in a world where corporations are judged by their partnerships. We should not support businesses who hire sharks and buffoons to traduce the character and intelligence of prospective staff. We live in a state that can only survive if we have the right people in the right jobs. We live in a time that cries out for authenticity, not deceptions; for truth, not lies.