Why hiring skilled professionals remains challenging

1. Skills gaps are making the right people harder to find

While some vacancies attract plenty of applicants, finding professionals with the right blend of experience, specialist knowledge and practical capability can be more difficult. 85% of Australian businesses report skills shortages, and almost half say recruitment is now slower or harder. Overall hiring difficulties have eased, with 44% of employers reporting trouble recruiting in the June quarter, down from 49%.

Consider an engineering business looking for a Project Manager with experience delivering complex infrastructure projects, or a scientific organisation seeking someone with highly specialist technical expertise and the ability to lead a team. The challenge isn’t always a shortage of candidates. It’s finding people whose experience aligns with the specific demands of the role. With many companies running lean or inexperienced teams, they can’t afford to compromise on role requirements.

What can help:

• Understand team capabilities and identify critical gaps
• Separate required skills from trainable ones before you advertise
• Look at adjacent industries and transferable experience
• Candidates from interstate or New Zealand (who also have work rights)
• Paying above market rates

2. Salary expectations keep climbing

Remuneration remains an important factor in attracting and securing quality talent. 62% of employers say high salary expectations make hiring harder, and one in five ranks rising pay expectations among their top hiring challenges. With the rising cost of living putting real pressure on household budgets, candidates are increasingly weighing up whether a new opportunity represents a genuine improvement to their current circumstances.

Imagine finding an experienced candidate who ticks all the boxes, only to lose them to a competing offer with better remuneration or conditions. Often, the issue isn’t simply salary. It may be a slow recruitment process, limited flexibility, unclear career progression or an inability to communicate the full value of the opportunity.

What can help:

• Benchmark candidate availability and pay early, before the role goes live
• Agree on your flexibility with finance up front, so offers can move fast
• Sell the full package: flexibility, development and progression, not just the base

3. Retaining skilled employees is just as important as attracting new ones

Recruitment isn’t always driven by business growth. Often, it’s about replacing people who have left the company, taking valuable knowledge, experience and organisational relationships with them. HR leaders rank engagement and upskilling (40% each) and retention (39%) among their biggest challenges. This explains why replacement hiring is the top reason employers recruit (34%). People leave for many reasons, but limited career progression, lack of recognition, poor alignment with leadership or a better opportunity elsewhere can all play a part.

For example, a capable technical professional may be ready to step into a  leadership position but sees no clear pathway to do so. Without an open conversation about career development and progression, an employer may only discover their intentions when a resignation arrives. By then, a counteroffer may address the immediate concern without resolving the underlying issue.

What can help:

• Mapping clear career steps for each role family
• Backing internal moves: non-traditional internal career moves can be an effective retention strategy
• Having ‘stay conversations’ in one-on-ones

4. Employment compliance is adding pressure to already stretched teams

Even in a relatively quiet year for employment law changes, Payday Super and Award updates alone are a lot to manage. Australia’s employment laws are among the most complex in the world, and on top of recruitment demands, they can easily pull HR teams off course, especially when resources are stretched.

Employment compliance demands expertise, robust systems and ongoing monitoring. Correctly interpreting Awards is difficult for many organisations, as shown by underpayment cases involving businesses of all sizes. At worst, these failures can damage reputations; even less severe issues can slow hiring and lead to poor communication throughout the process. All of these outcomes can deter candidates.

What helps:



• Treat compliance changes as a chance to review workflows and tools
• Free up time by using a partner for high-volume or hard-to-fill recruitment
• Get workplace relations advice and support
• Plan major compliance work around your busiest hiring periods

Whether you’re looking to attract specialist talent, map the market for hard-to-fill roles or access expert workplace relations support, Bayside Group can help navigate your workforce challenges with confidence.

From engineering, science and technical professional to education and corporate services talent, we partner with organisations to help you find the right people and build a stronger workforce.  Get in touch with Bayside Group today.