Fiona Anson and Ali Baker are the owners of the fastest growing part time job board – ‘HireMeUp‘. They answer the need for businesses looking for part time staff. From small businesses right through to big businesses like Foxtel and Westfield, ‘HireMeUp‘ is answering a need.
They have launch an awesome initiative called ‘1000 Jobs in 1000hrs‘.
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Christo: Hey folks. Today we have very special guests, Fiona Anson and Ali Baker. They‘re the owners of a part-time job board called Hire Me Up. For those of us in business, particularly small business, we know how important it is to get the right people to work for us. Being in small business can also mean that sometimes we don‘t necessarily need people full-time. Answering this need, Fiona and Ali have put together Australia‘s fastest growing part-time job board that directly addresses the needs of part-time job seekers and employers. With the world‘s first search engine that allows you to list and find jobs according to the days, times and hours you need, Hire Me Up is making its mark with employers ranging from small business through to the likes of Foxtail, Westfield and Peep Toe Shoes. Hire Me Up also has a community focus and has just launched a new initiative called 1000 Jobs in 1000 Hours, which is helping Australian kids find real world work experience that will allow them to make proper career choices for their future.
Franziska: Thank you so much Ali and Fiona for being on the show today.
Fiona: It‘s our pleasure.
Ali: Yeah, thank you for having us.
Franziska: I‘m actually really excited to have you guys on here because I really love what you‘re doing with your project and I just love to spread the word about your project. So, to get started, can you tell us a little bit more about 1000 Jobs in 100 Hours.
Ali: Sure. Our company is a part-time job board called Hire Me Up. And, as you can imagine, we get a lot of younger job seekers who are either looking for work to fit around their timetables or they‘re just starting out on their careers and so we ran a survey sometime in July of last year asking them about their work experience and their experiences with work experiences. How they‘re finding them and that sort of thing and realized that a lot of younger adults are finding it difficult to land jobs because they don‘t have enough experience but nobody‘s willing to give them that leg up to get the experience that they need. At the same time, we were doing a lot of work with the Oasis Youth Support Network through The Salvation Army which provides support to homeless and disadvantaged Australians, young Australians. So, Fiona has a 17-year old son. I‘m Gen Y, so it just got us thinking that we should do something to help the younger generation get a foothold in their career and kind of unlock their passions. Find out what career would make them want to bounce out of bed every day so they can find work that makes them… That‘s fun.
Franziska: You‘ve got a really good purpose behind it and just when I first heard about your project, I thought, what a fantastic idea. I remember when I was fresh out of university and I‘m not really sure what I really wanted to do and I got some kind of scholarships, but also, work experience jobs; and it was really hard to find something, so, I think it‘s fantastic what you guys are doing.
Ali: Thank you.
Fiona: I think it‘s really important Franziska that kids actually get exposure to a number of different industries. Because I don‘t know about you, and I‘m a bit older than you guys, but my career has taken a whole stack of different twists and turns. When I was 17, I had no clue what I wanted to do. I had this kind of image in my head of something very glamorous. Then, when I actually got into the industry that I thought I was going to find interesting, I actually didn‘t like it at all. I think that‘s where both Ali and I are on exactly the same page and that we feel that kids should be able to have the exposure to what it is they think they might want to do before they go and invest three, four, five, six, seven years in university or tertiary study or whatever is required for that particular industry, only to come out the other end to decide that‘s actually not what they want to do and maybe they want to do something else and they‘ve got to embark on another however many years of study. So the whole concept behind work experience is not only so that kids can get some experience, but so they can do a bit of a trial before they buy and decide what it is they like without having to invest years in kind of wasted time.
Franziska: Yeah. That‘s why I think it‘s so valuable. I know a couple of people…
Christo: Awesome.
Franziska: Yeah. I know a couple of people that they just do something maybe because they knew somebody in the industry and especially in my home country, Switzerland, a lot of people I know they started off in an industry, say insurance, because they got an apprenticeship in an insurance company and they‘re still there, even though they hate it.
Fiona: Exactly.
Franziska: They never got to try but it‘s also about, well, am I going to… Now I‘m already making decent money am I going to learn something new and go back to zero or am I just going to, for the rest of my life, do something that is not so fun.
Ali: Which is so sad. You don‘t have to settle for that.
Franziska: Yeah. Exactly. So I love that.
Christo: Right. Yeah. That sounds awesome. And we know you guys have got a very old, fairly famous ambassador on board. An awesome ambassador, Justin Herald, Mr. Attitude. What was your approach to get Justin Herald on board?
Fiona: Luckily, Christo, Justin and I go way back. I used to do some stuff on Channel 9. A number of years ago they had show called, The Small Business Show, and both Justin and I were on a number of panels that they did. So, I knew Justin. But I hadn‘t spoken to him for probably eight or nine years and when Ali and I were talking about kicking this thing into gear, I said to her, “You know who‘d be fantastic for this would be Justin,” because his whole story is that he was told when he was at school that he had way too much attitude to make anything of himself and wasn‘t kicked out, but was very close to it. Basically decided that he would make that work for him. So his message is very much that it‘s not necessarily about your grades, it‘s not necessarily about who you know, it‘s about your attitude. Armed with that knowledge, Ali and I both thought he would be the perfect ambassador. So, because both of us are a little bit just go for what it is you want, I decided to send him an Email. I didn‘t have his number on me, but I certainly had his Email address and so I shot him an Email and said, “Hey, don‘t know if you remember me, but this is what we‘re doing and can see a really nice fit with your message.” And he shot me back, I think it was a four word Email and just said, “Love it. Call me.” We did and the rest is history and Justin‘s a passionate advocate for kids and he‘s a passionate advocate for what we‘re doing so it‘s really great to have him on board.
Franziska: Well, well done for getting him involved. And maybe just for our listeners. If you are thinking about doing a similar project or something different, it is really just about asking. The magic of asking people.
Christo: I love that.
Fiona: That’s very true.
Christo: Simple and so effective.
Franziska: And we‘ve had a few really amazing guests on the show just like you guys and it was really just a matter of asking them and so far nobody has said, “No.”
Fiona: It‘s interesting because we‘re all really frightened of what might be. But the fact of the matter is, even if somebody says no, you‘re no worse off than you were before.
Franziska: Exactly.
Fiona: So, you know, and that‘s the worse thing that can happen is that they‘ll say no. What Ali and I both found is that most people say yes.
Franziska: Exactly.
Fiona: So you just need to ask the question.
Christo: Love it. Yeah. Love the whole thing, taking the action. Nice work. So it‘s an exciting project. So on the 1000 Jobs in 1000 Hours, what are some of your marketing strategies to market this fabulous project?
Ali: We started planning the campaign back in July, August of last year and then we really got stuff into it in January. To start off with, we had a fantastic partner in the Mind Art Digital Agency who have built the website, 1000jobs.com.au for us. And that has been up since late January, early February as kind of a pre-marketing tool. Which is something we did with our own company, Hire Me Up. When we first launched it, we had a pre-marketing website up that just gave more people information about what was to come. So we‘ve had that up for about a month or two now. Today‘s actually the official day that we officially launch the campaign.
Christo: Oh! Who hoo. Today, yeah.
Franziska: Second of April. No April Fool, hey.
Ali: Lots of champagne and cupcakes today.
Christo: Awesome. If only you could pass one virtually through the cyber space here, we‘d join you.
Fiona: We‘ll bring one with us next time we see you. We‘ll have a belated celebration.
Franziska: Absolutely. We‘re going to have to do that. It‘s also your one year anniversary for your other business.
Ali: Right. Exactly. It just happened to work out that way.
Franziska: Fantastic.
Christo: You guys are partying.
Ali: So that‘s what we most… The website was up and we have a really strong focus on media and PR. We do a lot of that ourselves so we are constantly going out to the media with different story ideas that are topical and we think newsworthy and timely so we always have a profile out there as much as we can. We use a lot of social media marketing and low cost marketing efforts.
Fiona: We also approached the Department of Education very early on because we realized that they basically had our database and we were either going to have to go out to all of the schools ourselves and universities or we were able to look for a partner that could do that. So, Christo, again, taking your asking for what you want, basically picked up the phone and rang the Department of Education and happened to get under this woman who just loved what we were doing. So, we‘ve now got their full support as well which is fantastic. So they‘re getting the message out to all of the state schools around the country, both through the Department and through what they call their Vet Networker, Network, as well they‘ve given us the contacts for all the independent schools. So we‘ve basically got national coverage through those three organizations to be able to get out and hopefully reach pretty much every school student in years 10, 11 and 12 in the country.
Franziska: So it‘s very smart marketing. So finding the right partner is what I can hear very much in what you guys talk about is partnering with the right people and then also PR which is something you do really well and social media.
Ali: Yeah, exactly.
Christo: All very effective and not costing a lot, too.
Fiona: That‘s right. We run like a lot of other businesses. We don‘t have zillions of dollars to spend on marketing so you‘ve got to choose wisely as to where you‘re going to throw that money. We‘re very much advocates of measuring everything that we do so we throw more money at stuff that gives us a bigger bang for our buck. The stuff that doesn‘t work, we stop throwing money at it. But, you‘ve got to test everything that you do, and as you said, strategic alliances and joint ventures and endorsement arrangements and all those sorts of things cost very little and sometimes nothing and can have huge effect and probably bigger than you‘ll ever do or ever get from any kind of paid marketing.
Franziska: And I hope the listeners here are really taking notes about testing, measuring and how important it is.
Ali: Very important.
Franziska: Now organizing your big project and in general, big projects such as this one takes a lot of time and a lot of planning. So, I‘m just curious also for our listeners how long did it take you from conception of idea to execution?
Ali: Probably about six months or so. The idea originated I said around July, August. Then we really kicked off things in January of this year. We‘re kind of learning as we go since it is the first time we‘ve launched it and we do hope it‘s going to be an annual campaign. Learning a little bit. Right now is really big time for graduate programs and things like that and people kind of… Getting to the employers is a bit more difficult than we anticipated, but, it hasn‘t slowed us down very much.
Fiona: No. And we‘ve had some valuable feedback along the way. We were speaking to Woolworth‘s last week who said to us, “You know, if this had been a couple of months later, we could be more supportive of it because we‘re currently running our grade programs.” So that‘s great feedback for us. So next year we‘ll probably push it back a little bit so that we can fit it with the man next door. They‘re very supportive of what we‘re doing. So we can fit in a bit more with what they‘re doing. But, as Ali said everything‘s trial and error and you guys know that just as much as anybody, there‘s no right and wrong in marketing. It‘s just a consistent test and measure, trial and error and because the environment changes at the same time as business, as what you‘re doing, that never ends. You‘ve just got to continually amend your plans. Both Ali and I are a little bit bull at the gate sometimes and that works really well for us because it doesn‘t slow us down and we don‘t get bogged down in over planning everything.
Franziska: Yeah. So you‘re very flexible and adjustable to the environment, too.
Fiona: And probably responsive is the right word. If we see something happening or we hear something happening or we see trends in employment or trends in the economy or whatever. You‘ve got to be quick off the mark with stuff like that and you‘ve got to try and be… To use your surfing terminology, you‘ve got to be in front of the wave if you can beat it. So you‘ve got to be fast on your feet in business.
Franziska: Exactly. So your one year anniversary. Obviously you‘ve learned a lot already along the way and you‘ve already shared a couple of your successes such as being flexible and responsive. Do you have any other tips for our listeners on how they can make a project such as yours a success?
Fiona: I think they really need to think about something they‘re passionate about. Both Ali and I, for different reasons, are very passionate about Gen Y. I‘m passionate about it because I‘m a mum of a Gen Y kid. Ali‘s passionate about it because she is Gen Y. So it‘s something that‘s very close to our heart and therefore we want it to have the absolute best outcome. We‘re not doing it because it‘s a money spinner for us. In fact, it‘s a not-for-profit campaign. So there‘s nothing in it for us other than a bit of profile raising for Hire Me Up. It‘s something we feel very passionately about and I think when you‘ve got a campaign such as this and you‘re speaking to other businesses, the passion‘s got to come through. You can‘t just go out there and try and talk the talk and not have any emotion attached to it. So for your listeners that might be thinking of doing something that has a community spirit or whatever, it‘s got to tug on their own heart strings before it‘s going to tug on anybody else‘s.
Franziska: Yeah. So passion is really important because it‘s not always easy, obviously.
Fiona: Yeah. Well passion‘s important in business in general. I don‘t understand why you would get up in the morning and not do something you love. When you are passionate about what you do and we both are, it becomes… It‘s not a chore. It‘s fun and it‘s easy. Well, it‘s not always easy. It‘s easier than having to get up and do something I hate every single day.
Christo: That‘s right. Cool. So we can see obviously the benefits are clear for all of the employees. The people that want to get a bit of experience and to be able to try it before you commit to a career is awesome and fantastic. So, how important do you think it is for the businesses, and maybe also benefits for businesses, can you tell us about. So first of all, how important do you think it is for businesses to get behind a project like this?
Ali: One of the things we‘ve been going out and saying to people is, “What was it like for you when you were 17 or 18 or 23? When you were deciding what you wanted to me when you “grew up”? Did you have an influencer? Were you given a leg up? If you look back and think I wish somebody had offered to give me two weeks work experience in this industry or that industry.” And think about what it was like for them and then turn around and provide that support and that guidance to the next generation. One of the things that was kind of a contributing factor to us starting the campaign was we were reading all these articles about now Generation Y is the me generation, the Facebook generation. They tend to be slammed by the media a lot of the time. I think it‘s unfair. Gen Y is not really any different than any other generation before. They are faced with making career choices with very little guidance and very little support. I think I read a statistic not long ago that within 10 years, the top 10 careers will be completely different than they are now. So there‘s all these new roles and new job titles and new jobs being created all the time. For kids to know what their options are, I think is a bit difficult today and I think as business owners and employers to give that hand in forming your career choices. I think a lot of business owners need to recognize that bringing in a student or a young adult can be a beneficial thing to their business. They have a new outlook and they‘ll bring in fresh ideas and it can be really beneficial and advantageous.
Fiona: And I think Justin said it really well. When we first spoke to him about this campaign, I remember Ali and I went up to near where he lives and we had a meeting and he said, “You know, I couldn‘t wait to get a kid in my business. The first thing I would do is sit them down in front of Facebook and say, ‘What am I doing wrong?‘ Because they live and breathe Facebook. We don‘t.” That‘s the advantage that this generation brings to us and we, as older business owners, have got to stop being so arrogant and saying, “Well, we know it all,” and understand that these kids are… They‘re with the technology, we‘re not. We‘re still catching up to it. But they‘re on top of it all the time and they can look with a totally fresh set of eyes at what we‘re doing and come up with ideas that we wouldn‘t even think of in a million years. That‘s the benefit that businesses can get. So on top of the whole feel good of being able to help kids, we‘ve got to think of just how much benefit these kids can bring to our business in the age of technology which is where we‘re currently living.
Ali: Yeah. I think, too, it‘s a business owner‘s responsibility to help shape the next generation of workers. You can‘t sit back and complain about not having the right work ethic or the values or whatever else without having a hand in instilling those values. So I think it‘s our responsibility to give them that experience and guidance.
Fiona: And it‘s really interesting to hear people talk. Like Ali said, it‘s in the media all the time about the “live and be” generation and whatever. But honestly, we have very short memories because I don‘t know about you guys, but when I was 17 I thought the world revolved around me as well.
Franziska: Oh, I still think that, right?
Fiona: And the other thing is that, if they are all those things that the media say they are, it‘s our responsibility. We‘re their parents. We made them that way.
Christo: Yeah, that‘s right.
Fiona: So if we don‘t like it, we need to do something about changing it.
Christo: Yeah. I could imagine some practical kind of benefits, too, for businesses. If they get people into trial the roles, then they can obviously… They‘re more likely to end up with the right people suited to the roles as well rather than kind of have people that think they want a job in a certain industry and then they go into it and like Franziska mentioned, they might not enjoy it. Or they actually get to try and by doing that it will be a good filtering process also for the businesses to find the right people.
Fiona: And they may find some great employees that they can take on as soon these kids are finished HSC or their UNIS course or whatever. They may find that this kid was fantastic. I‘m going to give him a job and that haven‘t had to pay a recruiter. They haven‘t even had to put an ad on Hire Me Up. They actually found someone. Fantastic.
Franziska: And you know from the marketing perspective, one thing that we haven‘t really spoken about which I think is really important too… Businesses that do support projects such as yours, they‘re programs that we can support as a business owner, they are the ones that are being seen as the good guys. And, from a marketing perspective to be the good guy, and it‘s a selfish reason to support your project as a business owner, but it‘s one of the reasons that is going to make their prospects to choose them instead of somebody that doesn‘t support a project such as yours. So I think that‘s a really important point, too.
Fiona: It is. The employers that are coming on board with us as employers. We‘re actually helping them to do that by writing the media releases and things like that that they can submit to their local media so that they can basically wave the flag and say, “Look what we‘re doing for local young Australians.”
Franziska: Yes. You‘re even supporting them which is totally fantastic.
Christo: Very cool. Cool. So guys, this has been absolutely awesome and we‘ve loved and really valued the time and I don‘t want to keep you from the champagne. So, we have to pop a bottle now to celebrate. Where can our listeners find out more about you guys and how can they get involved?
Ali: They can go to 1000jobs.com.au. There‘s also information on hiremeup.com.au and we‘re all on Twitter and Facebook. So, you can find us there as well.
Christo: Awesome. Very cool.
Franziska: Thank you so much.
Christo: Thanks so much for your time and sharing guys.
Ali: Thank you.
Fiona: Thank you guys.
Franziska: We‘ll celebrate soon.
Fiona: Okay, sounds good.