Insights

Our executive search database has more than 25,000 Australia-based technology & consulting professionals. We have tagged less than 4% of those as ‘top talent’ based on their business impact, cultural impact, portability & trajectory.

In the past we’ve observed that top talent behaves differently in their approach to securing new career positions (see articles in Insights at https://www.leapfrogsearch.com/).

This survey has been created to capture a larger dataset on top talent movement. This is the first of what will become a rolling series of bi-annual surveys that help us to understand trends in preferences and approaches to their movement. We aim to get better with our questions as we go.

Below are takeaways from the top talent cohort surveyed.

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29% of respondents are actively looking and 50% of respondents are passively open to compelling opportunities.

In terms of the timing of their next move; 58% of respondents intend to move in the next 12 months, 24% of respondents intend to move within 12-24 months and 16% of respondents intend to move within 24-36 months.

82% of top talent intend to move in the next 24 months.

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When seeking a new role, results showed overwhelmingly that the top two preferred courses of action were 'leveraging their network of contacts' (64% combined 1st & 2nd choice) and 'reaching out to a trusted recruiter' (62%). 

When considering their next move, trusted relationships matter to top talent.

When actively seeking a new role, the minority (5%) of respondents would first search job vacancies (LinkedIn, Seek, Company Career Pages, etc.).

A very small minority of top talent pursue their next move via job advertisements.

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In ranking factors that influence a decision to take on a new role:

The company brand was by far the least influential factor, followed by total compensation package.

But… those that expressed a prefererence for a 1-50 employee company (in a later question), most also stipulated equity as a key factor in that decision.

The three most influential factors were ability to be successful, alignment to company values, practices & culture, and ability to stretch & grow.

When choosing a new role, it’s not about the brand or the money, it’s about alignment and the ability to be successful and grow…

For female top talent, the overwhelmingly influential factor is alignment to company values, practices & culture.

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When ranking their target company size (by employees):

Companies with 5,000 or more employees polarised respondents – receiving the highest number of first choices (42%) and the second highest number of last choices (26%).

Companies with 1-50 employees was the resounding last choice (71%) for respondents. Only 11% of respondents had this as their first choice, and (as per above), they mostly stipulated equity as a key factor.

The least objectionable company size for top talent is in the 1001 – 5000 employee range.

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The most attractive companies of interest to top talent – in equal first place – are Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Google & Microsoft.

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Without mentioning specific companies, top talent would most avoid:

The overwhelmingly most negative response is toward offshore technology services companies.

The second most negative response is toward very large technology / services companies that we can group together as having declining revenue in the last 5 years.

The third most negative response is  toward very large enterprise software companies that were founded more than 40 years ago.

Perhaps the most surprising negative response is toward the Big 4 accounting / consulting companies – and one of the companies that was also listed in the most attractive companies group.