Is a pivot a sign something went wrong? Not necessarily. Sometimes it’s just proof you were paying attention.
Cass wrote a few weeks back about the work we said no to in our first months. This one is about the work we learnt to do better.
We registered Centr. Talent Co in March and launched in May with a range of offerings. The two we backed most were end-to-end recruitment and a subscription/retainer model. We’d thought it through, and on paper that’s what most businesses would want and benefit from. It’s a complete service, it’s predictable, and it takes hiring off an owner’s plate entirely.
Then 1 July arrived, only weeks after launch, and brought a stack of changes for Australian businesses at once. Payday Super started, so employers now have to get super into their employees’ funds within seven business days of each payday instead of quarterly. Award wages went up 4.75%, and the National Minimum Wage rose 6% to $1,004.90 a week. Government Paid Parental Leave expanded to 26 weeks. ASIC fees went up with their annual indexation, and there were changes to tax processes on top of that.
None of those changes are bad in themselves, and plenty of them are good news for workers. But for a small business owner, they all landed in the same payroll cycle.
So, did we launch at an interesting time? Yes. Very.
The wider numbers say the same. NAB’s Quarterly Business Survey for the September quarter, released last week, found business conditions fell to -2 points, the first negative reading since September 2020. Profit margins dropped to their lowest level since June 2020, with purchase costs rising faster than businesses could lift their own prices.
Here’s the part that matters for recruitment, though. In that same survey, 29% of businesses said labour was a significant constraint on their output. The need for good people hasn’t gone anywhere. What’s changed is how businesses want to get there, and how much of the process they want to hand over.
That’s not something we could control. What we could control was how quickly we listened.
So we asked. What do you actually need help with? What can you realistically spend? Which parts of hiring are you happy to keep in-house? The answers were clear, and they were useful. Most of our original offerings are staying, but part-service recruitment and our finder’s fee model turned out to be far more flexible and worthwhile for the businesses we’re working with. A client can bring us in for the stages they need help with, or pay only when the right person is found.
That’s what we’ve gone back out leading with, and the conversations have been better for it.
Are we stressed? Maybe, a little. I’m not perfect, and nobody launches a business without the odd wobble. But the more we’ve listened, the clearer our strengths have become, and that’s a pretty good feeling a few months in.
There are three things we’ve learnt to lean on.
The first is listening. It’s the core of recruitment: asking the right questions and understanding the answers well enough to act on them. Turns out it works just as well when the business you’re listening for is your own.
The second is experience. Between us, Cass and I have recruited for NFP organisations, national government contracts and specialist health roles. We both have retail experience, and I bring significant hospitality experience on top of that. We’ve seen hiring from both sides of the desk and at very different budgets, which made adapting feel natural rather than scary.
The third is the way we work. We’re people centred, for candidates as much as clients, and we’re honest about what a business needs, even when that’s less than a full service. Being willing to shape what we offer around the client, rather than asking the client to fit around us, is a big part of what makes us different from other agencies.
Business owners, if you’ve been putting off getting help with hiring because it felt like an all-or-nothing decision, it doesn’t have to be. There’s a lot of room between doing it all yourself and handing over the whole process, and that’s exactly where we’ve found we can be most useful.
Would we have picked a quieter quarter to launch into? Maybe. But a quiet market wouldn’t have taught us half as much, half as quickly, about what businesses need. Things happen that you can’t control. The good bit is what you build once you’ve listened.
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations: Annual Wage Review 2026
Department of Social Services: Paid Parental Leave expansion to 26 weeks
NAB Quarterly Business Survey Q3 2026 (released 24 September 2026)
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