Yesterday I had reason to reach for Tony Hall’s excellent book, First Interview.
Published in 2000, the book features twenty-two of the most prominent and successful recruitment agency owners and leaders of that era.
Almost all of them are now retired and, sadly, a handful are no longer with us.
Having quickly found what I was originally looking for, I couldn’t help but read on.
What struck me as I flipped each page was that almost all of the wisdom offered by these legends remains highly relevant today.
The responses to what they expected of recruitment in five years (ie 2005) the most prophetic of the twenty two industry icons was Geoff Morgan, co-founder of Morgan & Banks, Australia’s poster child for shareholders returns in the recruitment industry.
“Our biggest competitors are yet to enter the market.They will be corporate entities, community groups such as trade unions and affinity groups who form their own trading cartels, which will include the careers market sector.”
Geoff Morgan accurately predicted LinkedIn, which was launched on 5 May, 2003, by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly.
As Wikipedia succinctly puts it, “The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job seekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs.”
In mid-2008, LinkedIn’s valuation reached $1 billion. In May 2011, LinkedIn’s IPO valued the company at around $3 billion. After the first day of trading, LinkedIn’s value had more than doubled, and in June 2016, Microsoft announced that it would acquire LinkedIn for $196 a share, a total value of $26.2 billion. At the time, it was the largest acquisition made by Microsoft.
In the most recent full year results (for the 2024 calendar year), LinkedIn generated revenue of 17.1 billion, an increase of 8.6% year-on-year, and now has over one billion members (however, it is not known how many are active every day or every month).
Microsoft does not release LinkedIn’s profitability. However, it’s reported to operate with 50 %+ profit margins, making it one of Microsoft’s most profitable divisions, contrasting sharply with almost two-decade lows for the recent share prices of publicly listed recruitment companies, Hays, PageGroup, and Robert Walters.
Geoff Morgan and Andrew Banks later attempted to go down the path Morgan had prophesied with LinkMe, a joint venture with Sensis (a Telstra brand) launched in June 2005. However, the promise of a business that would “completely change Australia’s employment market” never materialised, and in 2014, LinkMe was sold to LiveHire.
Morgan could never fully capitalise on his prophecy from 2000, but his vision lives on as the global recruitment industry’s single-largest competitor.
About Ross:
Ross Clennett is a high-performance recruitment coach, blogger, and commentator with over 30 years of industry experience. After starting his career in 1989, he placed over 1,500 candidates across London and Australia before launching RossClennett.com in 2003, offering coaching and leadership programs for the recruitment sector. A Fellow of the RCSA, he was awarded the RCSA CEO Outstanding Contribution in 2022. Since 2007, he has shared his insights and opinions on recruitment, the recruitment industry, leadership and the labour market through his weekly blog. Passionate about giving back, Ross has raised over $140,000 for breast cancer research since 2012. Based on the Mornington Peninsula, his interests include stand-up paddleboarding, cricket, open-water swimming, golf, and supporting the Sydney Swans (AFL) and Arsenal (EPL).
