The End of SEEK? How Quiet Hiring Is Reshaping Australian Recruitment

Sep 14, 2026 By Peter Morgan

AI, market intelligence and trusted relationships are changing how Australian businesses identify talent beyond the traditional job advertisement.

Australian recruitment is becoming quieter.

Businesses are still replacing critical employees, appointing leaders and acquiring new capabilities. What is changing is how they search for talent.

Rather than automatically advertising every vacancy and selecting from whoever applies, businesses are examining their existing workforce, mapping the external market and engaging specialist search and recruitment firms to identify and approach carefully selected candidates directly.

They may move an employee into a new position, broaden someone’s responsibilities, engage a specialist contractor or recruit externally without conducting a large public advertising campaign.

This developing workforce model is known as “quiet hiring”.

The term may be relatively new, but the underlying practices are not. Executive search firms and specialist recruiters have identified and approached people confidentially for decades.

What has changed is the technology available to support that work. Artificial intelligence, talent intelligence platforms, professional data and market analytics can now help businesses identify skills and potential candidates more quickly.

The result is a shift from attracting the largest possible number of applicants towards identifying the strongest available talent.

What is quiet hiring?

Quiet hiring is the process of acquiring capability without relying exclusively on conventional permanent recruitment.

It can include:

promoting or transferring an existing employee
assigning someone to a critical project
developing an employee with adjacent skills
engaging a contractor or specialist adviser
redesigning responsibilities around technology
using a specialist search and recruitment firm to approach external candidates directly

Quiet hiring does not necessarily mean avoiding external recruitment. It means understanding the capability required before automatically commissioning another public job advertisement.

That distinction is becoming increasingly important as AI changes both the work businesses need performed and the way candidates are identified.

Gartner reports growing interest in internal talent marketplaces as businesses face economic uncertainty, pressure to improve efficiency and increasing demand for skills-based workforce management.

More applications do not necessarily create more choice

Australia does not have a shortage of job applications in aggregate.

SEEK reported in July 2026 that applications per job advertisement had increased for seven consecutive months and were higher than at any previous point in its history. At the same time, job advertisement volumes were 6 per cent lower than a year earlier.

A vacancy can sometimes attract 100 or 200 applications. That may initially appear to provide an employer with considerable choice.

Application volume and candidate suitability, however, are different measures.

Every application must be received, reviewed and managed. Employers must distinguish proven capability from broad keyword alignment, generic submissions and CVs polished with generative AI.

This is not a criticism of candidates.

Jobseekers are responding rationally to a competitive market. AI can help a capable person communicate their experience more clearly and prepare a professional application.

The difficulty is that AI can also make applications appear increasingly similar. A well-written CV is not necessarily evidence of technical depth, judgement, leadership or commercial performance.

After reviewing 200 applications, an employer may identify the strongest person who applied.

That person is not necessarily the strongest person available.

The quiet market beyond active applicants

Many high-performing professionals are not actively looking for another position.

They may be appropriately remunerated, engaged in meaningful work and progressing within their current business. They are unlikely to spend time searching job boards or completing applications.

Some have outdated LinkedIn profiles. Others use titles that do not reflect the scale of their responsibilities. Senior professionals may maintain a deliberately discreet online presence.

There are also people who will not respond to an unsolicited approach from an unfamiliar employer. They may have concerns about confidentiality, uncertainty about the opportunity or no reason to trust the person contacting them.

These candidates are largely invisible to conventional job advertising.

They may still take a confidential call from a recruiter they know, have dealt with previously or recognise as a credible specialist in their market.

That is where established relationships become particularly valuable.

Why established market relationships matter

Technology can identify names, titles and career histories. Accessing the quiet market still depends heavily on professional trust.

High-performing candidates may be willing to speak with a specialist recruiter who understands their market, has followed their career or comes through a trusted referral. They may not respond to a generic message or an approach from an unfamiliar organisation.

These networks develop through years of interviews, placements, referrals and confidential conversations.

They provide context that cannot be obtained from a database alone, including a person’s reputation, motivations, leadership capability and readiness for a particular opportunity.

For specialist recruitment firms, the value of a network is not simply the number of contacts it contains. Its value comes from the quality and history of the relationships.

Byron Thomas Recruitment brings more than 20 years of relationships across executive search, accounting and finance recruitment to this process. That experience helps the firm engage people who may not appear through advertising or a conventional online search.

Technology strengthens search, but does not replace relationships

An effective specialist search combines professional relationships with technology.

Talent intelligence platforms, professional databases, data aggregators, public information and AI-assisted research can help build a detailed map of the relevant market.

This can identify:

people performing comparable roles
professionals whose titles understate their responsibilities
succession candidates working beneath established executives
people with relevant adjacent or transferable experience
returning Australians and internationally experienced candidates
professionals who have worked with particular systems or business models
candidates known through referrals and established relationships
people who are not active on conventional employment platforms

Technology makes market mapping faster and more comprehensive. Experience determines whether the information is relevant.

A database may show that someone has held a particular title. It cannot establish whether they performed strongly, influenced senior stakeholders or delivered meaningful commercial outcomes.

AI may identify similarities between a person’s experience and a position description. It cannot properly determine that person’s reputation, motivation, leadership style or willingness to consider the opportunity.

Those questions require human judgement and trusted conversations.

Ranking applicants is not the same as mapping a market

Applicant-management technology can help employers sort incoming applications. Its limitation is the pool being assessed.

It ranks people who have applied or are visible within a particular platform. It does not establish who the strongest people are across the wider employment market.

Advertising asks:

Who is the strongest person among the people who saw this advertisement and decided to apply?

Search asks:

Who is best equipped to deliver the required outcome, and what would make that person consider this opportunity?

This distinction is particularly important for executive, finance leadership and specialist accounting appointments.

The strongest person may not use the expected job title. They may work in an adjacent industry or possess transferable experience that is not obvious from a conventional keyword search.

They may also be ready for a broader position but have no reason to apply for an advertisement that initially appears similar to their current role.

Market mapping identifies these people before the potential shortlist is limited to active applicants.

Is SEEK coming to the end of its traditional model?

SEEK is unlikely to disappear. Public employment marketplaces remain useful for visible, repeatable and high-volume recruitment.

They give candidates access to advertised opportunities and can introduce employers to people outside their existing networks.

Jobs and Skills Australia confirms, however, that online advertisements do not represent the entire employment market. Positions are also filled through referrals, professional networks, social channels and other methods.

What is changing is the assumption that placing an advertisement should be the automatic starting point for every appointment.

For specialist and senior positions, businesses are becoming more conscious of advertising costs, application volume, internal processing time and the limitations of selecting only from active applicants.

The advertising fee is also only one part of the investment. The full cost can include:

reviewing and categorising applications
screening and administration
hiring manager time
communicating with unsuccessful candidates
conducting interviews to verify capability
leaving a critical position unresolved
making an appointment without properly examining the wider market

A business may spend significant time selecting the best applicant without knowing whether the strongest person in the market was ever considered.

The question is therefore not whether SEEK still has a role. It clearly does.

The question is whether advertising alone remains sufficient for important specialist and leadership appointments.

Internal capability should be considered first

Quiet hiring does not always require an external appointment.

Before entering the market, a business should examine whether the necessary capability already exists internally.

A finance business partner might move into a commercial transformation role. A financial controller may be ready for a broader leadership remit. An analyst with strong systems capability might develop into a data or automation-focused position.

McKinsey describes how one large technology organisation mapped its future talent requirements against business priorities. It reskilled more than 6,000 employees for new roles and upskilled more than 20,000 people in their existing positions, filling 80 per cent of its identified skills gap.

KPMG recommends balancing the external acquisition of skills with developing existing employees. Its future of work research found that 36 per cent of surveyed employees believed their organisation lacked clarity about how its workforce needed to change in response to technology.

Deloitte also describes businesses moving towards skills-based workforce models in which people are matched with positions, projects and development opportunities according to their capabilities rather than static job titles.

This can improve internal mobility, develop employees and reduce the need to acquire every emerging capability externally.

Quiet hiring should not, however, become a convenient description for giving already stretched employees additional work.

Internal mobility must involve clear expectations, appropriate support, development opportunities and recognition. Without those elements, it risks creating workload pressure rather than genuine career progression.

A different return on investment

The value of a specialist search and recruitment firm is not simply reducing 200 applications to a shortlist.

It is establishing who should be considered before the shortlist exists.

A properly conducted search can give a business intelligence about:

realistic remuneration
the availability of relevant candidates
competitor structures and reporting lines
how the opportunity will be perceived
whether the position description is commercially realistic
which requirements are essential
where transferable capability may exist
what will motivate strong candidates to engage

This can uncover problems before they become expensive.

The proposed salary may be below market. The position description may combine responsibilities that rarely sit together. A requirement for direct industry experience may exclude stronger candidates with highly transferable capability.

Resolving those issues early can save weeks of advertising, screening and unsuccessful interviews.

For a critical appointment, the commercial difference between an adequate candidate and an outstanding one can considerably exceed the cost of conducting the search properly.

Candidate experience and employer reputation

Receiving 200 applications also means a business may need to reject almost 200 people.

Each applicant has formed an impression of the employer and invested time in the process.

When high application volumes are managed poorly, candidates may receive an automated acknowledgement followed by silence or an unexplained rejection. Even where the employer has acted reasonably, the scale of the response can make meaningful communication difficult.

A more targeted process reduces unnecessary applications and allows employers to engage more respectfully with the people involved.

This does not mean opportunities should become closed or accessible only through established relationships.

Advertising remains valuable for inclusion, market coverage and discovering people outside an existing network. An active candidate may be the strongest person available.

The strongest strategy can combine both methods:

Define the business outcome and required capabilities.
Assess whether those capabilities already exist internally.
Engage a specialist search and recruitment firm to map the external market.
Approach suitable people confidentially.
Advertise where broader market coverage will add value.
Assess demonstrated capability rather than application polish.
Communicate respectfully with serious candidates.

The objective is not to receive fewer applications for its own sake. It is to avoid inviting large numbers of unsuitable people into a process that was never designed to consider them properly.

What quiet hiring means for candidates

Quiet hiring should not suggest that active jobseekers are less valuable.

A public application can introduce a business to an outstanding person it would never otherwise have identified.

The change is in how employers define the available market. They can no longer assume that the strongest application represents the strongest available talent.

Candidates can respond by explaining what they have delivered, maintaining trusted professional relationships and ensuring their experience can be understood beyond a formal job title.

Human capabilities also become more important as applications become more polished. Commercial judgement, communication, leadership, resilience and stakeholder influence cannot be established reliably through keywords alone.

The future of hiring is targeted, not hidden

Quiet hiring is not about concealing opportunities or excluding candidates.

It is about identifying capability more intelligently, both inside and outside the business.

The traditional advertisement remains one tool, but for many specialist and senior appointments it is no longer a complete recruitment strategy.

Employers can now combine internal skills information, AI-assisted research, external talent intelligence and direct market mapping. The most effective searches then add something technology cannot provide: trusted human relationships.

This is the search methodology Byron Thomas Recruitment applies across executive search, accounting and finance: established market relationships strengthened by contemporary research, data and technology.

The outcome is not merely a shorter list.

It is a more informed view of the market, less unnecessary processing, a more respectful candidate experience and a greater likelihood of appointing someone who can create lasting value.

Advertising may identify the best applicant.

A properly conducted search is designed to identify the best person.

Planning a specialist or leadership appointment?

Byron Thomas Recruitment supports executive search and accounting and finance recruitment across Australia. We can help clarify the brief, map the relevant market and approach suitable candidates confidentially.

Discuss your recruitment brief

Sources

quiet hiring Australiaexecutive search Australiarecruitment technologyAI recruitmenttalent mappingpassive candidatesskills-based hiringSEEK

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