Workout: search for mentors

Inspiring Rare Birds, which supports female entrepreneurs, is looking for mentors and proteges to take part in its new mentorship program.

Jo Burston.

Search for mentors

Inspiring Rare Birds, which supports female entrepreneurs, is looking for mentors and proteges to take part in its new mentorship program.

The organisation is linking with Virgin Unite to offer the mentorship program.

Rare Birds Mentoring will use a new platform to connect entrepreneurs with mentors, via an intelligent matching algorithm, to take part in a 12-month program.

Founder Jo Burston says Rare Birds Mentoring will accelerate the learning, support, nurturing and encouragement of more female entrepreneurs.

“We hope these relationships with continue for years and the success and growth of both the entrepreneur and their business is successful in parallel,” she says.

Virgin’s lure

Virgin Australia has been named Australia’s most attractive employer, at Randstad’s 2015 awards in Sydney.

More than 12,000 jobseekers took part in the survey to judge the most attractive workplaces, and 50 per cent named Virgin, edging out the ABC and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

The annual Randstad Award employer branding research found Virgin was a particularly attractive place to work, with a pleasant working atmosphere, a good work-life balance and strong management.

With Virgin Australia taking the highest accolade and Qantas coming in at fifth, the aviation industry was named the most attractive sector in the country, with 45 per cent of respondents saying they would like to work for organisations in this sector.

Pay rates on rise

Morgan McKinley’s latest salary guide for Australia shows 68 per cent of permanent employees received a pay increase during the past year, and 51 per cent of those increases ranged in the 1 per cent to 4 per cent bracket.

While 29 per cent of the 600 professionals who took part said their salaries remained unchanged, 33 per cent were expecting a bonus of more than 13 per cent in the coming year.

Morgan McKinley’s joint managing director in Australia, Vanessa Harding-Farrenberg, says the global economy has improved but there is still significant pressure on businesses to justify costs, with full-time employee headcounts managed tightly.

“A promising sign was the increased number of senior roles that came on to the market at the back end of 2014, a trend that has continued in the first quarter of 2015,” Harding-Farrenberg says.

She says while firms are continuing to use contract resources to acquire key skill sets and circumvent full-time employee restrictions, they are doing so in a controlled way.

Be a prized chief

Employment service Adecco is offering a young Australian the chance to be chief executive of its Australian and New Zealand operations for one month.

The successful applicant will work alongside chief executive Neil Jones for four weeks in July and August, and have on-the-job experience and gain contacts in the employment industry.

Adecco, a Fortune 500 company, will hold its CEO-for-a-month competition in 30 countries, and one international applicant also will be given the opportunity to become the company’s global chief executive alongside Patrick De Maeseneire for one month, including earning his equivalent salary of €15,000 ($21,200).

The top 10 performing CEO-for-a-month applicants will also be given a trip to Europe.

Applications close on May 1 and applicants need to provide their curriculum vitae and undertake three small tests.