Indigenous recruitment website launched

A recruitment agency with a focus on employing Indigenous Australians has set up a new website that hopes to match prospective Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees with relevant jobs.

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Close the Gap

A recruitment agency with a focus on employing Indigenous Australians has set up a new website that hopes to match prospective Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees with relevant jobs.

The aim of the website is to connect Indigenous job-seekers and people with Indigenous expertise with employers, through advertised job positions.

Richard Smith is one of the first indigenous Australians to see the benefits of the indig-careers website.

He has become the site's sales manager - and says it's already proving popular with indigenous communities.

"I've got a lot of positive feedback from my friends and because I come from a big mob a lot of my cousins have said 'this is a deadly website, it's so easy to navigate, it's so easy to find jobs.'

The site's creator, Kylie Kinsela, says she wants to find careers - not just jobs - for indigenous people.

She says her company will provide skills assessments and advice, as well as job-matching. Other websites target indigenous workers, but Ms Kinsela says hers offers more cultural sensitivity and understanding.

"Indigenous people find out about jobs using different mechanisms than the mainstream and organisations needed to understand how things needed to be done differently and there was a real gap in that market," she told SBS.

The website lists vacancies that require indigenous experience or knowledge, as well as positions with employers seeking a diverse workplace.

One foundation member is a major bank, and aims to have indigenous staff filling ten percent of its teller positions.

"Our customers come from every walk of life and if we're not representing Aboriginal people, indigenous Australians, then we're not representative of our community," Stephanie Craze from ANZ said.

Aboriginal people are four times more likely than non-indigenous Australians to be unemployed.

The Federal Government is supporting the website, as a means of helping close that gap.

"We are never gonna make a dent on closing the gap in relation to life expectancy without dealing with that gap in relation to employment, Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry Richard Males said.

Ms Kinsela says most employed Aborigines work for the government - and the website will encourage them to consider options in the private sector.


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Source: SBS


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