Editor's Take: Australia's great expectations gap

Two common, but contradictory, themes are dominating the Australian employment market these days: 1) firms are hiring more; and 2) unemployed candidates are still getting nowhere fast.

There's a pretty big gulf emerging between what banks expect to do in the near future (take on more staff) and how jobless bankers see their future (bleak).

Recruitment rates have been rising for at least half a year and the outlook is cautiously upbeat. Financial services online job ads rose 13.38 per cent over the three months to October, according to the latest job index from headhunters Olivier Group.

And this isn't a freak study either: updates from other recruiters point to more banking jobs in the pipeline for next year.

Great news if you're out of work, right? At the very least there won't be an ever-increasing pool of retrenched bankers to compete with as we head into 2010.

But strangely, all the above seems to be cold comfort for the unemployed. Candidates tell me that the market still isn't that great if you were cut loose post-Lehman and have been on the hunt ever since.

Plus you're now past (or are rapidly approaching) a year of joblessness, so there's some nice additional stigma to carry to your next interview (if you get one).

So how come candidates are still complaining despite the fact that, to quote one HR director, banks are "pushing the hiring button"?

Firstly, Q1 hiring volumes were so low that any subsequent increases appear more dramatic than they actually are. And (importantly) firms are still content to fill most vacancies by poaching people who are already in work. There are additional explanations too, like the raising of the recruitment bar which has shut out junior candidates, or the need for local networks which has killed the hopes of London returnees.

You've probably read some sad job-seeker stories on this site recently (if not click here and here). These are admittedly anecdotal, but they do suggest that it's still very tough if you've been shut out of the job that you were doing pre GFC.

Many of those currently unemployed would be fighting off offers if this was 2007. The current recruitment recovery isn't yet strong enough to help them all get back into banking.

Do you agree with me? Let me know your thoughts below.