Job Creation Strategies

If you’re planning to hire this year, please don’t just throw an ad up and hope for the best. That’s how most businesses end up rehiring six months later and wondering what went wrong. If I were hiring in 2026, this is the exact process I’d follow. 1 - Slow down and define the hire Before you do anything, get clear on what this role actually needs to solve. Not what the last person did. What the business needs now and in the next 12 months. 2 - Sense-check internally Before you go external, look inside the business. Someone might already be doing half the job or ready to step up with the right support. 3 - Properly scope the role Be clear on responsibilities, boundaries, and what success looks like at 3, 6, and 12 months. Vague roles attract vague outcomes. 4 - Plan the hiring process Decide the stages, who’s involved, what you’re assessing, and how decisions are made before speaking to candidates. 5 - Decide how you’ll go to market Your network is useful, but it’s small. Ads reach active jobseekers. The best people are sometimes neither. 6 - Write an advert that actually works A job advert is marketing. It should explain the problem, the work, and the opportunity, not just list requirements. 7 - Proactively reach out to candidates Search, shortlist, and message people who aren’t applying. This takes time, but this is where strong hires come from. 8 - Run structured interviews Assess people against the same criteria. Not confidence. Not company logos. Actual evidence of doing the job. 9 - Talk about money early and communicate properly No surprises. Be upfront about salary, keep people updated, and don’t ghost anyone. Ever. 10 - Offer, then stay close The job isn’t done when the offer’s accepted. Counteroffers happen. Doubt creeps in. Stay engaged. None of this is rocket science. But good hiring is a skill, and it’s one you only get right with experience. Which is usually the moment founders realise why hiring properly is harder than it looks.

My take-away from the recent PNG Business Coalition for Women report into the PNG labour market is that we need a focused, dedicated Office for Employment Creation that is staffed by experts in the public and private sectors focused solely on implementing policies that increase employment. Governments are notoriously bad at spending their way to employment, but there are low-to-no-cost quick wins that we know work: reduce business red tape, lower financial transaction costs, make it easier to hire and fire staff, provide tax incentives for formal sector employment. We also know the big employers are construction, retail and hospitality. We need to look at how we can increase the share of these industries in our GDP and appoint Ministers for these sectors with the clear KPI of increasing their share of economic activity and employment. It doesn't need to cost much, it just needs clever and impactful approaches led by a team of experts who are not afraid to tackle big issues head-on.

3x Thesis: The Trade School Flywheel One of the most underutilised value creation strategies in PE right now. Buy the education platform. Buy the service companies. Place the grads. Repeat. Think about it: if you’re investing in HVAC, plumbing, electrical, auto repair....any business reliant on skilled labour.....then you already know the bottleneck isn’t customers. It’s talent. Technicians don’t fall from the sky. They’re trained. And right now, they’re being trained by someone else, somewhere else and someone else is monetising the pipeline. So instead of fighting for talent, why not own the source? Here’s the flywheel: 1. Acquire a trade school or certification business......ideally accredited, ideally in a growing region. They’re often small, cashflow positive, and non-sexy enough to trade at 5–7x EBITDA. 2. Acquire multiple labour-intensive service businesses. Pick your vertical, but go deep not wide. Local density matters. 3. Train workers to your exact spec......curriculum alignment, on-site practicums, “sponsored” job tracks. You create the exact worker you need, not the one the open market delivers. 4. Place the grads into your portfolio companies. Directly, no recruiters, no inflated salaries, no six-week onboarding. Just plug and play. 5. Rinse and scale. Need more techs? Train more. Want to expand geographically? Open a satellite campus and duplicate the model. Now here’s where it gets fun: • You save hundreds of thousands in recruiting costs across the hold period. • You lower your time-to-productivity for new hires. • You reduce turnover because grads are joining a system they were trained for. • You capture job placement fees inside the platform, boosting total portfolio EBITDA. • You wrap the whole thing in a DEI or workforce development story that institutional LPs love. And if the trade school is non-profit? Even better. They often come with federal grant eligibility, deep-rooted community ties, and a reason to exist that extends beyond profit. You’re not just building a flywheel, you’re building a moat. Most PE firms say “labour is our biggest constraint.” Then they do absolutely nothing to structurally solve it. Stop bidding up companies. Start owning the inputs. #ClaymorePartners #PrivateEquity #ValueCreation #SkilledTrades #HumanCapitalFlywheel

The U.S. has released a new plan to develop, educate, and train the workforce to support reshoring and rebuilding manufacturing. (Link in comments.) Keys to the New Strategy: ● End of "Train and Pray": No more training in a vacuum. We are moving to models where companies define the exact skills they need. ● Sidelined Talent: Helping millions of Americans re-enter the workforce through hands-on skills rather than just degrees. ● Hiring for Ability: Encouraging bosses to hire based on what you can actually do, not just what's on a diploma. ● Unified System: Cleaning up the "patchwork" of government programs to make it easier for companies to find and train talent. ● Outcome-Based Funding: Taxpayer dollars now follow the worker into a high-wage job. If the job doesn't last, the funding stops. ● AI-Speed Innovation: Using 6-month "rapid pilots" to ensure training keeps up with the speed of new technology. The ultimate goal is re-industrialization. By aligning the government, education systems, and industry, the U.S. is ensuring its citizens earn better-paying jobs and secure our supply chain. #Reshore #Manufacturing #WorkforceDevelopment #Apprenticeships

Workforce and economic development colleagues, check out this latest report from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The summary points are spot on! When addressing workforce development in the creation or update of the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, ensure any efforts: -Are employer led to ensure skilled workers are connected to quality job opportunities. -Are guided by multiple community partners such as educational institutions, labor unions, community-based organizations, and economic development organizations. -Include wrap-around services to support community needs. -Prioritize proven earn and learn models like Registered Apprenticeships. -Lead to stackable, industry-recognized credentials and ensure that information about credentials is publicly accessible through the use of linked open data formats that support full transparency and interoperability. -Measure and evaluate outcomes such as workers’ employment and earnings. Ensure that data is transparent, actionable, and linked back to those executing programs. -Build sustainable systems and partnerships that endure to serve employers and workers beyond the federal investment. -Connect workforce development to economic development. -Encourage the use of other government and private funding. -Are coordinated across all levels of government (including federal). https://lnkd.in/enw8TzeJ #education #workforcedevelopment #economicdevelopment #employerled #data #apprenticeships #IRC