A few months after he made his way into the Lodge, we cast an eye over Scott Morrison’s pre-politics CV and said it “casts doubt over his strategic campaigning abilities, his management skills and an apparent tendency towards a lack of transparency”. Little did we know.
And now, having ditched Parliament this week to address a “global leaders summit” and letting loose some of his less voter-friendly views at his church, the former PM seems less enamoured with the idea of facing voters again.
As such, he’s surely soon to return to the private sector — and we’re here to help with his forthcoming job search, getting some advice from professional recruiters and marketing specialists. Firstly, let’s sort out this LinkedIn of his:
Steve Grace, who previously has recruited for government and corporates and is now CEO of start-up recruitment agency The Nudge Group, says Morrison has made “the two classic errors everyone makes on LinkedIn — no photo, and no detail”.
“If you or I submitted a resume that just had job titles and no detail on what we actually did, we’d never get hired,” he said. “Of course, what he actually did in those jobs is just a Google search away, so maybe that’s why he’s kept it off.”
Associate director at digital recruitment agency S2M Natalia Sawran-Smith said leaving off a picture on your resume isn’t always a bad move, as it can lessen the impact of any unconscious bias on the part of a prospective employer, but “if he does decide to get a new picture, we’d recommend just a standard professional headshot. No action shots of, say, him tackling a seven-year-old.”
Now, Sawran-Smith argues, it’s all about upskilling.
“I see he’s got a degree in Economic Geography from 1989, and it might be a bit out of date given he thinks people who can’t afford to rent should just buy a house,” she said. “Plus a TAFE course in economics could help him brush up on cost of household items.”
But it’s also important to recognise what a traumatic time it is, says political marketing veteran Toby Ralph: each newly dismissed PM has worked “impossible hours” and sweated through years of criticism and then “you finally become despised and disposable, so you’re kicked out to the relief of long-suffering voters, and some other mug clambers into the cockpit”.
“Then you feel the vacuum of irrelevance,” said Ralph. “You don’t have staff. Snide things are said about you in Parliament, in boardrooms and in the media. You are the figurehead of the failed government that had to be thrown out. And you need a job.”
Added Steve Grace: “My counsel would be that you’ve got to look at why — you’ve managed to get your dream job, by whatever means, and now you’ve lost it. When that happens you have to take on that kind of feedback and seriously reflect on whether you were actually up to the job. Neither is comfortable, and that kind of self-awareness isn’t common in the kind of person who is attracted to politics.”
Sawran-Smith says it’s important Morrison is kind to himself and doesn’t rush into anything: “I’d just remind him — it’s not a race.”
Plus, she said, there’s plenty of good stuff to be teased out of his resume: “He’s got good tenure, which is something employers really like — he did gloss over his trip to Hawaii, but employers hate gaps in a resume, so I can understand that.”
His next step, Ralph said, is to “reframe”.
“The power vacuum needs to be filled, and traditionally is by either bitterness or cash,” he said. “I’d opt for the latter.”
As such, ducking away to Tokyo to address the Global Leaders Summit rather than showing up to Parliament might not be such a bad move, added Ralph.
“An international ‘above it all’ reframing is best, particularly as you’re sneered at locally, but an unknown quantity with a distinguished track record globally. Legions of International bodies want the gravitas of notable ex-PMs and will pay handsomely.”
What industry might benefit from Morrison’s talents next?
“Banking, insurance or law,” Grace laughs. “They’re other industries that are very much down to self-interest under the guise of helping other people, which is why so many politicians end up in banking.”
Ralph has a similar thought: “Merchant banks will give you a fat fee for doing fuck-all, just to decorate the ‘About Us’ page on the website and add some frisson to meetings every so often.”
Sawran-Smith suggested, given the urgency with which he undertook an ancestry trip while Australia’s borders were locked, that he may like to be a historian.
But the obvious choice, Ralph said, “would seem to be religion”.
“Might he not be the perfect new leader for Hillsong in Australia? After all, he seems to believe that guff and frankly, Brian Houston, we have a problem.”
