And How a Specialist Recruitment Partner Can Fix It

(And why ignoring salary reviews might cost you your best people)

The 2025 Hiring Landscape: Cautious Optimism Meets Frustrated Talent

Let’s be honest — hiring in 2025 is complicated. You’d think after the uncertainty of the last few years, we’d be in the clear. But for employers in architecture, design, planning and engineering, it’s still a mixed bag.

The multi-residential market is showing signs of life (finally), but most studios are still waiting for the boom to hit. Tier 1 architecture practices are cautious. Tier 2 and 3 studios are hiring — slowly and strategically. Engineering firms are juggling lumpy pipelines, especially in commercial and building services.

And while Olympic infrastructure is creating a buzz in Queensland, many employers are still operating with tight budgets and lean teams.

In short: the market may favour employers on paper, but attracting and retaining quality candidates in 2025 is far from easy.

Common Mistakes Employers Are Still Making

At Vivid, we’re seeing a trend: hiring strategies that haven’t evolved with the times. Here are the most common missteps we’re seeing across the industry:

• Relying on ads and luck: Hoping that the perfect candidate will apply, without a clear talent strategy or outreach plan.
  
  
• Expecting top-tier talent with mid-tier salaries: Budgets are tight, sure — but expectations are still sky-high.
  
  
• Dragging out the process: Delayed interviews and slow feedback loops = lost candidates.
  
  
• Generic hiring: Internal teams mean well, but when your project needs a specific skillset or cultural fit, generic hiring just doesn’t cut it.
  
  
• Overlooking internal salary reviews: Assuming staff will stay just because they haven’t resigned — more on this below.
  
  

You're Losing Staff — and You Don’t Even Know It Yet

This is the big one. We’ve lost count of the number of candidates who have come to us in the past 6 months saying:

“I’m not actively looking… but they haven’t spoken to me about a raise in over a year, and I know I could be earning more elsewhere.”

Too many employers are ignoring salary reviews or putting them in the “too hard” basket, assuming that because it’s still an employer’s market, people will just wait. They won’t. Not in 2025.

• The cost of living still bites — employees are benchmarking their pay.
  
  
• They’re comparing notes with ex-colleagues, friends, recruiters.
  
  
• And most importantly: your competitors are making offers.
  
  

When you fail to reward or engage your staff, you’re pushing them straight into someone else’s arms — usually ours. Review our current 2025/26 Salary Guide to help guide you with your reviews.

Gatekeepers Are Blocking Your Talent — And You Might Not Even Know It

We work with plenty of internal talent teams — and the good ones are gold. They know when to partner, when to push, and when to get out of the way.

But in many cases, we’re seeing internal TAs or embedded recruiters who are actively limiting access to talent:

• Rigid processes
• Outdated screening criteria
• Poor candidate engagement
• And in some cases… ego.

We’ve seen situations where a TA insists they know the market better than anyone — while great candidates are walking away due to poor communication or delays. Meanwhile, senior leadership remains unaware or unable to intervene, even as their hiring targets blow out by months.

And don’t get us started on hiring a recruiter from an external agency just to sit in your inbox and forward applications. That’s not strategy — that’s admin.

If you’re only seeing candidates who make it through one person’s personal filter, you’re missing out on the good ones.

At Vivid, we offer access to a wider, trusted network — curated, not filtered.

So, Why Partner with Vivid?

Because we’re not just throwing CVs at your inbox. We’re:

• Architecture and engineering recruitment specialists — we speak your language.
  
  
• Plugged into the market — from entry-level grads to Associates and Studio Leaders.
  
  
• Offering real-time salary benchmarking and candidate feedback, so you can stay ahead.
  
  
• Supporting your internal team with recruitment insights and strategy, not just placements.
  
  

Need a BIM Lead with Revit fluency and healthcare experience? We’ve got one.

Want someone who can work across concept, documentation, and still hold their own with clients? We’ll tell you what that costs — and who’s available.

Case Study #1: When Strategy Wins (Melbourne Studio)

One of our recent clients — a mid-sized Melbourne studio — came to us with a problem. Their internal team had been trying to fill a Senior Designer role for three months. Great project pipeline, great team culture — but no bites.

We refined the brief, advised them to tweak the salary package, and leveraged our network. Within two weeks, they had three shortlisted candidates. One offer made. One offer accepted. Candidate started a month later and is now leading two major projects.

What changed? Strategy, insight, and market intelligence.

Case Study #2: Growing Across State Lines (Brisbane Architecture Practice)

Another client — a growing architecture practice based in Brisbane — came to us when they hit a wall trying to recruit locally.

Despite offering strong projects and competitive salaries, the Queensland market was too tight, with multiple firms fishing in the same small talent pool. Instead of continuing to fight a losing battle, they made a bold decision: open a Melbourne satellite office and build a team there to support their Brisbane operations remotely.

They partnered with us to:

• Source all initial hires in Melbourne (from project architects to team leads)
  
  
• Secure an office space to house the new team (yes, we went that far!)
  
  
• Continue building both their Melbourne presence and their Queensland teams
  
  

It’s been a true example of recruitment as a long-term strategic partnership — not just a one-off transaction.

Final Thought: The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Every time you lose a good team member, or fail to fill a role on time, you’re absorbing hidden costs:

• Lost productivity.
  
  
• Low morale across the team.
  
  
• Project delivery delays.
  
  
• Damaged reputation in a tight-knit industry.
  
  

A poor hiring strategy doesn’t just slow you down — it reflects back on your brand.

Let’s not let it get that far.

Need a hiring strategy that actually works?

Whether you're actively recruiting or just starting to think about growth for FY25/26, let’s have a chat. We’ll show you how to attract (and keep) the right talent — even in a tricky market.

Contact Vivid Recruitment | View Our Services

Contact the Team

Looking for a new hire? Get in touch with our guys to help you out.

Nicholas Koop, Principal Recruitment Consultant, Engineering - 📲 0426 180 254 📧 nick@vividrecruitment.com.au

Lee Stevens, Principal Recruitment Consultant, Architecture & Design - 📲 0406 470 020 📧 lee@vividrecruitment.com.au

You can also connect with Lee on LinkedIn and Nick on LinkedIn or follow the Vivid Recruitment LinkedIn page for more industry insights, news, jobs and general chit chat and tips!