Recruiting the next Executive Director for the Department of Environment and Science

About The Department of Environment and Science

Queensland boasts one of the most diverse and beautiful environments in the world. Without even counting the Great Barrier Reef and its cultural and economic significance to Queensland and Australia, over 64 million visitors flock to Queensland's national parks, forests, and arts and cultural facilities every year. The Department of Environment and Science (DES) exists to protect Queensland's environment so that future generations can enjoy its beauty.

Working closely with local government, stakeholders, and communities, the DES works to achieve a better environmental, economic and social future for Queensland. To continue its vital work of protecting Queensland's beautiful, delicate environment, the team at the DES reached out to Kingston as one of their executive recruitment partners.

The DES wanted to make sure they partnered with an executive search firm that used both traditional and contemporary recruitment techniques. In addition to ‘traditional executive search’, they saw the power of video and understood how contemporary social media talent attraction campaigns would benefit their recruitment project.

Finding the right executive with a rare skill set

The central challenge with the DES project came from the unique nature of their organisation. Due to the requirements of the role, the right executive would have to possess a rare and distinct skill set.

In fact, this skillset was so rare that our initial projection identified there would be fewer than 70 people in Australia with the necessary qualifications and experience.

The Challenge

How did we overcome this challenge?

As the talent pool was so small and the necessary qualifications and experience particularly rare, it was our experience in talent mapping, combined with our research and algorithmic search capabilities, that truly made the difference on this project. Additionally, we also completed a comprehensive needs-analysis with not just a few but all stakeholders involved.



As a high number of potential candidates were based interstate, Kingston Human Capital developed a 'Living in Brisbane' report to help these candidates assess life in Brisbane. Examples of what was featured in this report were economic data, local school information, and house prices.

The Process

Traditional and contemporary recruitment techniques combined to give the DES the right executive

Kingston Human Capital approached the recruitment project using both traditional and contemporary techniques. To find the right talent, we created a recruitment video and use attraction campaigns to engage the right talents.

How Kingston Human Capital helped the DES find the right candidate?

1. We established a social media attraction campaign and developed a highly effective recruitment video campaign to communicate the DES' requirements and engage passive talent.
2. We formed a needs-analysis for the role and met with the internal candidates to discuss the project and its timelines.
3. We activated our referral networks and deployed our executive search and algorithmic search teams who searched both nationally and internationally.
4. We completed relevant reporting, presented the candidate shortlist to the panel, and facilitated interviews while acting as scribe.
5. We supported the panel with pre-interview diversity awareness and unconscious bias training, designed a comprehensive set of interview questions and hosted the interview panel debrief and discussion.
6. Supported the client to extend the offer to the successful executive and completed Candidate Evaluations, providing feedback and coaching to those executives that were not successful.

Learn more about Kingston Human Capital Recruitment Process

The Result

The right executive hired within 6 weeks

Not only did our client make the right executive hire at the end of the executive recruitment project, but we also received feedback from both internal and external candidates who commended our customer service and the frequency of our communication.

We help recruit great executive talent

What did the DES value most about Kingston Human Capital's recruitment services?

The Department of Environment and Science valued an executive with the right culture fit and the ability to deliver great outcomes. Kingston Human Capital worked tirelessly to fill this role to the requirements of the DES.

Discover how Kingston Human Capital are different and give you a competitive advantage.

We work as an agile team across retained recruitment projects, ensuring we can commit the time and effort of our entire search team. This allows us to reach further into the market, which means we get to evaluate more candidates and get high-quality results.