This is not the job I applied for
Debbie Morrison • October 12, 2020

This is not the job I applied for


The new year is often the trigger to find a new job, or even a new career. While starting afresh can be an exciting time, it’s vital to be sure any new job you accept is actually what you think it is – and not just a case of ‘false advertising’.


Candidates hold the cards

With unemployment at historically low rates in Australia, 2019 is likely to still be a candidates’ market across most industries. This means employers will have to work hard to attract the best talent. Trouble is, in trying to sell the ‘dream’ it can be easy to distort the reality, be it innocently or intentionally. That’s why having a healthy dose of suspicion isn’t necessarily a bad thing when searching for a new role.


Early warning signs

If you’re lucky, you might start to realise early in the process, ‘this is not the job I actually applied for’. During the interview stage you may get the feeling it isn’t quite the right job for you, or perhaps it doesn’t sound as good – or even the same – as it did in the advertising. Question is, do you drop out immediately? Or are you jumping to conclusions too soon, or perhaps letting yourself be baulked by something new and not challenging yourself enough?


Ultimately, only you can make these decisions. But our advice would be listen to your gut – it’s usually right. If you decide to press on with the interview process, be sure to ask some pointed questions to help clarify any lingering doubts you may have. It’s always better to find out before you sign a contract!


Too good to be true?

The perfect job description doesn’t always translate into the perfect job. In fact, when absolutely everything about a role sounds fantastic, it’s almost certainly been embellished. A good job description shouldn’t hide the challenges of a position – every job has those! Giving a clear 360-degree understanding of what’s required is important as it will help you decide whether or not you really are the right for the role. Just as importantly, it can also help employers eliminate unsuitable candidates, saving them time and money.


Too bad to be true?

At the other end of the scale, does the job description sound ridiculously demanding? Sometimes otherwise good employers can go a little overboard by listing every possible skillset they can think of. Maybe they’re inexperienced? Maybe it’s just a poorly written ad? Then again, perhaps they really do have unrealistic expectations and are best avoided? It’s important to consider these possibilities before deciding whether to proceed or not.


Reality bites

What happens if you get the job, only to realise – once you’ve started – the reality is different to what was explained during the interview process? Do you pack your things and head straight for the door? Or do you give it a chance to work? The first thing to do is speak – directly, but still professionally – with your manager and/or the person who hired you. Explain your concerns and see what they say. Who knows? It might simply be a misunderstanding. If it’s a new position within the business, maybe they’re still figuring things out for themselves and your feedback can actually help them get it right.


Exit strategy

Of course, when it’s clear you’ve been deceived there’s little point sticking around. It may be inconvenient for everyone involved, but there’s no shame in giving your notice after just a few weeks if an employer hasn’t been up front with you. Our advice is to follow the correct process as outlined in your contract and to be as professional as you can. While frustrating having to start the whole job search process again, it’s far better than working in a role that makes you feel unhappy and betrayed every day.


Truth in advertising

Just finally, some words of advice for HR departments and hiring managers – keep it real! As tempting as it is to write job descriptions that sound better than they actually are with the aim of attracting more candidates, it can create far more problems than it solves. For example, when the majority of the candidates apply for a role under false pretences, a large proportion will probably withdraw during the interview process. While if a strong candidate accepts, only to soon realise they’ve been misled, they may quickly resign leaving you back at square one. Even if the role is proving difficult to fill, staying truthful about what is – and isn’t required – will ultimately save time and money in the long run.



By John Elliott June 26, 2025
You don’t hear about it on the nightly news. There’s no breaking story. No panic. No protests. Just rows of vegetables being pulled out of the ground with no plan to replant. Just farmers who no longer believe there’s a future for them here. Just quiet decisions — to sell, to walk away, to stop. And if you ask around the industry, they’ll tell you the same thing: It’s not just one bad season. It’s a slow death by a thousand margins. 1 in 3 growers are preparing to leaveIn September 2024, AUSVEG released a national sentiment report with a statistic that should have set off alarms in every capital city: 34% of Australian vegetable growers were considering exiting the industry in the next 12 months. Another one-third said they’d leave if offered a fair price for their farm. Source: AUSVEG Industry Sentiment Report 2024 (PDF) These aren’t abstract hypotheticals. These are real decisions, already in motion. For many, it’s not about profitability anymore, it’s about survival. This isn’t burnout. It’s entrapment. Behind the numbers are people whose entire identity is tied to a profession that no longer feeds them. Many are asset-rich but cash-poor. They own the land. But the land owns them back. Selling means walking away from decades of history. Staying means bleeding capital, month by month, in a system where working harder delivers less. Every year, input costs rise, fuel, fertiliser, compliance. But the farmgate price doesn’t move. Or worse, it drops. Retail World Magazine reports that even though national vegetable production increased 3% in 2023–24, the total farmgate value fell by $140 million. Growers produced more and earned less. That’s not a market. That’s a trap. What no one wants to say aloud The truth is this: many growers are only staying because they can’t leave. If you’re deep in debt, if your farm is tied to multi-generational ownership, if you’ve invested everything in equipment, infrastructure, or land access, walking away isn’t easy. It’s a last resort. So instead, you stay. You cut your hours. Delay maintenance. Avoid upgrades. Cancel the next round of planting. You wait for something to shift, interest rates, weather, prices and you pretend that waiting is strategy. According to the latest fruitnet.com survey, over 50% of vegetable growers say they’re financially worse off than a year ago. And nearly 40% expect conditions to deteriorate further. This isn’t about optimism or resilience. It’s about dignity and the quiet erosion of it. Supermarkets won’t save them, and they never planned to In the current model, supermarket pricing doesn’t reflect real-world farm economics. Retailers demand year-round consistency, aesthetic perfection, and lower prices. They don’t absorb rising input costs, they externalise them. They offer promotions funded not by their marketing budgets, but by the growers’ margins. Farmers take the risk. Retailers take the profit. And because the power imbalance is so deeply entrenched, there’s no real negotiation, just quiet coercion dressed up as "category planning." Let’s talk about what’s actually broken This isn’t just a market failure. It’s a policy failure. Australia’s horticulture system has been built on: Decades of deregulated wholesale markets Lack of collective bargaining power for growers Retailer consolidation that has created a virtual duopoly Export-focused incentives that bypass smaller domestic producers There’s no meaningful floor price for key produce lines. No national enforcement of fair dealing. No public database that links supermarket shelf price to farmgate return. Which means growers, like James, can be driven into loss-making supply contracts without ever seeing the true economics of their product downstream. But the real silence? It’s from consumers. Here’s what no one wants to admit: We say we care about “buying local.” We say we value the farmer’s role. We share those viral posts about strawberries going unsold or milk prices being unfair. And then we complain about a $4 lettuce. We opt for the cheapest bag of carrots. We walk past the "imperfect" produce bin. We frown at the cost of organic and click “Add to Cart” on whatever’s half price. We’re not just bystanders. We’re part of the equation. What happens when the growers go? At first, very little. Supermarkets will find substitutes. Importers will fill gaps. Large agribusinesses will expand into spaces vacated by smaller players. Prices will stay low, until they don’t. But over time, we’ll notice: Produce that travels further and lasts less. Fewer independent growers at farmer’s markets. Entire regions losing their growing identity. National food security becoming a campaign promise instead of a reality. And when the climate throws something serious at us, drought, flood, global supply shock, we’ll realise how little resilience we’ve preserved. So what do we do? We start by telling the truth. Australia is not food secure. Not if 1 in 3 growers are planning to exit. The market isn’t working. Not when prices rise at the shelf and fall at the farmgate. The solution isn’t scale. It’s fairness, visibility, and rebalancing power. That means: Mandating cost-reflective contracts between retailers and suppliers Enabling collective bargaining rights for growers Building transparent data systems linking production costs to consumer prices Introducing transition finance for smaller producers navigating reform and climate pressure And holding supermarkets publicly accountable for margin extraction But more than anything, it means recognising what we’re losing, before it's gone. Final word If you ate a vegetable today, it likely came from someone who’s considered giving up in the past year. Not because they don’t care. But because caring doesn’t pay. This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about sovereignty, over what we eat, how we grow it, and who gets to stay in the system.  Because the next time you see rows of green stretching to the horizon, you might want to ask: How many of these fields are already planning their last harvest?
By John Elliott June 20, 2025
If you're leading an FMCG or food manufacturing business right now, you're probably still talking about growth. Your board might be chasing headcount approvals. Your marketing team’s pitching a new brand campaign. Your category team’s assuming spend will bounce. But your customer? They’ve already moved on. Quietly. Like they always do. The illusion of resilience FMCG has always felt protected, “essential” by nature. People still eat, wash, shop. It’s easy to assume downturns pass around us, not through us. But this isn’t 2020. Recessions in 2025 won’t look like lockdowns. They’ll look like volume drops that no promo can fix. Shrinking margins on products that no longer carry their premium. Quiet shelf deletions you weren’t warned about. The data’s already there. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, consumer spending is slowing in real terms , even as inflation eases. The Reserve Bank confirmed in May: household consumption remains subdued amid weak real income growth . And over 80% of Australians have cut back on discretionary food spending , according to Finder. They’re still shopping, just not like they used to. A managing director at a national food manufacturer told me recently: “We won a new product listing in April. By July, it was marked for deletion. The velocity wasn’t there, but neither was the shopper. We’d forecasted like 2022 never ended. Rookie mistake.” That one stuck with me. Because I’ve heard it before, just in different words.