Meet The Team
Allow Us To Introduce Ourselves
Founder and Partner and Chief, Innovative HR & Recruiting Services, Sonia Kokkalos is a highly experienced and Senior HR and People Development professional with over 25 years work experience in industry. Her HR Director and Senior appointments have included Group Human Resources Manager for Stanley Australia and New Zealand, National Human Resources Manager for Australian Document Exchange (now part of Toll Logistics) and Principal Employment Benefits Consultant to DaimlerChrysler.
In addition to being founder of Recruitment Pool Pty Ltd, Sonia is an alliance partner for PAY plus HR providing expert HR advice to clients, Managing Director of Team Results Pty Ltd and involves herself in other business ventures.
A graduate of RMIT, a postgraduate qualification in Business and HRM from Swinburne University and a completed MBA from the Australian Institute of Business, Sonia has achieved outstanding career success within the Business and HR arena. She was nominated for an Australian Human Resources Institute HR Practitioner's Award in 2006 for her ground breaking work on "storybook culture", was a recipient of a “SPIRIT” award for her results with work teams from the President of Stanley Asia Pacific, and had an article published in the Human Resources Magazine in 2005 around home grown lessons in leadership.
She is a distinguished member of the Worldwide Who’s Who Network of Entrepreneurs and has given many papers and presentations on teamwork, leadership and work productivity both locally and overseas. Sonia also serves the community as a volunteer member of the Victoria State Emergency Service. In 2005, she was awarded the Australian National Service Medal for 15 years service to an Emergency Service.
Sonia is passionate about contemporary human resource practices, organisational change, business compliance, leadereship, team productivity, career coaching and empowering work teams and individuals to be the best they can and connect in the best way possible.
Sonia believes extraordinary results can be obtained through a combination of collaboration, effort, fun, challenges & using one’s imagination, where success is celebrated. Sonia can be reached at skokkalos@recruitmentpool.com.au.
Partner and Chief, Innovative Payroll and Client Services, Steve Nikols is a highly experienced Senior Operations, Business Development, Client Services and Payroll professional with over 30 years work experience in industry. Prior to his Directorship at PAY plus HR, his Senior appointments have included Client Relationship and Development Manager for National Payroll Systems, Service and Payroll Delivery Manager for Talent2.
In addition to PAY plus HR, Steve is an alliance partner of Recruitment Pool and advocates the new recruiting approach with clients, as well as being a thought leader in innovative managed service offerings, providing businesses with an approach that embraces the employee work life cycle. Steve brings a consultative approach to business, is highly trusted and respected amongst business colleagues, a change advocate and is a highly sought after business adviser to many.
A graduate of Swinburne University, Steve has achieved outstanding career success within the Payroll and Human Resource managed services arena.
Steve is passionate about contemporary payroll, human resource and recruiting practices, organisational change, business compliance, leadership and supporting businesses and senior managers in their management of staff to achieve outstanding results. He is a member of TAPS (The Association for Payroll Specialists) and affiliated with many other professional bodies.
Steve can be reached via info@payplushr.com.au
Charlotte Roche is an experienced HR generalist with over 11 years of work experience in industry. Prior to her PAY plus HR Adviser role, her key HR appointments have included working at Southern Cross Cultural Exchange, Lemnos, Servcorp and DLA Phillips Fox.
Charlotte is an innovative HR practitioner and thought leader of Gen Y, providing businesses with an innovative HR, recruiting and pay approach that embraces the employee work-life experience cycle. Charlotte brings a consultative approach to business, is highly trusted and regarded amongst business colleagues.
A graduate of AHRI (Australian Human Resources Institute) and Swinburne University, Charlotte has achieved remarkable career success within the human resources field. She is an advocate for empowering people to be the best they can and to do their best through the workplace experiences they are engaged in.
Overall, Charlotte is passionate about contemporary human resources and supporting businesses to achieve ‘people’ success in today’s contemporary business world.
Charlotte can be reached via croche@recruitmentpool.com.au or 03 8555 0947 (Wednesdays and Fridays)
Karalyn Brown is Founder of Interview IQ and SocialBrown.com and has recently launched the must have App for Job Seekers, myPitch. read more >>
Amy Jay has been involved in the fitness industry for over 15 years. She is a highly skilled consultant with experience as a personal trainer, group presenter and facilitator. read more >>
Megan Iemma, a former school music teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE), is a proficient consultant, trainer/ writer with a passion for adult learning. read more >>
How Recruitment Pool Came To Be
A Short History and our current Mission Statement
A Short History
The idea for Recruitment Pool was born out of the frustration of the recruitment industry back in 2005 as experienced by Recruitment Pool's Founder, Sonia Kokkalos, a HR Director back then. The quality of candidates coming from recruitment providers was dwindling. Candidate filtering meant lost candidate opportunities. Candidates were becoming expert at applying to roles coined as ‘serial job applicants’. Huge fees were being paid for a service that could be done more cost effectively by employers if they could predominantly recruit on their own rather than relying heavily on recruitment agents. The service of recruiting was 'process' driven, not customer focussed - it was like a 'selling bums on seats' approach. If only there was another way?
The original idea was to have a membership based, direct to candidate recruitment pool without third party intervention, no job ads only online candidate profiles, where employers could search for candidates to discuss jobs with, before choosing who to interview.
Fast forward to today. The proliferation of social media and social networking has changed the recruitment landscape and the way in which we need to attract and collaborate with candidates for vacant positions.
Recruitment Pool was commercially launched in August 2012 as Australia's first membership only social recruitment pool for candidates and employers to connect, share and discuss job opportunities, whilst staying true to an idea way back in 2005.
The company’s philosophy is about creating a social recruitment pool experience for job seekers and employers unlike any other, where:
- Recruiting relationships are built and forged around the ‘human’ within our social recruitment pool.
- People are engaged in real time job conversations.
- Through our personal brand profiles, job seekers can link, manage and share their career data that is current, customised and unique to them to make them stand out.
- Employers are accessing a social recruitment pool of active candidate content, not old and outdated content or static resumes.
Our Mission Statement of Today:
We are Australia’s first social recruitment pool where employers and job seekers stand out, connect, talk jobs and make career discoveries as a new way of looking for work and hiring talent. Our way of doing business is customer-centred focussed. We put the human touch back into recruiting and careers where employers and job seekers capitalise on the social interaction we offer. We pride ourselves in delivering our services with a positive sense of respect for the individual, passion for excellence, integrity in our dealings with others and an innovative spirit.