For pharmacy owners
Placements that stayed.
Thirty-four placements since August 2023. Two have left. These are six pharmacies from the other thirty-two — and in three of them, the person we placed now owns part of the pharmacy.
Cobar, New South Wales
John Mitchell Pharmacy
Cobar is a mining town in far-western New South Wales, and John Mitchell Pharmacy is the pharmacy that serves it. There is no second pharmacy to poach from, no neighbouring suburb to commute from, and no local pool of registered pharmacists to advertise to. A vacancy here is not a slow fill. Left alone it is a closed dispensary.
- Three people placed into this pharmacy, including a pharmacy intern — growing one rather than waiting for a registered pharmacist to appear in a town of this size.
- Two of those three were later moved to Ron Dunford Chemist in Parkes, inside the same group, when the need shifted. They were redeployed, not lost to the market.
- Every pharmacist placed here is still employed.
An external agency has no reason to move a placement to a second client. It is paid to fill a vacancy, and a person who moves is a new fee. Because we recruit into a network we help run, the alternative to losing someone is relocating them.
Parkes, New South Wales
Ron Dunford Chemist
Parkes is a Central West town four and a half hours from Sydney — regional, not remote, and still outside the radius most metro pharmacists will consider. Three people have been placed into this pharmacy.
- One recruited directly into the role.
- Two moved across from John Mitchell Pharmacy in Cobar, including the intern placed there — who came to Parkes as a registered pharmacist.
- All three are still employed, and a placement here has since become a working partner in the pharmacy.
This is the sequence that works. Someone placed as an employee, who stays, who then buys in. Both sides knew each other before money changed hands — which is why it held.
Nagambie, Victoria
Tejaskumar (TJ) Patel
Rebecca Baker Pharmacy
Nagambie is a town of a couple of thousand people in central Victoria, ninety minutes north of Melbourne and far enough out that the metro candidate pool does not reach it. Two pharmacists have been placed here.
- Two placements, the first some years ago and the second recent.
- Both are still employed.
- A placement here has become a working partner in the pharmacy.
The owner, TJ Patel, is a pharmacy owner who has taken more than one placement from us and then taken one of them into partnership. Repeat business and an equity outcome from the same relationship is the strongest signal a recruiter can show an owner who has never used them.
Bargara, Queensland
Paul Sidhom
Pharmacy Central Bargara
Coastal Queensland, a quarter of an hour east of Bundaberg — close enough to a regional centre to look straightforward on a map, far enough out that the people who will actually take the job are not the ones reading a Bundaberg advertisement. A placement here is currently working through becoming a working partner in the pharmacy: the same path taken at Parkes, Nagambie and Leeton, caught partway through rather than reported once it was tidy.
- Placement made, and still employed.
- Working-partner arrangement in progress at the time of writing.
Most case studies are written after the fact, once the ending is known. This one is worth publishing unfinished, because the owner reading it is deciding whether to start a process — not whether to admire a completed one.
Leeton, New South Wales
Leeton Amcal Pharmacy and Leeton Discount Chemist
Leeton is a Riverina town with two pharmacies in it, and we recruited for both — Leeton Amcal Pharmacy on Pine Avenue and Leeton Discount Chemist on Acacia Avenue. That is the job most agencies quietly avoid, because two stores in one town compete for the same handful of candidates and an agency working both ends has an obvious conflict of interest.
- Both Leeton pharmacies recruited for, and both filled.
- Both placements still employed.
- Both placements have since become working partners in their pharmacies.
Two competing pharmacies in one country town is the sharpest test of whether a recruiter is working for the client or for the fee. It is also precisely the conflict that led to TalentWell being stood up as a business in its own right rather than run out of the management group — so it is the right case study to publish, not the awkward one to leave out.
Next step
Tell us about the vacancy.
You will get the fee in writing, a view on whether the role is fillable as written, and a realistic time to fill — before you commit to anything.