This Week's Spotlight - John Gibbons, CEO of The Personnel Group
- Rana Kordahi
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
This week we shine the spotlight on John Gibbons, CEO of The Personnel Group. With a career dedicated to employment, inclusion, and community impact, John is passionate about creating meaningful opportunities and championing equality through work.
John’s journey in Employment Services began with a simple desire to do work that genuinely mattered. After a series of roles that left him feeling disconnected, he stepped into a Training Consultant position supporting people as they settled into new employment. It was the first time he felt he was making a real difference, a sense of purpose that has kept him in the industry for 17 years and ultimately onto the leadership pathway that brought him to the role of CEO.
John leads with humility, honesty, and a deep belief in people.
Enjoy his insights and wisdom in the interview below.
1. How did you get your start in Employment Services?
I had a string of jobs after I left school that left me feeling pretty flat. None of them meant much. I wanted to do something that helped my community, so I started applying for roles where the purpose of the company felt right, without overthinking the rest.
The Personnel Group called with a Training Consultant role. I was very grateful.
This was before disability employment had been connected to the Centrelink system, so all jobseekers came to us directly. Caseloads were small.
My job was to support people who had just started a new role and help them settle into the workplace. It was the most wonderful work I had ever done. Deeply satisfying. The first time I felt I was making the kind of difference in my community I had been looking for.
I've been fortunate to keep doing it for 17 years since.
2. What advice would you give to leaders who carry a lot on their shoulders, managing people, processes, and systems all at once?
My favourite saying is 'progress not perfection.' Leadership requires an honest acceptance that we won't get it all right. We will make mistakes. Things will be tough at times. The job is to have strategies that keep us steady, and keep us moving forward, particularly when things aren't working.
For me that means being honest about my own faults and weaknesses, being transparent about them with my team, and surrounding myself with good people who can do the things I can't. Relationship matters more than skill.
And on carrying the load, planning and routine do a lot of the heavy lifting. Time spent getting organised early almost always saves time later.
I'm an accidental leader. I never planned any of this. But I've come to believe that doing meaningful work with good people, in service of something bigger than yourself, is about as good as it gets. That's what keeps me here.
3. Employment Services is incredibly rewarding, but the first year can take real resilience. What advice would you give to a new employment consultant starting out?
I share the same thing with every new team member who joins us.
There will be days you go home having fundamentally changed someone's life. Maybe they have gained their first job. Maybe they have taken a step towards a new career. Maybe you've found funding for someone who was really struggling. On those days you walk on air and feel privileged to do the work.
There will also be days where something goes wrong that you weren't expecting, and it stings, because you care. That's the nature of the work. The same care that makes the good days great is what makes the hard days hard.
The key to longevity is finding resilience strategies that work for you. Whatever lets you leave the day at the door and come back fresh tomorrow. The people who last in this industry aren't the ones who don't feel it. They're the ones who've learnt how to carry it.
4. Can you share a memorable moment when something you did, a conversation, piece of advice, or action, made a positive difference to a staff member, peer, or job seeker?
The ones that stay with me are rarely the big moments.
They're the small ones. A quiet conversation with a team member who was thinking of leaving, where listening properly was more useful than any advice I could have given. A jobseeker we'd been working with for a long time who finally got a 'yes' from an employer. A colleague who needed to hear that they were doing better than they thought.
What I've learnt is that how we treat people when things are hard matters far more than how we treat them when things are easy. That's the culture. Everything else is decoration.
5. What surprised you most about working in Employment Services once you were actually in the role?
How much the work changes you. I started thinking I was there to help other people, and I am, but the truth is the work has shaped me at least as much as I've shaped any of it.
I've learnt patience from people who had every reason to give up and didn't.
I've learnt humility from colleagues who do extraordinary work without ever asking for credit.
I've learnt that purpose is a much better fuel than ambition. The other surprise is how much it stays with you. Long after a job placement, long after someone has moved on, you carry a piece of those stories with you.
That's a privilege.
6. What keeps you motivated in this industry, even on the hard days?
The people. Both the team I get to work alongside, and the people we are here to support. When I'm having a hard day I think about the difference a job can make in someone's life. Not just the income, but the structure, the dignity, the sense of being part of something. That's what we get to be part of. It's a serious responsibility, and it's a privilege.
I'm an accidental leader. I never planned any of this. But I've come to believe that doing meaningful work with good people, in service of something bigger than yourself, is about as good as it gets. That's what keeps me here.
Connect with John Gibbons on LinkedIn
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