About CareersNZ

CareersNZ is a national talent pool for Aotearoa New Zealand. It exists to make job seeking fairer and hiring less noisy, by keeping candidates in control of their own details.

Why we built it

Most job seeking today means scattering your contact details across job boards and then fielding calls about roles that do not fit. For employers, it means wading through applications from people who were never a match. We thought there was a better way: a pool where candidates opt in, stay private, and only ever hear about roles in the sectors and regions they chose, while employers see a focused shortlist of people who are genuinely relevant.

There is a second problem underneath the first. Screening built on job titles and keywords systematically loses the people who could do the work but do not already look like they do it. A capable person moving out of hospitality into logistics, a parent returning after five years, a migrant whose overseas experience does not map onto a New Zealand job title: all three get filtered out before a human sees them. A card built on region, sector, licences and a plain human sentence puts them back in view, which is the point of a national pool rather than another job board.

How privacy works

Employers only ever see a first name, a location, any licences or endorsements, and a short bio. No surname, no email, no phone number, until a candidate decides to apply. The candidate always makes the first move, and can withdraw from the pool at any time. That single rule shapes everything about how CareersNZ works.

It also constrains what we build. Candidate profiles are not public web pages, are not indexed by search engines and are not sold or rented to anyone. Employers verify a business email before they can see candidate cards, because that verification is the reason candidates are willing to be visible at all. Personal information is handled in line with the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.

What CareersNZ is not

It is not a job board, because a job board lists vacancies and waits. It is not a recruitment agency, because nobody pays a placement fee. It is not a government careers service. And it is not a data business: CareersNZ does not scrape candidates from Seek, Trade Me or anywhere else, and the only people in the pool are people who chose to join it.

Who is behind CareersNZ

CareersNZ was founded by Gordon Findlay, who has spent years building training and career pathways for New Zealanders across freight, logistics and the wider workforce. The platform grew out of a simple observation from that work: plenty of job-ready people never get seen by the right employer, and plenty of employers never find them. CareersNZ is the bridge.

It sits alongside Capability Solutions, a New Zealand training business working in workplace health and safety, freight and logistics, and workforce capability. That connection is why the sector guides are written the way they are: by people who have spent time on the operational side of these industries rather than only on the hiring side.

How it is funded

It is free for candidates and free for employers to register and post roles. There is no placement commission and no subscription. CareersNZ is run alongside Capability Solutions rather than as a fee-charging recruitment business, which is what makes free on both sides workable.

Get in touch

Questions, feedback or partnership ideas are welcome. Email hello@careersnz.co.nz.

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