The racing industry attracts a diverse set of people, from punters and sporting enthusiasts to celebrities and local characters. With big money and high-profile events like the Spring Racing Carnival at stake, Racing Victoria often finds itself in the spotlight. For People and Culture Advisor Jacqui Stoney, being in that spotlight is made a lot easier knowing the team keeps a rigorous recruitment practice.
Employment screening is vital
Racing Victoria employs around 350 people, which includes software developers through to vets.
“We’ve got betting supervisors, stewards, race-day teams, and compliance and regulatory teams to administer the rules of racing. We have to be extremely careful to make sure we’re hiring people who will uphold the Rules of Racing,” says Stoney.
Different roles have high levels of probity checking and pre-employment screening required’, says Stoney. The closer they are to the action, the stricter the requirements.
“A lot of the individuals that work for us are not allowed to wager on racing or any other sport,” she says.
“Some roles can gamble, but not on the days when they’re officiating or working at the track. If anything goes wrong, we are heavily scrutinised, so we need to be very thorough.”
Keeping integrity on track
“For the Integrity roles, we run the full gamut of checks – ASIC, APRA, financial checks, national police checks, private interest and probity declarations, as well as a Betting Account Declaration.
“Other roles that work on race days may not have an ASIC check, but would still make a Betting Account Declaration.
“As a must, all our candidates go through a 100-point ID check, national police check and reference check.”
International recruits
Having such a thorough pre-employment screening system makes it easier for Racing Victoria to look further afield to find the right people for specialised roles.
“Our industry is highly specialised – there’s not always a lot of people with the right experience for roles, so we often need to search globally.
“We can get checks turned around really quickly through companies like CVCheck. This makes it easier for us to be able to spread the net wide and then narrow down the candidates.”
“CVCheck really helps us to have checks and balances with the pre-employment screening.
“Checks rarely come back with a red flag – maybe one in 40. But when they do, it gives us a chance to follow up and have that conversation. It’s our job to make sure we hire people who will meet our Single Code of Practice requirements and CVCheck helps enable that.”
