As a recruitment advertising agency exec, I can probably help answer some of these questions.

These guidelines are designed to stop individual agencies splashing huge amounts of cash for, say, one position. The problem comes in when the same guidelines apply for an agency with 20-30 available positions (they have to apply separately to explain that this is a 'campaign' and therefore exempt).

The guidelines are restrictive because, as you say, colour often is offered for free and, yes, we do have to turn it down as a result.

As for the APS website, I'm confused as to how this fits in to the picture. We use it for our campaigns, but, as it receives traffic from public sector job-seekers, the application numbers are generally quite low, and you end up fishing from the same pool as every other agency. Niche media placement is much more effective.

I'd struggle to understand why your article states that this might slow down proactive advertising campaigns. Size and colour restrictions force us to be more creative in our approach - seeking out new media platforms, and ways of doing things to reach our targets. Colour doesn't per se mean something is more creative or more proactive than something in black and white.

I've just posted this comment on Recruitment 2.0 too:

I think that these new guidelines are fantastic - it's about time that the bean counters at Finance curbed the government's rampant spending on print advertising.

It really gets my goat to see APS3 jobs advertised in full colour in the Early General News sections of newspapers - these ads typically cost upwards of $1500 (per newspaper), yet the salary for the vacant position is in the order of $40K. How can that be cost effective??

Hopefully these stricter guidelines will provide an impetus for increased use of online offerings, where the value proposition is much more apparent.

Clayton Wehner
CapitalJobs.com.au
http://www.capitaljobs.com.au