Recruitment and Sales Manager - Australian hours

3 months to start at 40 hours per week, with genuine room to continue on and even be promoted | Contractor | Work from home | Immediate start
Real Deal Entertainment (Australia)

IMPORTANT: Applications will only be considered if they include a CV, a video introduction, and written responses to the questions set out below.

THE HONEST SHAPE OF THIS JOB

Two things sit in this seat from day one, and the balance between them shifts as the season moves. We would rather set that out now than have you discover it in week three.

The urgent job is recruiting Christmas Entertainers! For roughly the next month you would be advertising, screening and interviewing performers - Santas, Mrs Clauses, elves, facepainters and photographers - and getting them checked, signed and ready for the season.

After that the hiring eases, but the performer side does not stop. Onboarding, scheduling, logistics, and being the person a performer rings when something goes wrong on the morning of a job.

Alongside all of that, every day, you would be working the sales side: following up the quotes we have already sent and turning them into bookings. From January, when the performer work quietens down, sales becomes the bulk of the role.

ABOUT US

Real Deal Entertainment runs three brands in Australia: The Real Santa, Halloween Scenes and Happy Easter Bunny. We supply professional performers - Santa, Mrs Claus, elves, the Easter Bunny - and large event props, thrones, grottos and sets, to corporate clients, shopping centres, councils, hospitality venues, schools and childcare centres.

It is a premium product at a premium price, and it is seasonal. September to December is our peak, and that is when you would start.

HOW THE WORK ACTUALLY SITS

Month one, mostly recruiting. Writing and placing the advertisements, screening applicants, interviewing, and the Working with Children compliance that goes with putting people in front of children. This is the urgent part, and it is why we are hiring straight away.

We will say plainly that this part is good fun. You would spend a fair bit of your day talking to actors, entertainers and genuinely white-bearded gentlemen, and d ---------- which of them is good enough to be somebody's Santa. The people who do well at it are the people who enjoy it.

Through the season, running the roster. Onboarding the people you hired, scheduling them against bookings, sorting out the logistics, and keeping them supported. Performers need moral support as much as they need instructions, and the ones who feel looked after are the ones who turn up and do a good job.

Every day, the sales tasks. Time on the open quote bank: ringing clients who already have a quote from us and turning it into a booking. This part does not wait until January.

January onward, mostly sales. Recruiting drops to almost nothing until Easter, so your hours move across: warm calls to past clients who have not rebooked, then reaching out to new ones.

The roster you build is not thrown away. The same performers work our Halloween and Easter seasons, so you would be building something that carries across the year.

THE HOURS

40 hours per week, worked from home. Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 6:00pm Melbourne time, with a one-hour break. If you are applying from the Philippines, that is 6:00am to 3:00pm your time, or 7:00am to 4:00pm once Daylight Saving finishes - the same window the rest of our team works. An early start, but an early finish.

The window is fixed rather than left to you, and it is worth saying why. Client calls only work when Australian clients pick up the phone, and our own call records say that is the afternoon, Melbourne time. The performer side of the job fills the earlier part of the day.

PAY

US$1,330 per month (paid as AU$440 per week), invoiced by you as an independent contractor.

Christmas Day and New Year's Day are not worked, and your fee for those weeks is unchanged.

If the role continues past the first three months, the sales side of it carries commission on top of the weekly fee, on the business you bring in. We would rather agree those rates with you when we know what the role has become than put a number in an advertisement and change it later.

BEFORE YOU APPLY

Note this is a full time role and it will require your complete commitment for the three months. So if you have a side hustle, a part time job, or a house full of kids, we really don't think this will work. We want to put that out there now so there is no disappointment later.

You will need to learn and study fast, meet pressing deadlines, and solve problems daily.

WHAT YOU WOULD ACTUALLY DO

Performers:
- Write and place the advertisements that bring performers in, and keep running the ones that work.
- Screen applicants properly - read the applications, watch the videos, and shortlist on evidence.
- Run the initial interviews - often just a quick phone call - and put a shortlist in front of the Managing Director with your recommendation on each person. You are the first person a performer meets, so how you handle them matters.
- Look after the compliance side: Working with Children Checks and the state-by-state requirements that go with them.
- Onboard the people you hire - paperwork, costumes, briefing, and making sure they know exactly what is expected of them on the day.
- Book the final interviews in, and schedule performers against bookings once they are cast - with all the logistics that go with it.
- Be the person they ring when something goes wrong on the morning of a job, and keep good people feeling looked after.
- Keep the performer records accurate - availability, documents, contact details, and your notes on how people went.

Sales:
- Work the open quote bank to a clear outcome - booked, lost, or closed with a reason.
- Have a proper conversation on every live quote rather than a quick check-in. Find out what the client is actually trying to do with their event.
- Offer the upgrade where it genuinely fits, and leave it alone where it does not.
- Warm calls to clients who have not rebooked, and outreach to new ones, from lists we supply and leads you find.
- Write a dated note in our CRM after every conversation: what the client wants, what you offered, and the next step.

Throughout:
- Short, clear written updates to the Managing Director. Not long reports.
- Use AI to do all of this faster and better, and tell us how you are doing it.

WHAT SITS WITH SOMEONE ELSE

- Raising quotes and invoices. Our customer service team does that; you request and check.
- New inbound sales enquiries. They go to our customer service team.
- The final interview, and the decision on who gets the part. That sits with the Managing Director.

You will still take inbound calls - from performers, and from clients ringing you back after you have called them.

WHERE THIS CAN GO

We cannot promise a permanent role on day one, and we would rather not pretend otherwise.

What we can tell you is that the work does not stop. Easter recruiting begins in the new year, then Winter Christmas, then Halloween, and the sales side runs all year round. We would far rather grow the person already doing it than advertise again.

At the end of the three months we will sit down and talk openly about continuing, about what the role becomes, and about what it pays. If the answer is no, we will tell you why.

WHO WE ARE HOPING TO HEAR FROM

- Someone who has genuinely done both - hired people and sold to people - and can point to each. If your experience sits almost entirely on one side, this is probably not the right fit, though do tell us if you think we have that wrong.
- Someone who would enjoy the performer side rather than tolerate it. Half this job is making good people want to work for you.
- Someone with excellent spoken and written English. You would be interviewing performers and talking to Australian clients.
- Someone confident enough to make a judgement about a person and explain it.
- Someone who uses AI daily and can talk about it in detail - which tools, for what, and what it has actually saved them.
- Someone careful with records and deadlines, who would rather check than assume.
- Performance or event operations experience is a bonus, not a requirement.

WHAT YOU WOULD NEED

- A quiet, professional space for interviews and client calls, a good headset, and reliable internet and power with a backup plan.
- Confident, clear spoken English that an Australian client follows easily. This is the first thing we listen for.
- To invoice us as an independent contractor and look after your own tax and statutory contributions.

HOW TO APPLY

Three parts, about twenty minutes. We read every application that includes all three, and we do not read the ones that do not.

1. Your CV.

2. A video introduction, about two minutes, answering both of the questions below in a single unedited take. Please do not script it - we would rather hear you think than hear you read.

a. A performer you recruited has cancelled on the morning of a client's event. Talk us through your first ten minutes.

b. A client has a quote for $1,200 and says that is more than they budgeted. Talk us through how you would respond, as if you were on the call.

3. In writing, no more than 300 words: tell us about one person you hired who worked out well, and one sale you nearly lost and then won. What did you do in each? Finish with one line on which AI tool you use most, and what for.

If you are shortlisted, we will do a short exercise together: we give you our full price list to read for twenty minutes, then ask you ten questions on it with the document closed, and finish with a mock follow-up call. It is all done live in the one session - there is nothing to take away and complete.