Weekly Newspaper View

1. You could not avoid the biggest story of the week in the UK press. John Terry, now the ex England football captain, had his private life plastered all over the red tops (a bit of a problem for somebody who plays for the blues) and speculation and intrigue followed before his 12 minute meeting with Fabio Capello and his dismissal.

The serious question here for all HR Managers and business owners is what would you do if this type of situation arose in your workplace. Of course, there are no easy answers and I'm not here to pontificate on the morals of a footballer. What would you do?

There are employment law considerations in deciding what to do and you have to consider the impact on the organisation.

2. Ever wanted a job worth £15m just for joining the organisation? Some might say that Marc Bolland, the new Chief Executive of Marks and Spencers has done that. Nice work if you can get it.

3. And that really confirms the jobs that are the high earners. Chief Executive posts and Managing Directors are at number one in the Pay Charts announced this week.

The worst job as far as pay is concerned is a Nursery Nurse.

4. This week British Airways announced a smaller than expected pre-tax loss of £50million in the 3 months to December 2009. All this is with the spectre of industrial disputes looming large so although the financial report is good, the organisation is not in a mood for saying things are looking better.

Now for some US news,

5. The US economy looks to be in recovery but a major problem exists with the number of long termed unemployed doubling in the last 12 months.

And now for some Russian news.

6. The Russian economy has shrunk by 7.9% in 2009, but 2010 should see a return to growth. Yes it was less bad than forecast but still reflected the worst annual result for 15 years.

Oh and Yes we might as well involve Religion.

7. Earlier this week Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that he would be visiting the UK in 2010, the first papal visit since 1982 when John Paul came to these lands. Controversially the Pope criticised the UK equality legislation and lo and behold the Government has decided to ditch its legislative wishes on anti-discrimination law.

8. Hopefully we have seen the last of the bad weather and the snow and ice problems have gone for this year. But, in what might be seen as a moment of unusual madness, the HMRC said that the snow can be used as an excuse for late postings of this years returns. Therefore, you could save yourself £100 if you use this get out clause.

9. How often do we English speakers say how wonderful it is that other people same to be able to speak so many languages and we stick to English because we perceive it as the "language of business"? Well now we hear that Google are looking to launch a translator phone. Yes, you read correctly. A phone that will immediately translate is around two years away and is the next step on from where PC's currently can translate for you. Watch this space.

(c) Iain Williamson 7.2.10

Sunday News Update

You don't have time to read all the newspapers on your lazy Sunday, so let me do it for you. Here are some quick snatches of information for you, so you can spend the time today the way you want to. Its a round up of business news for you.

1. The Pharmaceutical world looks like it is having a difficult time on the jobs front with both GSK and AstraZeneca potentially cutting jobs. 12000 jobs in total at risk.

2. It's the 31st January and a very important day in the tax calendar. Get your online assessment completed today or else the Taxman will be unhappy. Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has warned taxpayers not to respond to the "phishing" email which is doing the rounds today, otherwise your bank account might be a little bit empty sooner rather than later.

3. I hope this is good news for me having recently tied the knot with Roksolana. Married men earn nearly one third more than single men. Yippee, we say. And they also earn 4% more than men who live with their partners.

4. The City of London has lost 10% of its most senior financiers over the last two years. Redundancy, early retirements and insolvencies account for that figure. Wow. That's a big hit, however unsympathetic you might feel for them.

5. Managerial and professional women are drinking an average of 10.2 units per week which is more than a bottle of wine. This compares unfavourably with manual workers who drink 6.5 units.

(C) Iain Williamson 31.1.10

Interview - The Pre Interview Stage Tips

I promised to give you some thoughts on how you can best prepare for your interview after that great CV has done its job. It's now time to take you through the first stage.

In my mind, your interview preparation should start the moment that you know that you have secured an interview. The more preparation you do then hopefully that will translate into you feeling more comfortable when you get to the interview.

There are several areas that will help you with the Pre-Interview Stage. I remember when I first started out on the job trail, far too many years ago for me to remember, finding information out about a company was extremely difficult. Can you remember life without the Internet?

So there you go, Tip Number One. Use the Internet and find out about the Company. Go to their Website and read it closely. Of course, depending on the job that you are applying for there will be some parts of the site that will give you more detail than other parts. You will need to look at finances, areas of operation, recent news, staff development opportunities, strategies, visions and values, etc.

But the Internet can also give you more information about the Company. So perhaps use a search engine, such as Google and Yahoo, and pick up the latest news about the organisation. You might even want to set up a news alert - that way you will be really up to date with company information at interview and can commend your interviewer on the fact that the company has just won a big contract, or has just announced its best profits ever, etc.

More and more nowadays, networking websites are becoming popular. So consider the business networking websites such as LinkedIn or Plaxo. (Note: There are other business networking sites available) As well as letting you build up your own personal network, very often they will give you some details about organisations and employees - you might even find out something about the person who is going to interview you!!! Use it to your advantage.

You might know somebody who already works for the organisation, or have a friend who knows somebody - use them to get some inside information.

From all that information that you garner, make sure you lace it through your answers to questions at interviews or refer to it during your opportunity to ask questions. Doing this makes the interviewer see you in the good light where you know a lot about the business and seem really interested in getting this role.

And Tip Number Two. If you haven't already got it, get a copy of the job description and person specification if you can. If you have them you can start to prepare how you will describe at interview how you fit that role. You have probably not done all of the job, as described in the job description but start to formulate the evidence from your previous history that will show you have the competences to take on the challenges of this role.

Think of the questions that you could be asked at the interview and "prepare" your answers. Of course, you won't ever get that exact question but if you have a battery of answers up your sleeve all you need to do is mix and match. This will also help you to relax at the interview because in advance you have a good idea of the areas you are going to cover and what you will say.

Coming up now, Tip Number Three. Just the same as you will be asked questions, you also will be given the opportunity to ask questions. So make sure you do, and make them really intelligent questions that will highlight your competences for the job and also make the recruiter think positively about you.

So you might ask about your development opportunities because you have read the detail about The XXX Company Academy and how it trains its employees; or you might ask about how your performance will be measured and against what Key Performance Indicators. If you've done your homework you will also know about the competitors in their business sector, so maybe there's a question on that.

Tip Number Four is obvious but sometimes candidates forget it. Know what is in your Curriculum Vitae. Anything you have written in the CV is fair game for questioning. So know the things you claim to have done and specifically remember those numbers. And remember when you were at which companies.

Tip Number Five is about managing your stress levels. Get a good nights sleep before the interview and leave lots of time to get to the interview. However, you get there make sure it is in plenty of time so you can re-read all your information that you have gathered. From personal experience, don't always trust your Sat Nav to take you to the right place!!! Fortunately, I was staying in a hotel overnight so it was not a problem getting to the interview on time - just imagine what it would have been like if I was lost and the interview was starting soon.

However strong you might feel about it, my personal opinion is that you should not smoke just prior to going in to the interview, even if it feels like it calms your nerves. The smell of the smoke may be offputting. I know it won't influence the final decision but you want NO negatives.

And yes, it's the same advice for taking an alcoholic drink before the interview.In the next edition I am going to talk about the interview itself and how best to deal with that. I want you to get that job.

(c) Iain Williamson 30.1.10

Eurozone Unemployment

Just as the UK has recently reported good news on the unemployment front, it has been reported that unemployment in the Eurozone has increased to 15.8 million, 10% in December 2009. This is the unemployment rate for the 16 countries that use the Euro; across all 27 countries of the European Union unemployment stands at 23 million.

It seems that we will continue to see that upward trend so where do you not want to be in Europe?

Avoid Latvia. Can you believe that the unemployment rate there stands at 22.8%? Yes, that's right nearly a quarter of the active population are unemployed. Latvia is in the European Union but does not use the Euro. Spain, which does use the Euro currency scores badly as well at a rate of 19.5%.

The Netherlands at 4% and Austria at 5.4% seem to be the lands of the fortunate reporting the lowest figures.

(c) Iain Williamson 29.1.10

Out of Recession?

The UK economy has come out of recession, the last of the major economies so to do. Germany and France came out of recession last summer and the USA and Japan followed later in the year. Reversing the last six consecutive quarters of contraction - the worst record since measurement began in 1955 - figures of 0.1% growth in the last 3 months of 2009 were actually weaker than expected.

But there have been recent signs pointing to this. Last week we saw unemployment fall for the first time in 18 months.

How best to summarise this? I would suggest that we should be cautiously optimistic but would still expect 2010 to be a long and difficult year for the UK. Certainly we will see recovery but when you recognise that the pound is still struggling in the markets and the effects of quantitative easing are taken into account, as well as the other government economic and banking support to the country, it is clear that we still have a long way to go.

The fact that we have a General Election on the horizon (possibly 6th May) to look forward to does probably not help. All political parties to some degree or other are suggesting that we will see financial cuts in public sector eexpenditure. So, without trying to scaremonger, is this the spectre of job cuts in the public sector? The private sector took the hits during the last recession and maybe now it is the turn of the public sector.

I think we've got a long way to go yet before we can finally see a real upturn in production, job availabilty and some overall economic stability.

(c) Iain Williamson 26.1.10

Unemployment Rates

Well there is some good news on the employment front. Unexpectedly the number of people unemployed in the UK has fallen for the first time in 18 months. The Unemployment rate stands at 7.8%, down from 7.9% reported the previous month.

But that figure hides the fact that there has been an increase in people taking on part time work - the view being that it is better to be in some form of work rather than doing nothing at all. Another issue is that in the current climate there appears to be a willingness in the recession for workers to take a reduction in their pay and maybe even a reduction in working hours rather than lose their job completely.

Vacancies being advertised is up by more than 16000 in comparison to the previous 3 month period but even that is significantly down on the activity of a year ago.

So are we starting to see more green shoots of recovery. I certainly hope so.

(C) Iain Williamson 24.1.10

Interview Preparation - An Introduction

In the last few blogs I have been helping you to prepare your CV and getting it in the format that will provide the best opportunity for you to get an interview. There is no doubt that with the current ongoing recession and so many people being on the job market, either as a result of being out of work or the simple fact that they want to move on, it has never been more important to get that professional Curriculum Vitae which will generate interviews for you in the light of that heightened competition level.

So the CV gets you an interview - what do you do next? In this blog I will talk you through the thorough preparation you need to do to make sure that you can stand out from what is now a much smaller crowd - but it's still a crowd!!!

There are three stages for the interview process for you to contend with and prepare to deal with. These are simply as follows:-

Stage 1. Pre - interview
Stage 2. At interview, and
Stage 3. Post interview.

Each are vital for you because maybe even one lapse might be the point at which you lose that job offer. With each of the stages, you must learn and build for the next stage. Passing or crossing each of these hurdles means that you are closer to your wish of that "dream" job.

And you have to get over each of the hurdles if you are going to get the job offer and the new environment you crave.

I want to take you through each of these stages and help you as much as I can.

Of course, there is also the scenario whereby you may need to go through a series of interviews and maybe even attend an assessment centre. It doesn't sound easy, and it isn't, but with preparation you can make each of these stages as low stress for you as possible.

In the next blog, I will help you prepare for Stage 1 - Pre Interview. It will be full of invaluable tips and help for you to gather before you even get to meet the recruiter.

(c) Iain Williamson 24.1.10