The Work Clinic

50 things NOT to do at a job interview

2010-03-18T11:34:27Z

Spotted this on Yahoo! earlier - I've tweaked some of the language to make it more relevant to a UK audience, but otherwise it's all the work of Karen Burns (see below). Hard to believe that people are actually this stupid ...

1. Arriving late.

2. Arriving too early.

3. Lighting up a cigarette, or smelling like a cigarette.

4. Bad-mouthing your last boss.

5. Lying about your skills/experience/knowledge.

6. Wearing the wrong (for this workplace!) clothes.

7. Forgetting the name of the person you're interviewing with.

8. Wearing a ton of perfume or aftershave.

9. Wearing sunglasses.

10. Wearing a Bluetooth earpiece.

11. Failing to research the employer in advance.

12. Failing to demonstrate enthusiasm.

13. Inquiring about benefits too soon.

14. Talking about salary requirements too soon.

15. Being unable to explain how your strengths and abilities apply to the job in question.

16. Failing to make a strong case for why you are the best person for this job.

17. Forgetting to bring a copy of your CV and/or portfolio.

18. Failing to remember what you wrote on your own CV.

19. Asking too many questions.

20. Asking no questions at all.

21. Being unprepared to answer the standard questions.

22. Failing to listen carefully to what the interviewer is saying.

23. Talking more than half the time.

24. Interrupting your interviewer.

25. Neglecting to match the communication style of your interviewer.

26. Yawning.

27. Slouching.

28. Bringing along a friend, or your mother.

29. Chewing gum, tobacco, your pen, your hair.

30. Laughing, giggling, whistling, humming, lip-smacking.

31. Saying "you know," "like," "I guess," and "um."

32. Name-dropping or bragging or sounding like a know-it-all.

33. Asking to use the bathroom.

34. Being falsely or exaggeratedly modest.

35. Shaking hands too weakly, or too firmly.

36. Failing to make eye contact (or making continuous eye contact).

37. Taking a seat before your interviewer does.

38. Becoming angry or defensive.

39. Complaining that you were kept waiting.

40. Complaining about anything!

41. Speaking rudely to the receptionist.

42. Letting your nervousness show.

43. Overexplaining why you lost your last job.

44. Being too familiar and jokey.

45. Sounding desperate.

46. Checking the time.

47. Oversharing.

48. Sounding rehearsed.

49. Leaving your mobile phone on.

50. Failing to ask for the job.

Karen Burns is the author of the illustrated career advice book The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use, recently released by Running Press. She blogs at www.karenburnsworkinggirl.com.

Long commute's days are numbered

2010-03-17T08:41:44Z

We all love to whinge about our commute - personally, I like to reminiscence about the year I spent in Vienna, where my journey to the office involved a leisurely 20 minute wander through the Imperial Palace. But finally, it seems some of us are doing something about the daily trek.

reallymoving.com has found that proximity to work is the top priority for house hunters, with 58% giving this as the key factor in choosing where they live.

Oddly - as we don't subscribe to gender stereotyping on Work Clinic - the survey also found that men are more likely than women to say an easy commute is the most important factor when house-hunting. Make of that what you will.

Rosemary Rogers of reallymoving.com says "The UK has the longest working hours in Europe, and being able to get to their workplace easily is increasingly becoming a priority for the nation's home movers."

Hmmm - I guess the authors of the survey haven't seen the packed trains heading in and out of London's stations recently ...

HR mishandles redundancy, say jobseekers

2010-03-16T11:40:10Z

One in three jobseekers believe the HR department of their previous employer mishandled their redundancy, according to a survey.

Findings from the survey, by careerplan4.me, which provides jobseeking support for professionals, include:

29% of respondents rated the handling of their redundancy as poor
22% of their ex-employers didn't have an HR department
Just over half were given no extra support
Just 20% were given outplacement services

Careerplan4.me's Richard Banks said: "Far too many HR departments aren't rising to the challenge of carrying out redundancies as well as possible, which potentially leaves those made redundant with damaging views about the organisation. Redundancy survivors may also dislike the way colleagues have been treated. It's a PR disaster waiting to happen."

List-making - a thing of beauty

2010-03-08T10:20:07Z

I love making lists. So much so that - nerd that I am - I carry around a little notebook full of to-do lists. It's less about control, more about a poor memory - and the sad fact that I just like ticking things off when I've done them.

So I was delighted to spot this BBC article 'The art of list-making'. I particularly liked this statement: "Psychologists say that obsessive compulsive list makers are trying to create an illusion of control in otherwise chaotic lives."

I'm not sure I agree - it certainly won't stop me making lists - but read the article and decide for yourself.

How to say no to extra work

2010-02-17T15:05:44Z

Spotted this useful article in the Guardian's Work supplement at the weekend. Here are a few pointers, but if you have time, read it in full.

Question whether the work involved is to your advantage
Go back to working a 40 (or 35 - whatever's in your contract) hour week
Come up with clever ways to say no

DON'T

Go to meetings you don't need to be at
Try to do everything
Discuss work with people face-to-face or over the phone (it's easier to say no by e-mail)

Video: management must change to embrace home-working

2010-02-10T16:12:15Z

Panto fun at PwC

2010-01-28T12:41:03Z

Sequins, thigh-slapping, and innuendos aren't usually associated with professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), but it was high camp all the way at last night's panto.

Bizarrely, it was my first panto, so I approached it with some hesitance and not a little trepidation. But within 10 minutes I was singing along and within 20 I was shouting 'she's behind you' with the best of them.

And what a panto. Who knew that Cinderella sang Amy Winehouse numbers, that one of the seven dwarves was French (and one Welsh), or that Cinders' childhood nurse, Dame Doitall (pictured) had access to Madonna's wardrobe (namely the gold conical Jean-Paul Gaultier bra).

It had it all - familiar songs, sharp dance routines, great costumes, clever sets and gusto by the bucketful.

The only thing missing was a list of job titles on the programme - I would love to have known what those dwarves did for a living. Accountant, economist, auditor?

This was PwC's 24th panto season. And while the performers and stage-hands are all staff, the audience included 5,000 under 10-year-olds, drawn from inner city schools and charities across London.

I've already asked for an invitation for next year's ...

Young lured to City

2010-01-26T12:00:06Z

You've got to feel sorry for young people today. First no one wanted to employ. Now they're being targeted by the pariah of the business world - financial services. What have they done to deserve this?!

The National Skills Academy for Financial Services (NSAFS) is apparently urging financial services employers looking for new staff to target school leavers currently finishing their 'A' levels. They opens up a real can of worms:

Lack of qualifications and experience. Look at the mess the industry got itself into with qualified staff ...

Reward discrepancies. Presumably the industry plans to pay these poor fools a pittance while still shelling out huge amounts for senior staff?

The long run. Are they going to regret this? While the organisations involved may well come to regret hiring inexperienced staff, the young people concerned may very well look back and regret missing out on a university education ...

Save for maybe making the government look a tiny bit better, this is destined to be another one of those sticking plaster over a gaping wound schemes that will fade away in a year or two ... hopefully.

Blue Monday - or is it?

2010-01-18T10:26:01Z

Today is meant to be the most depressing day of the year - the day when post-Christmas credit card bills arrive, daylight is scarce and we have 73 days to trudge through until the next bank holiday.

I reckon that's rubbish. The sun is shining, there's no ice to slip and slide over on the way to work, and the folks at iOpener have come up with 10 tips for being happy at work.

Greet everyone you see as you arrive: that way you'll feel connected to your colleagues.
Do something difficult. Everyone feels good about themselves when they meet a challenge.
Put things in proportion.
Show a close colleague some appreciation. It's all too easy to forget to thank people.
Think about the differences you make to others, including your family, just by being at work and doing your job well.
Make active choices about what you do and when. Composing a to-do list in an order you find important can increase your sense of control.
Phone a friend. It's always good to share and connect with people outside work.
Write down the parts of the job you really like: think about how you might get more out of them.
Volunteer to do something you wouldn't normally do. You'll get a lot of appreciation and you might learn something new.
Revist your main new year's resolution. Take one small step towards meeting it.

Guardian journalists try out their dream jobs

2010-01-04T11:24:53Z

You'd think that being a Guardian journalist would be their dream job, but apparently not - the paper's columnists have leapt at the chance to spend a day trying out their dream jobs. Read the article to see whether a taste of reality puts an end to their hankering.

Friday funny - 1950s US airforce recruitment ad

2009-12-18T09:18:49Z

Friday funny - Monty Python job interview

2009-12-11T09:06:43Z

Skilled workers - Canada needs you!

2009-12-10T08:47:12Z

The Canadian government has said that it will welcome between 240,000 and 265,000 new residents in 2010, and is particularly keen to recruit skilled workers. Most in demand are:

Plumbers
Welders
Nurses
Physiotherapists

Canada so urgently needs people skilled in these and a further 34 trades that the government is offering applicants priority visa processing. Those accepted could be working in Canada within months of starting the application process.

Among those in demand:

Crane operators
Chefs
Accountants
Pipefitters
IT experts
Mining engineers

Alas, no mention of journalists ...

Small businesses refuse to go green

2009-12-09T11:45:10Z

According to a survey produced by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, going green is no longer a priority for small businesses.

The survey asked what factors would influence a company's decision to 'go green' - oddly, one in 10 respondents said that they wouldn't opt for green products, even if they were cheaper and more convenient than the alternative.

Inexplicably, companies in the east of England are least likely to use environmentally-friendly products, with almost a quarter (22.5%) saying that nothing would persuade them to use green products or services - how bizarre.

Rob Ingram, director of business rental at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, said: "The unwillingness of such a substantial portion of UK businesses to go green could well have a detrimental effect on their businesses as a whole."

What the survey didn't mention was what proportion of big companies have stuck to their environmental guns, now that the economy is on the skids.

Surprising literacy findings

2009-12-04T08:37:00Z

So much for us oldies whingeing about the amount of time youngsters 'waste' on social networking.

According to the National Literacy Trust, children who blog, text or us social networking have better writing skills than those who do not.

The organisation surveyed more than 3000 children aged between 9 and 16, and found:

24% had their own blog
82% sent text messages at least once a month
73% used instant messaging

But, encouragingly, 77% still write, mainly to do schoolwork.

National Literacy Trust director Jonathan Douglas told the BBC: "Our research suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing."

He added: "Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing short stories, letters, song lyrics or diaries."

While this is all good stuff, there remains the worrying truth that not all children have access to computers, or indeed someone to encourage them to blog. It looks like fair access to the professions may have some way to go.