The Work Clinic

Casanova was Italian, Don Juan was Spanish, the Marquis de Sade was French. There's a reason for the absence of British names from that list. As a nation, Britain has traditionally lagged behind in the love stakes. But it sounds as if that is about to change ....

A study commissioned by recruitment scoring website hirescores.com has found that almost one in five British workers would rather have sex with their boss for a quick promotion than undertake the drawn out process of working hard.

While 26% claim they would kiss the boss for an automatic promotion, 17% said they would consider it if the money was right.

According to Lisette Howlett, managing director of HireScores.com, "Working your way up the career ladder can seem like a daunting task but with ambition and dedication, impressing your manager can come naturally, without the need for underhand tactics.

"If a little bit of commitment and some overtime puts people off that much, then maybe their current career path is not the right one for them."

The survey also found that 39% of Brits would choose to work their way up the ladder by working hard, with long hours and no guarantee of a promotion or pay rise.

Howlett says "Unfortunately it is also very common for people to work extremely hard to impress their manager but feel as though they aren't being rewarded for their efforts. If this is the case I recommend arranging a meeting where you can discuss the potential for career progression.

"As an employee you have the right to know what career prospects the company has to offer you - and what skills and behaviours you need to demonstrate to ensure a successful career.  Asking about career opportunities at interview is a first step but it is only once you are established in the role and company than you can really evaluate the opportunities and prepare yourself for success." 

All rather alarming, and more than a little stomach-churning, if you ask me.

Hi, I am Jessica Haslam and I have joined the team at Personnel Today for a week's work experience. I am studying media along with English, information communication technology (ICT) and psychology at my 6th form (at Carshalton High School for Girls) and have found media to be my favourite. This is what made me decide to do my work experience at Personnel Today. During this work experience I would like to...

·        get an idea of what working in this industry involves as well as gain experience and confidence.

·        have an idea on whether this is the right career choice for me.

·        improve my writing, ICT, and media skills so that it may benefit me in my second year of 6th form.

·        gain a clearer idea of an office working environment and see whether it is the right option for me.

·        see first hand how the magazine industry works instead of just hearing about it through my studies.

·        get a nice break from school work and exams, and enjoy a different type of work.

I will be writing another blog at the end of the week and hope to have achieved at least some of this rather than being put off of this career. I am really looking forward to the rest of this week and have a feeling I will be kept nice and busy!

  Arthur Dent, hapless hero of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, believed that 42 was the answer to "life, the universe, and everything." But perhaps not quite everything. According to a survey by YouGov, the average at which people feel totally confident and comfortable about their skills at work is 37 - after 30,000 hours in the job .... You'd like to think that they'd got it right by then.

And, more depressing still, we are unlikely to feel fulfilled at work until we hit 50. But, on a more positive note, it seems that Britain's oldies are now more entrepreneurial than ever. So much so that a new word has been coined to describe them - olderpreneurs.

According to the survey,

• 85% of the population do not intend to stop work altogether post retirement age
• 33% want to continue in full-time work post retirement age
• 31% want to carry on in a similar role but on their own terms
• 8% want to start a business in retirement

Commenting on the findings, John Lawson of financial services organisation Standard Life said: " People do not get old like they used to. The Baby Boomers started a trend for redefining what is effectively their 'third age', and these findings point to a continued trend for re-writin the rule book for younger generations."

What they've failed to point out is that, these days, few of us can afford to stop work post-retirement.

Hi, I am Jessica.  At the beginning of the week I wrote a blog about what I wanted to achieve at the end of my week's work experience.  Today is my last day and I have really enjoyed my time at Personnel Today, I feel this week has been really beneficial to me and I have finally managed to decide that this is the career path that I want to follow.

This work experience has definitely given me an idea of what working in this industry involves. It has helped me improve my English and media skills, but most of all I think it has helped me improve my ICT skills. Before I started this work experience I had never used an Apple Mac, now I have managed to use one to create professional looking feature pages. It has helped me realise that I should not drop ICT as a subject at school and if I cannot keep all four of my subjects then I may be better off dropping psychology.

This work experience has also helped me realise that I don't mind working in an office environment and can work well without getting bored or distracted. Lastly I have really enjoyed this break from school, I am dreading having to go back to school and sit listening to my teachers lecturing me about exams and coursework.

I have had a great experience here, and everyone has been very friendly and helpful, I want to say thank you to everyone who has helped me get the most out of this placement, especially Tara. I will definitely go away recommending this placement to anyone who is in the same situation I was before I took it up.

With little sign of the recession letting up, a growing number of professionals are putting together a Plan B. Uncertain of their long-term career security, they continue with their jobs while plotting alternative work.

Plan B-ers, as they will no doubt soon be known, are secretly enrolling in evening classes, taking online courses, writing up business plans and approaching potential backers as they try to prepare for a new career. And it's not a case of not enjoying their current work - they simply can't rely on it continuing long-term.

According to John Gnuschke of the University of Memphis: "This is what we expect to see in times of recession. People can't count on a single employer or even a single industry anymore. If you're lucky enough to still have a job, it's wise to begin to retrain and to broaden your skill base."

While that's all well and good, what about the new graduates trying to get into the areas that these second-chancers have earmarked for themselves?

totaljobs.com, sister site of Personnel Today (making it, perhaps, Work Clinic's cousin?) has launched the Career Doctor blog. Visit it for expert advice on everything from how to create a winning CV to the implications on your career of the current economic climate,

The CIPD's quarterly Employee Outlook Survey, published this week, has found that we are so worried about job security that we are staying put in jobs that we would happily have abandoned in a better economic climate.

Claire McCartney, talent and resourcing adviser at the CIPD, says:

"What is striking is the high proportion of people wanting to change sector or even change their line of work altogether. Concerns over job security and finding new work are prompting people to re-think their career aspirations and ambitions. This will also have a big impact on trends in the labour market".

While surveys like this are all well and good, the old cynic in me asks whether it was really necessary to go to such great effort and expense just to hear what we all already know, that we're too scared to move.

It used to be that any sign of emotion at work was a career-killer, particularly for women, who were expected to act like men if they wanted to climb the corporate ladder.

But these days, a decade after the death of Princess Diana and the ridiculous outpouring of grief it prompted, blubbing in the office is accepted, and even, in certain circumstances, de rigueur.

Experts say this is due to the proliferation of Generation Y employees. They've been brought up to show - and share - their emotions, regarding the traditional stiff upper lip as old-fashioned and unhealthily repressed.

So is it - or isn't it - ok to cry at work? I think it depends on the circumstances. If a colleague has been bereaved, immediate, public tears are both natural and acceptable. But if they're crying over something to do with work, or something colleagues would regard as relatively trivial, it would be best to find somewhere more private.

So take yourself off for a coffee or a quick burst of fresh air, and get it out of your system. Whatever Gen Y might think. sobbing over your keyboard (apart from the risk of electrocuting yourself) will mark you out as overly emotional and possibly less capable of doing your job.

Scrolling around Twitter recently, I spotted a link to an interesting blog on phrases not to have on your CV. Some of them are a bit 'American', but the advice is good.

Check it out.

Trina Thompson, 27, has filed a law suit against Monroe College. She is seeking the £42,000 she spent on course fees.

Thompson has been unable to find work since completing her information technology degree in April, and claims that the college failed to provide her with the promised leads and career advice.

Monroe College says that the lawsuit is without merit, and that it helps its graduates find jobs.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of this particular situation, shouldn't it be up to Thompson to find a job for herself? Surely a 27 year old graduate has sufficient initiative - she's shown plenty, alas, of the wrong kind, in launching this court case ....

Pre-employment screeners Powerchex have published their latest annual survey of CV discrepancies in the financial sector (they don't say how these compare with other, less 'creative' sectors ...). To summarise their findings:

• 19% of candidates' CVs include discrepancies - the highest level in three years
• Nearly all kinds of financial sector companies saw an increase in discrepancies. The largest increase was in the IT sector
• Brokers have a disproportionately large number of applicants with hidden criminal records
• There has been a six-fold spike in the proportion of candidates with undisclosed bankruptcies since last year
• Women were more likely than men to have a discepancy on their CV
• There has been a sharp increase in the number of under 21 year olds with discrepancies on their CVs
• Candidates educated in the state sector are 25% more likely to lie on their CV than the privately educated
• University graduates are more honest than non-graduates
• The better the university a candidate has attended, the less likely they are to lie on their CV

Taken separately, few of these findings would give much cause for thought. But read through in a single sitting, they do seem to point to the fact that it is those already at a disadvantage in the workplace - women and the poorly educated - who feel they have to lie to get on. Particularly in the tradition-bound, misogynistic world of the City.

Someone I know has spent the last few years working for a reputable bank (yes, they do exist), only to see it bought by one of the, for want of a better word, 'dodgy ones'.

It got me wondering - how do you protect your own professional brand if you suddenly find yourself working for a company that you would not have actively chosen to join? Particularly one that is less professional than you are?

I asked a panel of experts for some tips on protecting your personal brand - here's what they came up with.

Last week's A level results prompted the usual photos of leggy lovelies getting the grades they needed to get to the university of their choice, but it's not all about the students. What does the business world need of its graduate recruits? Are students studying subjects that will make them employable, or just opting for the easiest, or most entertaining, course?

According to the CBI, more people need to study maths beyond GCSE level, although the number of students completing A-level maths this year has risen 12% to 72,475. The organisation welcomed this increase, but said that around 85% of young people still give up studying formal maths beyond GCSE in England. In contrast, two thirds of students in France continue studying maths after 16.

Susan Anderson, the CBI's director of education and skills, said:

"Young people need to know that certain subjects - like maths and science - are highly prized by employers. Britain needs more people coming out of school, college and university with maths as part of their skills armoury. Maths gives young people confidence with numbers, a good grasp of statistics and problem-solving abilities. These are skills that people take with them through life and which make a real difference to their long-term career prospects".

Maths facts:

• Currently, only 9% of A-level entries are in maths, and less than half of those getting top A and A* grades in maths GCSE go on to do an A-level in the subject.

• A recent survey conducted by YouGov for the CBI shows 31% of graduates are not confident about their numeracy, and 34% felt that they would have benefited from further maths education at school. Among sixth formers, 26% were not confident about their maths and among undergraduates this was 30%.

• Half of employers are dissatisfied with the basic numeracy skills of school leavers, and a fifth are dissatisfied with graduates' numeracy skills, according to the CBI's latest employment trends survey.

• People with maths and science skills are in demand. Almost all firms, across all sectors, employ people with science, technology, engineering and maths qualifications.

• People with maths and science skills earn more. Starting salaries for science sector jobs can be as much as £32,000, putting them in the top 20% of starting salaries. People who did maths A-level earn around 10% more over their lifetime than those who did not.

Coaching, consulting and training company Krauthammer is building up a European dashboard of management dimensions. The company is researching the behaviour employees want from their managers, such as the way managers "encourage them to express their ideas" or "identify their talent". Of the 27 behavioural areas surveyed, two practices rank top of the list of most wanted, year after year:

• 95% would like their manager to analyse their work problems with them.
  
• 80% would want their manager to admit their mistakes spontaneously

And the rest of the top ten most wanted behaviours:

•  83% would want their manager to give them autonomy when delegating
•  81% would expect their manager to consider their personal development when delegating
•  80% would expect their manager to let them finish explaining their ideas and encourage them to continue
  80% would like their manager to involve them in dilemmas, inventorising, solving problems
• 80% would like their manager to encourage them to find a common solution in conflict situation
• 80% would like their manager to use 360 degree feedback to evaluate their talents
• 79% would like their manager to involve them when defining their development objectives
• 75% would like their managers to praise their good results and efforts

Krauthammer also investigated the commitment levels of employees, their job satisfaction and what they consider when deciding whether or not to remain in their current organisation.

Only 16% of people are finding the business pressure difficult to bear, 41% are feeling neutral and 43% even report that the pressure is very much or totally tolerable. And when it comes to employee commitment and job satisfaction, only 41% are very committed to remaining in their organisations over the next 12 months, whilst 27% are neutral or even uncommitted.

According to the survey, employees seem more interested in the content of their current job, and fairly relaxed about job security. Salary matters, but is not a primary motivator.

It's a tenuous link indeed, but having stayed in the hotel next door to the Chicago Tribune building, I have a soft spot for the paper. So much so that, despite knowing nothing about local Illinois news, I follow the Tribune on Twitter.

So finding something relevant to this blog meant that I could at last justify my devotion ...

Read blogger Mary Schmich's helpful list of lessons learnt over the course of her career.

 The Brits have long been known for their conviction that speaking loudly and slowly in English - often with grossly over-exaggerated gestures - is the same as speaking foreign languages. But it appears that, in the world of business, the ruse (laziness?) has finally backfired.

Research by Cardiff Business School  has found that improving languages could add an extra £21bn to the UK economy and that export businesses using language skills boost their sales by 45%. At the same time, fewer and fewer young people are applying for university language courses.

The National Centre for Languages (CILT) wants languages to be treated as strategically significant subjects in the same way that science and maths have been championed.

CILT chief executive Kathryn Board says: "English is one of the great global languages but it will only take us so far. Our engagement with the non-English speaking world will remain superficial and one-sided unless we develop our capacity in other languages."

What to do? Is it maybe time that those thousands of unemployed teenagers were sent out to learn something that might just possibly be of use?  

According to the Inspirational Development Group (IDG), 67% of graduates will change jobs as soon as the economy starts to pick up.

IDG's study examined the perceptions of graduate value and retention issues among a sample of HR and graduate managers in the private and public sectors across the UK.

Key findings include:

• 57% felt that there was more they could do to retain these graduates - the ability to identify and retain the right graduates will be a crucial success factor as the economy comes out of recession
• 78% of HR managers agreed or agreed strongly that a specific development programme to increase retention of graduates one year after the end of their graduate programme would be of benefit
• While some respondents stated that graduate programmes had been scaled down, the majority of HR managers viewed stopping schemes altogether as a mistake that would lead to a disproportionate gap in the talent pipeline amongst new graduates

Careers website Graduate Prospects surveyed 24,500 graduates across the UK for their views on employers, based on actual experiences, rather than their perceptions pre-employment.

According to their findings, graduates seeking well-paid positions, with good training opportunities, in environmentally sound organisations, should be looking in the following places: 

Corporate social responsibility

• Accenture
• Waitrose
• DLA Piper UK
• Pinsent Masons
• GSK

Training and development

• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
• Explore Learning
• Cancer Research UK
• DLA Piper
• Pinsent Masons

Pay and benefits package

• Sellafield
• Baker & McKenzie
• Bruckhaus

Organisational leadership and senior management

• Explore Learning
• Intel

Support, supervision and progression

• Foreign & Commonwealth Office
• Explore Learning
• The Bank of England

Recruitment and induction

• Pinsent Masons
• DLA Piper
• Baker & McKenzie
• Explore Learning
• Cancer Research UK

Mike Hill, chief executive of Graduate Prospects says: "When we launched the Real Prospects survey, we wanted to paint a true picture of graduate working life, so it was vital that the study explored all areas of employment. The findings deliver great insight into which companies perform well in key areas, so if you're a student or graduate thinking about where you'd like to work it will help you to make more informed decisions."

 
I don't know ... when I was a graduate, we had to work out these things for ourselves ....

Sandy Cotter, a psychologist and visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management, says that it's possible to gauge someone's personality simply by looking at them - alarming news for anyone preparing for a job interview. Cotter has identified 5 main personality types, and has even outlined suitable jobs for each type:

Magical

Traits: creative, deep thinkers who are often good with money. Motivated by ideas rather than results.

Examples: Einstein, Richard Branson.

Jobs: Scientists, research and development, IT, design, innovative or creative roles. 

Romantics

Consumer journalist Tony Levene, writing in the Guardian about the dangers of scam job websites, has come up with a list of warning signs:

Sites that direct you to others

1. Vague details of employers
2. Advertised salaries that are higher than you would expect
3. A list of impressive skills required followed by 'no experience needed'
4. Bad grammar or spelling
5. An e-mail address that does not include the company's name
6. Disclaimers, such as 'these firms are now recruiting', accompanied by an impressive logo. (They may be recruiting - but not necessarily through this site)

Don't, says Levene:

• Give your date or place of birth
• Mention your marital status
• Give your middle name
• Give out your postal address

And remember - if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

While most of us are just happy to have a job, The Work Foundation has taken a brave stance by insisting that UK plc needs 'good' jobs.

What do they mean by good jobs? Well, they should involve the employee being valued and appreciated, and should provide interest and fulfillment, job satisfaction, autonomy, decent working conditions, good morale and teamwork, effective management and staff development. Quite a tall order, by anyone's standards ...

But according to The Work Foundation, poor quality of jobs can at least partly explain many persisentent workplace issues, including sickness absence, poor retention, low levels of motivation and difficulties hiring the right people.

Stephen Bevan, managing director, The Work Foundation, said: "As organisations prepare for recovery after the recession, the need for the government to take a lead in supporting employers to tackle the root causes of lost productivity and ill-health will become more and more acute."

Bevan added: "We need one centralised body with a clear identity and a clear remit to work in partnership with employers to crack many of the UK's persistent job quality problems."

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 ...

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.

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.

Workplace expert Richard Donkin earlier this week likened the HR profession to supporters of Milwall football club.

According to Donkin, HR is disliked by the other functions. He compared HR with Milwall fans on account of the latter's infamous chant "Nobody likes us, and we don't care". Donkin also blamed the function for "lots of dreary management speak". Perhaps most scathing of all was his insistence that HR has an issue with its status, and an obsession with being on the board. He also claimed he hadn't seen much evidence of charisma in the profession over the past decade.

But not all of the panellists at the debate, organised by London HR Connection and the London School of Economics, were as negative about the profession. Ruth Spellman, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute, inisisted that HR has come of age, and that it shouldn't be allowed to slip back to the day of apologising for people management.  But Spellman also said HR needed to be a lot less constipated. She said: "There's lots going on within the profession, but very little of that sees daylight."

With job cuts continuing to strike fear in all but the smuggest, a tiny ray of hope struggles through the gloom. According to recruitment firm The Synergy Group, Britain is experiencing a boom in the recruitment of 'traffic enforcement professionals' - that's traffic wardens to you and I. Phew, that's a relief!

The Synergy Group predicts a dramatic increase - this year - in the number of job opportunities in local authority parking enforcement and traffic management.

Even better, they conducted a national survey, in order to measure the public's attitude to this potential influx of traffic wardens. A bewildering 83% said that parking attendants are necessary to the smooth-running of city centres across the UK. But 53% want traffic wardens to be more understanding, and 34% want them to be more accurate in their work.

Strangest of all, 13% of respondents want more women patrolling the streets, as they're convinced the fairer sex is more lenient.

Kieran Ryan, managing director at The Synergy Group, said: "Traditionally it has been challenging to place candidates within traffic enforcement roles due to negative and unfounded stereotypes associated with the profession".

I'm not really sure what these findings tell us, but at the very least they present a new career option for all those unemployed graduates we're always hearing about.

Recruitment site Totaljobs.com has found that graduates have unrealistic expectations. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - who decided they needed to spend good money on 'discovering' something quite so obvious?

The recruiter's survey also found graduates to be unprepared for the tough job market. Well, I never. Having been a graduate, I think I can safely say that few, if any, graduates are ever prepared for much beyond watching Countdown and eating cold baked beans straight from the tin.

Some of the other alarming findings:

• 70% of graduates think they will find a job within 6 months of graduating
• 1 in ten believe they will earn more than £35,000 a year in their first job
• Just half of respondents had used their university careers service

Perhaps it's for the best that we have a national jobs shortage - imagine the fallout if these idiots were to make it into the workforce ....

I'm not sure anyone needed to go to the trouble to explode the myth that the UK is 'meritocratic' - one look at the new government would have shot that theory to pieces.

But Social Mobility Myths, a report published by think tank Civitas today, tells the political establishment: "we cannot hope to develop good policies if we ignore the key influence on the phenomenon we are hoping to change."

According to report author Peter Saunders, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Sussex, four social mobility myths distort political debate and policy:

1. Britain is a 'closed shop society', in which life chances are heavily shaped by the class you were born into

2. Social mobility is getting worse, or has even 'ground to a halt'

3. Differences of ability between individuals are irrelevant in explaining the differential rates of success they achieve

4. Governments can increase mobility by top-down engineeering of the education system and forcing more income redistribution.

Much as I would like to agree with all of the above, I'm not sure I can. I have a horrible feeling that some people would prefer to see what they consider their 'social superiors' in certain jobs - particularly those involving government.  

Yahoo hotjobs has come up with a list of 10 jobs you can do from home. Here goes:

1. Management analyst

2. Web developer

3. Technical writer

4. PR specialist

5. Interior designer

6. Graphic designer

7. Caterer

8. Mental health counsellor

9. Massage therapist

10. Customer service representative

This is an odd list - or maybe it's just me. Doesn't 'mental health counsellor' seem very specific? And as for 'caterer' - yes, you can certainly whip up a batch of fairy cakes in your kitchen, but anyone catering on a bigger scale will require a professional kitchen. So you wouldn't really be working from home - just from a gigantic industrial kitchen that just happened to be next to your bungalow.