The Work Clinic

We all know that breaking up is hard to do, but did you know that being turned down for a job can be just as painful? Dr David Biggs and his team at the University of Gloucestershire recently spoke to 22 men and women about their careers, including the all-important recruitment process. Their findings were eye-opening …

It’s a tradition of British CV writing – the ‘Hobbies and Interests’ section, where despite only having had three jobs (two of which were behind counters and involved either cocktail umbrellas or spatulas), applicants struggle to convince would-be employers of the breadth of their skills and experience …

We’re probably all guilty of putting on our interview persona along with our interview suit, but are we taking it too far? According to a survey by business psychology consultancy OPP, almost half (46%) of UK employees fail to reveal their real selves in interviews, but try to adapt their personality to fit in with the people interviewing them. And a third of that 46% admit to projecting a ‘very’ different personality ….

Companies in the City of London – already an area of much competitive advantage and substantial resources – are stealing a march on colleagues by pre-empting the traditional ‘milk round’ and marketing themselves to school children. Once seen as the preserve of the Ministry of Defence, more and more organisations are realising the advantages of catching ‘em early.

Under the auspices of The City of London Business Traineeship scheme, bankers and brokers are offering local six-formers paid summer internships of up to 13 weeks. Initially developed to encourage state school students to consider City careers, the scheme has attracted the attention of recruiters, who know a cheap and easy option when they see one …

Only 39% of fast track graduate recruits last year were women – down from 42.6% in 2006 – according to a new report. Women now account for 57% of all graduates from British universities.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters based its findings on information from 200 of the country’s top employers – including Ernst & Young, McKinsey, BT and Unilever – and says that research must be done into why the number of female graduates is dropping.

And while the number of women graduates is falling, initiatives to increase racial diversity seem to be working, with graduate recruits from ethnic minority backgrounds accounting for 27% of the overall uptake, an increase of 12% on 2006.

With new housing minister Caroline Flint suggesting that council tenants should have to sign ‘commitment contracts’ – pledges that they would look for employment – there is more pressure than ever on the long-term unemployed to find work. Flint insists that council housing should become a ‘springboard to opportunity, not just a safety net’. This is all well and good, but what of the habitually jobless, who wouldn’t know the first thing about filling out an application form, never mind negotiating the online hoops that applicants are expected to jump through these days?

Most of us have long since tired of Facebook and being pinged by people we last saw 2 decades ago, who just want to brag about their latest career success. But bored though we might be, employers are waking up to the potential of social networking.

A recent report in The Times revealed that one in five employers are now using the internet to check up on job candidates – looking for “digital dirt” that might help in their recruitment decisions.

But a group of children’s charities, including the NCH, the NSPCC and the Children’s Society has decided that “pictures or gossip uploaded during the teenage years should not be used against a young person ten years later.” And they’ve launched a campaign to stop what they see as unfair and inappropriate use of social networking.

Most of us will at one time or another have wondered whether or not we were in the right job. While this may be no more than a response to a bad day in the office, research by the Skills Commission has shown that many of us are in the wrong job – one in five of us, in fact. And 41% of those questioned admitted to having been in the wrong job at some point in their careers.

According to the research, people spend an average of four years and 10 months in jobs that fail to make the most of their skills. And just 4% of those who managed to escape from the wrong job sought formal careers advice before making a move. So why are employees ending up in the wrong job?

Human capital management company Spring Group is warning businesses of a growing trend in the London region. Employees are apparently using new job offers as a means of squeezing more money and benefits out of their current employers.

During January and February this year, Spring Personnel’s London branches saw three in 10 job offers overturned by counter bids made by a candidate’s current employer. This is driving recruiters to adapt drastic measures and 70% of Spring’s clients have decided not to pursue a second interview round, giving candidates an offer after only the first contact.

Research by the CBI has revealed that just 30% of jobs for new graduates require a specific degree discipline. Clichéd it may be, but today’s employers are looking for graduates with a positive attitude – and ‘employability skills’. CEOs were asked to select the top three factors they consider when recruiting graduates – 86% of them put a positive attitude and employability at the top of their demands. Relevant work experience was seen as next most important (62%), followed by degree subject (56%).

Research In Motion (RIM), reveals that nearly 90% of girls aged 11-16 think using technology is cool and regularly talk to their friends about it. Just over a third (38 per cent) of them chat about the latest technology on a daily basis - anything from social networking to online gaming and mobile downloads. Despite this love of technology, only a quarter (28%) of girls have considered a career in technology compared to more than half (52%) of boys.

Equal opportunity campaigner the Fawcett Society's Seeing Double campaign has published the final report of the Routes to Power research study on ethnic minority women leaders. Based on interviews with 23 of the most senior ethnic minority women in Britain, the report reveals that organisations are still struggling to recognise and reward expertise when it is found in ethnic minority women.

Among the findings:

• There are only two ethnic minority women MPs, and there has never been an Asian woman MP
• There are only 168 ethnic minority women local councillors in England - less than 1% of the total
• There is only one senior ethnic minority woman in the judiciary
• Around 3% of the senior civil service are from ethnic minority backgrounds, and only a third of them are women
• Ethnic minority women make up just 2.3% of public appointments
• Of the 961 directors of FTSE 100 companies, only 8 are women of non-European descent

According to the report, a gap between race equality legislation and social attitudes is producing two new forms of organisational discrimination - tokenism, where ethnic minority women are being used as tokens so that organisations can be shown to be embracing diversity, and typecasting, where ethnic minority women are being streamed into specialising in ethnic minority or gender issues. Tokenism and typecasting were seen to be most severe in politics and in the public sector.

Without resorting to positive discrimination, how are employers to improve the situation? What can organisations offer women from ethnic minority backgrounds? And what can be done to convince girls from ethnic minorities to opt for a career in business?

'Skills gap' and 'Skills shortage' are phrases beloved of the British business press, and were bandied about willy-nilly until knocked off front pages by the new mot du jour, 'credit crunch'.

But out of sight does not mean out of mind, and the Home Office this week announced a new, Australian-style, points system, aimed at plugging those gaps. Designed to attract the 'right sort' of immigrant - skilled, rather than unskilled - the new rules mean that only workers in industries with skill shortages will be allowed in. And while most of us are thinking 'teachers', 'nurses' and 'Tube drivers', it would appear that the UK is lacking in ballet dancers, sheep shearers, frozen fish filleters and racehorse exercisers.

Why the shortages? According to Rupert Arnold, chief executive of the National [horse] Trainers Federation, there are not enough native youngsters who are small, light and athletic enough to provide the exercisers needed by the racing industry - and let's be honest, the same probably applies to ballet.

Civil engineers, aircraft component technicians and maths and science teachers are also in short supply.

Under the terms of the scheme, in addition to meeting an identified skills requirement, workers must have English language skills, prospective earnings of £24,000, depending on qualifications, or the offer of a  job, and be able to support themselves for the first month.

Never let it be said that the Italian government are cultural snobs. Sitting in their Roman offices, no doubt overlooking more Roman ruins than you can shake a toga at, they have risked the scorn of both voters and the opposition by putting a very unlikely candidate in charge of Italy's world class museums.

Mario Resca, 62, spent 12 years as Italy manager for McDonalds, and has been tasked with making Italian museums more profitable. The appointment has irked those who hold their artifacts in especially high esteem, including opposition MP Manuel Ghizzoni, who says "What have hamburgers got to do with Italy's extraordinary cultural patrimony?"

And according to Antonello Alici, secretary general of preservation group Italia Nostra (not to be confused with Cosa Nostra, which is something altogether different), "Resca may know how to clean up a balance sheet but knows nothing about culture. I fear our museums will be leaned on to refill state coffers".

While Italian culture vultures are up in arms over the appointment, it transpires that Resca, with his sound commercial background, probably is the right man for the job. He is hoping to improve marketing and to make money by exhibiting artworks currently in storage.

And not a moment too soon. Italy's La Repubblica newspaper announced last week that money is so scarce that new archaeological sites are now opened only if holes are already being dug to create train lines or underground garages.

Organisations of all sizes are already feeling the pinch - and it can only get worse. Yet while everyone should be investigating potential cost-cutting measures, research by free classified ad providers Gumtree has revealed that 9 out of 10 companies are spending £4000 per candidate recruited - yet still failing to find good people.

In its 'Wasting a Wage' survey, Gumtree also found that:

• Over half of those surveyed admit that their job advertisements need to change
• 41% are tempted to use big words to liven up job descriptions
• 25% have trouble understanding their own job descriptions
• 33% spend just half an hour interviewing each applicant
• 46% feel that applicants' looks are key

Small and medium sized organisations, which have the smallest training budgets (if any at all), are particularly hard hit. More than half of the SMEs surveyed admitted that they struggle to make job ads sound interesting.

So what's the problem? They are far more job-hunters than there are vacancies, so something's going wrong somewhere along the line. Might it be that those candidates who do make it to interview stage are so perplexed at being hustled out after half an hour that they decide to take their skills elsewhere? 

We expect a challenging climate for at least the first two quarters of 2009 and feasibly the whole year. It's important to bear in mind, however, that despite significant speculation to the contrary, 2009 will still offer good career opportunities for the best candidates.
The fallout from ongoing market conditions means that organisations, from all sectors, which undergoing restructuring or rationalisation will be looking to HR for guidance - this is a real opportunity for talented HR professionals to make a mark.
The challenge for senior executives will be to balance the cost of full-time HR headcount with value added. HR department costs will be reduced but need to be carefully balanced to ensure that there are enough HR staff to deal with the work load, plan for the future and retain a good work/life balance - under-resourced and overworked staff are neither productive nor motivated.
We expect to continue to see a demand for those with good employee relations, compensation benefits and reward experience. Additionally, those with good organisational development, restructuring, cultural change and M&A experience will be required to help in post deal integration. 
We expect to see small pockets of activity in the retail financial services sector and in some of the large, publicly owned organisations committed to high capital investment programmes that are already underway and are hiring organisational development or change consultants to help with structural and cultural transformation projects.
Public sector recruitment is obviously going to be a key factor and challenging positions here are already in demand. Other sectors that we expect to drive HR recruitment include the energy, utilities and pharmaceutical industries and some of the more innovative players in retail.
On the downside, we expect to see further casualties in financial services - especially in investment banking and lending - and also in retail, property and technology.
Finally, for those so inclined, opportunities overseas will remain comparatively buoyant and recruitment in the emerging markets such as the Middle East and in Australasia remain upbeat.
John Maxted
Chief executive
Digby Morgan

In the good old days, our senior colleagues would happily use company time for lighter hearted pursuits such as language lessons, shopping or occasionally even golf. But the credit crunch has bitten even their well-upholstered backsides and it looks as if they are finally using their working hours more productively - to job hunt.

According to research released today by executive jobs website, Experteer.co.uk, the busiest hour for online job searches is 3pm on a Thursday. 

The study of job searching trends across Europe found that most job hunters are using their mid-afternoon coffee breaks to scour the internet for job opportunities, with 3pm being the most popular time of day almost universally in Europe. Germany is the only country where most searching is done only slightly earlier, immediately after lunchtime at 2pm. In the UK, almost a quarter (24%) of job hunters look for jobs online after their lunch break, between 2pm and 4pm GMT.  The morning is consistently a quieter period across Europe, with only 17% searching between 9am and 11am GMT in the UK.

Peak day and time for searching for jobs according to country:

The study found that even in the economic downturn, job seekers prefer to keep their weekends free for personal time, with Saturdays and Sundays remaining the least popular days for job hunting across Europe. Less than one in five searches is done at weekends in the UK (15%), Germany (15%), France (18%) and Switzerland (18%), and less than a quarter in Italy (23%). Considerably fewer searches are also done on Fridays in all of the countries, suggesting job hunters are busy planning their weekends or tying off the working week.

Experteer's study has also found that executives in different European countries spend varying amounts of time online in each job hunting session. Job hunters in the UK tend to spend an average of 4 minutes on each session while those in Italy spend just less than 5 minutes searching for jobs online in each session. This also varies according to the time of year, with job hunters spending considerably less time searching at the end of the year.  Longer search time was recorded across Europe in Jan, suggesting job searchers are more active in looking for a chance in the New Year.

While this kind of research is all well and good, it does make me wonder why organisations are paying so little attention to what their employees are doing? Senior or not, they are not paid to job hunt on company time, Allowing them to do so is nothing short of a slap in the face to people who are actually spending their working hours doing their job.

Social work has been in crisis for some time, and more so than ever now, in the aftermath of the Baby P case. According to the Local Government Association (LGA)'s Respect and Protect report, one in 10 social work posts is vacant at any one time.  In fact, so few people now want to work in the beleaguered sector that the LGA is to ask up to 5,000 retired social workers to come back to work.

That's 5000 people who may be out of date with legislation, working practice, even technology. As if the sector wasn't in enough of a mess.

 
Much has been said and written about what organisations lose when their older workers retire, particularly soft skills such as dealing face-to-face with customers, or historical knowledge of the organisation and how it operates. But, except in extreme cases, such as that currently faced by social work bosses, wouldn't it make more sense to keep the knowledge within the company and train younger staff properly, rather than going to the expense and inconvenience of rehiring retirees?

Of course it depends on how long people have been rehired, but have companies thought through the financial implications of training returning retirees? And although personal financial needs may well mean that people are keen to come back to work, surely the majority would prefer to enjoy their well-earned retirement.

A new survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has confirmed that this year's graduates and school leavers will struggle to find work in what has become the deepest recession in decades. And it looks as if they will be the worst hit age-group.
Almost half of the employers surveyed by the CIPD said that they are not planning to recruit school leavers or graduates this summer.

Gerwyn Davies, the CIPD's public policy advisor, says: "Employers have for a long time had doubts about the employability of those leaving education. This year's crop face employers in a more choosy mood than ever before. Against this backdrop, graduates and school leavers need to sharpen their case for being picked ahead of their classmates - and fast."

Universities are going to greater lengths to help graduating students find work: while the University of Nottingham is getting ready for an influx of 'panicked' students, the University of Exeter is watching as fewer and fewer employers sign up for its summer graduate recruitment fair.

I still remember how aggrieved a friend was when 'Abbey National' became 'Abbey'. She didn't feel that a girl's name was appropriate for an august building society. I haven't asked her yet about the latest news - that Abbey is to become 'Santander', reflecting its Spanish ownership - but I doubt she will be impressed. If a customer is annoyed, how will an employee feel when their place of work is rebranded?

For many people, it's about more than just a name. It's about the identity and the ethos of the organisation. And if a company has spent years building up a brand and a culture, what happens when it suddenly disappears, or is swamped by another, stronger, identity? Abbey has been subsumed by a brand that while well known overseas, has little profile here - so how will staff react? There's the potential impact on recruitment, too - regardless of the economic situation, applicants will be looking for a strong employer brand.  What part should HR play in establishing the new corporate identity - and how?

  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.

I know this is going to make me sound like a Daily Mail reader, but I'm going to have a real rant about something I read this morning. There was I, calmly reading The Times, when an article on page 25 had me all but spit out my coffee .... the title may give you a clue: "Council employed social worker who hired hitman."

To quote: "Lynda Barnes was hired by Bath and North East Somerset Council after giving a 'highly sanitised' version of events that led to her receiving a two-year suspended jail sentence for conspiracy to murder."

Barnes' checkered past only came to light during an unrelated court case, when she later tried to convince a colleague to lie under oath.

The council has since admitted to making a mistake in hiring Barnes. I'd say it was a bit more of a mistake. And particularly in a social work role. Not only do social workers have almost unparalleled access to the vulnerable, but they are also one of the most beleagured professions in the country - surely they should be recruited with especial care. And didn't the council run a criminal records bureau (CRB) check on Barnes?

According to researchers at the University of Western Sydney (UWS), personality type is more important than academic achievements when it comes to recruitment. They found that personality is a better indicator of career preference or aptitude than social or academic background. And if they're to be believed, that old chestnut about needing a ruthless streak to get on in the world may even be true.

UWS researchers looked at five different characteristics:

• openness to experience
• conscientiousness
• extroversion
• agreeableness
• emotional stability

They found that specific personality types were more prevalent in certain jobs. For instance, clerical workers tend to be conscientious but neurotic and prey to stress, while office workers are stable but less conscientious.

Managers, however. while especially conscientious and open to experience. are more antagonistic and suffer from 'lower agreeableness'. I'm not sure we needed a research project to unearth that little gem ....

While there's a certain amount of sense behind recruiting by personality, most jobs do still require a degree of skill and some relevant academic background. The dangers in ignoring this are twofold - first, that successful candidates have the attitude but not the skills needed. And second, that recruiters recruit in their own like, hiring people that they get on with. However nice it is to become friends with colleagues, it's very much the case that there need to be a few people in any team prepared to disagree with the majority, and to be happy to stand up and pick holes in the modus operandi.

So next time your manager's grumpy, it may be a case of putting up with it - for the greater good of the team.

Training company Video Arts asked 400 UK line managers about the personal development needs of their staff. Apparently the areas most in need of improvement are:

• Attitude and motivation (34%)
• Communication skills (29%)
• Managing tasks (20%)
• Customer service (18%)
• Teamwork (17%)
• Performance management (14%)
• Change management (13%).

"These are the skills that managers feel they need from their teams, to get through the downturn," said Martin Addison, managing drector of Video Arts. "Organisations may need to realign their learning strategy to take account of any new requirements for training and to ensure that their strategy still links to the corporate objectives."

Now, call me a grumpy old cynic, but this is hardly rocket science. Surely these are the skills needed in any member of staff, regardless of the economic climate.
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Not sure how accurate these stats are, or even where they originally came from, but they certainly provide some food for thought.

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.

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 ....

Soon the recession will end and instead of laying people off we will all about face and start hiring.  I feel so confident about the economy that I hired a cleaner the other day. I discussed it with my wife, agreed a budget and talked to some neighbours to get a recommendation.  The cleaner starts next week.

In a work context, say you need a senior systems analyst for a project.  Think of just some of the stages you'll have to go through - filling out a requisition form, getting it signed off, hiring a contractor ...

OK I admit it; a cleaner is easier to hire than a systems analyst, but you get the point.
Why the bureaucratic nightmare? Well, if the HR function is centralised to get "economies of scale", pressure to reduce cost will lead to standard procedures that focus on cost efficiency rather than service.

Then internal auditors are employed.  They come round poking holes and telling the boss you are incompetent.  This has two outcomes.  All forms have to be signed by 3 levels of management and any sense of trust and co-operation goes out of the window.
The more bureaucracy there is, the more people expect it and feel that they can't challenge the system, but nobody likes it, not the customers, the workers or the bosses.  Even the auditors hate it.

The good news is that it is easy to strip away this red tape.  Get the support of the person who is accountable for performance and then work with a team who really understand the problem to highlight all the maddening rules and regulations, focusing on giving the customer what they want.  It won't just be service that improves; all the double handling and rework that you get rid of will have a positive impact on your costs as well.

Go on, have a go.

James Lawther
Transparency Works

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'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.

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 ...

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.