| Career Development And Change Advice Blog |
| Career Advice, Job Search, Redundancy and Career Change |
How long should your CV be? Most people say two pages, some say one. Others set no limit at all. According to popular wisdom the reason for keeping a CV short is that a long one will not be read from beginning to end. There is some truth in this. But if you want your CV to be read there are more important considerations than its length. Read the rest of this entry »
Of course nobody knows how many jobs will actually be lost as a result of the government’s deficit reduction measures. All sorts of figures are being bandied around but at the end of the day the only thing that matters it that it will be a lot of jobs, and each job lost will create a crisis for a particular individual. The real question has to be, what to do if you lose your job. Read the rest of this entry »
Within minutes of the end of England’s game against Slovenia I received an e-mail from a well respected consultant praising Fabio Capello for his management skills, and encouraging managers in the workplace to emulate him. I have to disagree. Read the rest of this entry »
We all know that there are to be severe job losses in the public sector. But it will not stop there. Many private companies and individuals derive their livelihood from selling products and services to the public sector. If public sector jobs and services are to be cut, there is no doubt this will have a major impact on the private sector as well. We are all at risk. Read the rest of this entry »
The government has announced that they are to scrap the Future Jobs Fund, which guarantees work or training for young people. The opposition and unions are not happy. The Treasury has announced that the jobs programmes which are to be cut will be replaced by a new Single Work Programme but that no details of this are available yet. One can’t help thinking that it may have been wiser to announce the new scheme at the same time as the scrapping of the old. Read the rest of this entry »
Public sector workers are painfully aware of that cutbacks in government spending will result in a massive wave of redundancies across the sector. It is not clear how many of these redundancies will be absorbed by ‘natural wastage’- e.g. people who plan to retire or leave their jobs. There is little doubt however that ‘natural wastage’ will not account for all the job cuts that need to be made and that many people will face the unwelcome prospect of redundancy. Read the rest of this entry »
How many different careers are there in the world? It is of course an impossible question to answer. Not just because of the problem of definition- are cardiology and radiology two separate careers or are do they both come under the heading of doctor? The real reason that it is impossible to answer is that new careers are being created every day, as technology and knowledge expand. Read the rest of this entry »
Does ageism in the workplace exist? Not according to the latest Labour Force Survey from the office of National Statistics. There were 53,000 more people over the age of 50 in work in the three months ended April 2010 than in the previous quarter. In contrast, the number of under-50s in employment fell by 129,000. Last quarter younger people lost jobs, older people found them. So what does this say about ageism? Read the rest of this entry »
Unemployment is up again. There seems no end to it, particularly if you are one of the many people looking for a job. And the longer one looks, the more despondent one can get and the greater the obstacles that are perceived to be in the way. Of course, attitude is essential in job hunting; the more positive you can be, the greater the energy and focus you can bring to your job search, and to the way in which you communicate with prospective employers. So what can you do to remain upbeat when the strain of long term unemployment is weighing you down? Read the rest of this entry »
A large number of the people who come to see me to discuss a career change express an interest in setting up their own business. Sometimes it is a driving passion, at other times it is just a thought. But given the actual number of people in this country who do run their own business, the proportion of the population who are interested in so doing strikes me as very high. I have often wondered why this should be. Read the rest of this entry »