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Earlier this week the government announced that it was overhauling Job Centres to make them more relevant to managerial and executive staff. Part of this strategy is to including co-opting recruitment consultants to help out. I have argued before that Job Centres are an outmoded institution; neither employers nor employees have faith in them and an overhaul needs to go far beyond drafting in unqualified sales people from the recruitment sector. But the underlying question is, should government be involved at all in the job market. And if so, how? (more…)

Preparing yesterday for BBC2’s Working Lunch I was asked about how executives should go about looking for a new job. In particular, what sectors can they apply to which are less hit by the recession? My immediate reaction was that it is not a question of sector, that a successful job application depends on the fit between the person and the role and that providing this match is right there will be opportunities in many sectors, albeit limited in some. But on reflection, it is clear that certain sectors will be easier to get into at present. (more…)

This week sees the launch of Career Energy’s new book, How To Get A Job In A Recession. Published by Infinite Ideas and costing £9.99 it is available on this website. All you have to do is click here!  But you might ask, why is this book necessary? Isn’t getting a job in a recession the same as at any other time, just harder? The answer is no. (more…)

The Sunday Times published its annnual list this week of the 100 best companies to work for. Based on a self selected group of just under 1,000 entries, the companies were ranked on employee responses to the Best Companies survey. But this year a more topical survey might have been the 100 Best Companies to be Made Redundant From. What would an employer need to do to enter that list?

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Next weekend Career Energy will be exhibiting at the One Life Live event at Olympia. Billed as “the event for anyone who longs to pursue a new professional or personal goal”, One Life Live has traditionally attracted people who are ready to move on to the next stage in their life, be it a new career, time out for travel, or a whole new dream. This year however, many people’s ambitions may be less visionary. (more…)

My colleague David Randall and I met yesterday with one of the directors of 4Networking, the largest joined up business networking company in the UK. Because networking is such an essential part of job searching in a recession torn economy, and because so many of us feel awkward when meeting and talking to strangers, we wanted to explore how Career Energy can improve and add value to the networking that we encourage our clients to do.

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It was reported yesterday that some law firms are offering their trainees up to £10,000 to defer their training contracts by a year. The reason no doubt being that the firms have less work and cannot keep the trainees gainfully engaged. But given the problems that many young lawyers face, the decision to defer their training shows an astonishing lack of imagination.

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Final year students across the country are winding down their courses and preparing for their exams and assessments. Over the next few weeks Career Energy will be getting calls from anxious parents, worried about what careers their sons and daughters will go into; a few months later the graduates themselves will ring. And this year the anxiety will be even greater than usual since the recession has greatly reduced the number of available places on graduate training schemes. (more…)

I was asked to record a video for the Guardian website last week. It went live yesterday, you can see it on http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/video/2009/feb/27/new-directions-careers-advice-change-jobs. I found the topic of the video challenging in these difficult times, because it was all about changing career. A straightforward subject in a normal economy but one which I thought had fallen out of fashion since the recession kicked in; in our experience at Career Energy people today are more concerned with job security than job satisfaction. (more…)

The line of taxis stretched half a mile back from Paddington Station to Edgware Road on Friday afternoon, much of it in double file. How many cabs is that? Empty taxis, along with silent restaurants and deeply discounted holiday packages are amongst the best instant indicators of the depth and likely duration of a recession; they are all luxury services which consumers can shun because there is a cheaper alternative. And judging by the Paddington taxi queue this recession is going to last far longer and go much deeper before it ends. So where does that leave the job market, and those hunting for work? (more…)