| Career Development And Change Advice Blog |
| Career Advice, Job Search, Redundancy and Career Change |
The new government funded gap years for graduates are to be welcomed, even if not for the reasons that are being cited in the publicity material. The ad for candidates asks if they feel that everything is “doom and gloom” and suggests that one way of beating the recession will be to volunteer on an overseas scheme, partially funded by a government bursary. (more…)
The BBC has been running a project entitled Workarama in which they ask schools to share their pupils’ experiences of work and chores. Most of the responses they have had are from children who do household chores for pocket money. Nothing surprising there. But not all kids work at home for money. Some of the answers are quite touching.
It looks as if the formal retirement age is to be abolished next year. Although we will still be able to retire and draw a state pension at 65 new legislation will enable us, if we wish, to continue working and making contributions to our pension beyond that age. Which has profound implications for the way we view our careers and what we want to do in our retirement. (more…)
According to a report published this week, 28% of managers are unlikely to hire someone whom they consider to be long term unemployed. But 84% of managers would have no concerns if the unemployment period was less than six months. This is more encouraging than one might have expected, but it does leave some important questions to be addressed by those who find it is taking a long time to get a job.
British Airways is asking staff to work for up to one month for nothing, in order to rescure the company from collapse. The Chief Executive (who earns more in a month than most of his staff earn in two years) has agreed to give up his salary for July. Although BA is not the first company to make such a request of its staff, the approach is still quite novel and it will be interesting to see what sort of response it gets. Staff do have the option of a month’s unpaid leave instead.
More redundancies were announced this weekend and the outlook is for a long hot summer with unemployment rising to 3 million. Many job seekers will be concerned about their future prospects, not least because they fear that a lengthy period of unemployment will leave a gap in their CV which is hard to explain.
Readers of the BBC News website may have seen an item on the forthcoming research by Volunteering England which shows a remarkable upswing in the numbers of active citizens performing duties on an unpaid, volunteer basis.
As a professional Career Consultant at Career Energy I often help clients to overcome gaps in their CV by encouraging them to consider volunteering as a way of becoming an ‘insider’ in a new field. Some people still do not see volunteering as ‘real work’, and therefore (more…)
If any season is volunteering season, this is it. It is when people who just don’t get the opportunity during the rest of the year find the time to work in a local shelter or soup kitchen, or to help out with activities being organised by local groups and clubs. And afterwards, as the winter holiday season is drawing to an end and the prospect of returning to work is looming, the refrain is generally ‘I enjoyed that; I wish I could do it more often’. Well, you can. (more…)