The Apprentice: No place in business for an academic

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Hurrah! The Apprentice has started again. "I would be quite happy to cut people out of my life to succeed" - one of the first statements... quickly followed by "I am the best sales person in Europe", ha, ha, ha! Where on earth do they get this self-belief? Have these people never seen the series? Do they not know these hyperbolic statements will come back to haunt them?

Well the first person to get kicked out is barrister Nick. Quite unbelievable that he is a barrister - his defence in the board room was awful. A man who freely admitted to being devasted at only achieving a B grade in his French GCSE - a blot on an otherwise unblemished A grade academic record. Jesus! To say he crumbled in the board room would be an understatement, he was a blithering wreck. I hope to God I never have to employ him to represent me in court.

Alan's conclusion? That there is no place for academics in business. Is this really true?

Such a simple task they had to do - sell fresh fish bought at wholesale, for a profit. Why is it that people who have reportedly dealt with million pound contracts can't operate on this level? They mostly all fell to bits - bickering like kids. Especially the boys team. A class divide was blamed for the failure of the task - interesting. So defensive.

There are tears already in the next week. Looking forward to it.

I wonder what the general consensus is - does being academically bright preclude you from being successful in business?

Work Hate

Work Hate



Wonder what you think about HR?

Is there a role for HR?

Is the HR an unnecessary financial burden on a company or does the department have a valuable role to play in the future success of industry?

A report out recently from the Chartered Management Institute called Management Futures suggests that the world of work in 2018 will see many more people working from home. In fact of the 1,000 professionals consulted for the report, 65 per cent expect working from home will be commonplace to reduce the carbon footprint and 73 per cent think work-life balance will be the key to job choice.

Add this to the fact that many of the traditional duties of the HR department are now being outsourced, for example payroll, and it starts to look like human resources professionals will need at the very least to do some comprehensive PR if they are to survive.

Thinking of my own dealings with the department I am not altogether sure what they do for an employee beyond sending out the company policy document and making sure they have filled in the correct starter forms.

Having not had to seek them out, thankfully, on any employment law issues, my perception of human resources is based entirely on the job seeking process. And it's not a good one. I have seen the department as the gatekeeper between me and the person I want to see my CV - an unknown force which I had to cleverly circumvent if I was to get my CV successfully seen by the person who I am want to work for.

One suggestion is that, in the face of all the predicted problems of retention and recruitment of talent, HR departments are going to become a destination for employees to visit and discuss their career options.

I like this idea of going to an HR department to discuss my career - how I'm developing in my role and what opportunities could be open to me. I think people would feel much more likely to stay within a company if they felt their career was being actively managed.

I'd like to know if you have a relationship with your HR department. Is part of their remit to identify high performers, to talk to employees about career paths, to offer advice and suggest strategies for individuals to get the most out of their jobs and their relationship with your employer?

What do you want to be?

In a recent survey for RAF careers 70% of young people aged between 16 and 24 said that when it came to jobs they were looking for rewarding roles and wanted to be proud of what they did for a living.
Not so long ago to be rich was the standard answer, but it seems that the desire for money alone is no longer enough of an attraction. If the results are to be believed we now have a generation who need to feel spiritually connected to the work that they do - not just well paid. The question is how do we match their aspirations?
Last week we heard the government is considering legislation against sexist career advice in schools. This suggests the service in schools is woefully out-of-step with the aspirations of the people they are serving and in dire need of an overhaul. Is it capable of coping with a new set of workers with different aspirations?
Maybe we should stop looking at which professions young people want to go into and start looking at their natural preferences in terms of how they interact, how they learn and what motivates them.
Psychometric profiling is having a positive effect in recruitment. Candidates regularly say they wish they had been tested earlier to prevent bad career choices. Wouldn't profiling students at school be a good indicator of which career would be best for them?

The virtue of virtual interviews

I was reading Canadian Paul Shearstone's blog about job interviews and the importance of first impressions and it started me thinking about the recent Second Life recruitment fair (which the Guardian) sponsored, and how traditional interview preparation advice will need to be rethought.
In the Second Life fair, three companies held virtual interviews with candidates who had applied in advance. Candidates were interviewed in the guise of their Second Life avatars - personas which can be male or female, a strange mutation of gender or indeed animal, and don't necessarily bear any resemblance to the person behind them.
The response from both candidates and recruiters was positive. Both commented on the level of honesty enjoyed during the process - something they felt was unachievable in a traditional first interview. Both parties said they were able to ask direct questions and were not clouded by preconceptions based on accent, gender, or race. All that mattered were the responses to the questions.
It seems to me virtual interviews are the way forward. They provide the perfect solution to the nerve-wracking first meeting and also mean no travel costs, no time lost, and no commitment other than the time to answer the questions.
But if they do take off, careers advisers will need to take note. Advice about how to make a good first impression face-to-face will not be relevant in a virtual world. Indeed advice in general about our working lives will need to adjust especially if reports such as Getting real work done in virtual worlds are to be believed.
So how do you prepare for a virtual interview? Have you ever done one - if so, did you find it a good experience? Were you able to use anything you had learned from traditional interviews?

Engaging the third age

Some facts to ponder:
·The number of people aged 65 years or over is expected to rise by nearly 60% in the next 25 years to more than 15 million - at that point nearly 23% of England's population will be aged at least 65 (ONS 2005/2006)
·At the moment the UK's average retirement age is 63.8 years. Today a man who works to 64 spends on average 31% of life in retirement. In 1950, the average man retired at 67 and spent 18% of life in retirement (DWP 2006)
·By 2011, the mean age of the UK population will exceed 40 for the first time; by about 2017/18, there will be more people over 40 than below (ONS 2005/2006)
·And from 2010 onwards, the number of young people reaching working age will begin to fall by 60,000 every year, fundamentally changing the shape of the workforce. Between 2010 and 2020 the UK will need 2.1 million new entrants to the adult workforce, a demand which can only be met through a combination of most adults working longer and a huge increase in the number of adults re-entering the labour market (City and Guilds 2006)
New research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) suggests not enough is being done to recruit, retain and engage these "third agers".
Employers are going to have to address the challenges presented by our ageing workforce.
I wonder what real options are available to the older workforce, other than on the checkout at the local supermarket. Do you consider yourself a "third ager"? What opportunities have opened up for you and have you been able to use your experience or are you back at entry level?

Should I stay or should I go?

Keeping hold of staff is going to be the biggest challenge HR professionals face this year, according to a survey by US firm Taleo. This isn't a surprise in what is now an employee's market. Employers will find themselves increasingly required to get in line with what employees want, and if they don't they risk losing the battle to attract and keep the talent needed to stay afloat.
The golden age of a job for life that we all hark back to may be something of a myth - even in 1985 only 10% of workers had been with the same employer for 20 years of more. But we have so much choice now that our careers are characterised by a series of job-hops.
I used to be a great believer in job-hopping, but my opinion is changing. I wonder whether I am alone now in finding the idea of sticking with one company very attractive. Not least because during my working life I have witnessed a number of promotions being awarded partly as a result of longevity of service.
My friends who have shown commitment to their companies seem to have achieved a greater depth of satisfaction from their working relationships and a much better work-life balance - all from staying put and growing their role from within. But is this possible if you are at a company where there is no clear career path?
What is best for your career - to stay or go? Have you benefited more from changing jobs every two years or have you been more rewarded by growing with one company? Where would you be now if you had stuck with your first job?

Longevity over suitability

It seems to me as I get older that one of the keys to success in your career is longevity - the ability to remain in position longer than your peers. I have witnessed four promotions in the past couple of years that were meted out primarily because they were the easiest choice – they were ones in the department longer than the rest and there was no other internal competition.

It was shocking to me the first time but it’s amazing how quickly you become desensitized and the unusual becomes the norm. This is not to say I agree with this way of progressing someone’s career. I had entered the workplace believing it was a meritocracy - was this naïve?

I am finding myself reassessing all sorts of beliefs, lately, many of which I have previously taken for absolutes. I am wondering now how far I would have been in my career if I had not flitted about like a thirteen year old, falling in and out of love with my jobs with regular flippancy, and instead stayed put with one company.

Obviously there were other factors for the promotions I am talking about – longevity is just one of them – but none were reasons that pointed them to being the best person for the job. A few as examples are; the fact that they were privy to some company secrets; that they would kick up a massive fuss; that they would be too expensive to make redundant; that they would be disruptive if they weren’t promoted; that the company didn’t want to shell out on recruitment fees; that the company didn’t want to waste any time in searching for an external replacement; that the company didn’t really care who was given the position as long as it was done quickly; that the person was easy to manipulate …I could go on. All negative reasons - none positive.

I have to state at this point - these comments are not born from a bitterness - quite the contrary I loved every one of my jobs - but from a curiosity about whether staying put rather than jumping ship actually bears more fruit.

What I want to know is where would you be now if you had stayed with the company which gave your first job? And what do you think is the key factor in an internal promotion?