How you stock your fridge is a valuable behavioural interview question! In the absence of her manager, I was recently asked to sit in on some graduate entry-level interviews to support and mentor, Tanya, a new addition to the Talent Management team of an international company. As we mapped out the structure of our individual…

I found myself sitting in a group recently and the conversation turned to the challenge of names!  It transpired that all present had some issue with their names and much to my surprise  over 50% of the individuals around the table had changed theirs legally. This is much more common than I ever imagined with 58000 people…

If one summer poolside conversation is anything to go by, there seems to be growing evidence of companies trying to ring-fence their organisations against the social media activity of their employees. It’s no longer simply just the odd high-profile, headline cases or instances of individuals being disciplined for posting sensitive content about their bosses, jobs or…

I first wrote a post in 2012 asking are children a corporate inconvenience? I have updated it at intervals ever since. In 2023, I am still asking the same question. Men and women are reporting negative fallout when they wish to assume ongoing responsibility for parenting and childcare. My thoughts were further compounded after reading that women of child-bearing age are…

At the risk of coming over as a Jurassic fossil,  I’m not a fan of business dressing down, even on  Fridays,  let alone Monday to Thursday.  And before the hoodie brigade and Facebook/Google/Insta/TikTok crew come at me with Smart phones blazing, I’ll tell you why! There are good reasons for business dress codes. Appearance bias Yes of course the…

The flotation of a private international company on the stock exchange made Martin, a long serving board member a multi-millionaire. Within a relatively short period he had access to wealth that wouldn’t put him on any global rich lists, but provided that he didn’t do anything crazy, would guarantee  him the very comfortable life style…

Having it all  – a blast from the past The phrase ‘having it all’, the famous tagline coined by the original Superwoman Shirley Conran, has plagued us since 1975 which truthfully started all this nonsense. I had hoped it had disappeared for ever. It conned women into believing that we could ‘have it all’ when it actually means ‘doing  it all’ or ‘managing it all’. It…

One of the consistent comments and causes of distress and frustration for all job seekers, is falling into the candidate  CV black hole of no communication. This might be with executive search and recruitment consultants or corporate hiring managers. Automated responses generated by an impersonal CRM system come a close second for most, but in some cases despite their impersonality…

As we recover from the brink of a global collapse during the pandemic, businesses are observing nervously on the side-lines and moving into hiring mode. There are millions of open vacancies and  positions are reportedly undersubscribed and many employers have little choice of top talent. Yet reports of organisations trying to bring in excellent talent at budget, low…

Resume / CV fraud has always been around, but the case of Scott Thompson, named Yahoo’s chief executive in January 2012, illustrates how easy it is for even senior appointments to slip through the net without thorough due diligence and reference seeking. By May of the same year he was history. Everyone assumes that the previous company has…