In today’s job market, many job seekers are concerned about applying for a job without all the qualifications. The question is should they apply anyway, or wait until a role where they tick all the boxes comes along. In a recent search I ran 86% of the candidates were not on target. Another search for a…

 Bypassing the hiring process can work, but it is not always advisable There is a story in Greek mythology of Hydra, a monster with many heads and deadly poisonous breath. For every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow two heads and the only way to deal with this was with swords and fire. We…

It’s the summer, so inquiries about making an international move always rise. For me, they usually peak in September where the glow of returning to home territory is of the radio-active variety. Post Covid, people are travelling again, so this year feelings definitely seem to have intensified. Many have been released  literally from the confines…

I wrote a post in 2019 about the impact on talent in the U.K. as both E.U. nationals start to repatriate or return to another parts of the E.U. and and Brits look for jobs in Europe. One element that many British nationals seem not to have fully appreciated is that they now have third country status…

An unlikely combo Emily in Paris and Career Coaching Maybe not. Read on. For anyone who lives in a box, sans Wi-Fi, “Emily in Paris” is one of Netflix latest, hottest streamed series. It tells the story of Emily Cooper a PR junior sent from her H.Q. in Chicago to the offices of a French…

Sounds crazy doesn’t it? When a coach is not a coach. And when does not being a coach become a problem? This is especially important if you think you are one already or want to become one. The word coach means different things to different people. As such it has become horribly mis and over-used.…

The employee referrals debate today Employee referrals programmes have been around throughout history. Research suggests that Julius Caesar created the first programme when he offered up to one-third of a soldier’s annual salary for referrals into the army. Employee referrals are a way of finding candidates for an open role by asking current employees for introductions…

The IKEA Effect in the workplace A research team Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School, Daniel Mochon of Yale, and Dan Ariely of Duke, first named the IKEA effect in 2011. They described the IKEA effect as “labor alone can be sufficient to induce greater liking for the fruits of one’s labor: even constructing a…

“Facts tell stories sell” is a piece of marketing and personal branding advice I see almost daily on social media, especially targeting job seekers. Like a lot of bumper sticker homilies, it can work some of the time, but it doesn’t work all of the time. Why? Because it lacks nuance, a topic which is…

I regularly observe career coaches and recruiters encouraging candidates to send handwritten thank you letters to their interviewers. I have even seen hiring managers say that receipt of a thank you note is part of their decision making process and they judge candidates negatively for failing to comply. In some cases they even cut candidates…