Phoning without fear

  Award-winning writer Adeline Iziren teaches you how to woo a potential employer over the phoneSo you’ve identified the job you want and your potential employer? Great. No doubt you’ll be trawling through the web to find out as much as you can about the company. That’s great too. But to get the edge over

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Being political

What kind of political animal are you? In management circles a theory exists that other things being equal, two important qualities for achieving success within an organization are political sophistication and integrity. It is how these gifts are used that determine how a person will act, and how effective they will be.

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Bullying in the workplace

The concept of bullying at work is usually subject to two equally fallacious extremes. The first seems to exist solely on the internet where self-help sites proliferate, spreading the bullying gospel and painting gloomy pictures of the extent of workplace victimisation. One website even goes so far as to claim that one in thirty people

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Workaholism

W.E. Oates claims to have invented the term workaholism in his 1971 book, Confessions of a Workaholic, when he defined it as an ‘addiction to work, the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly’. But though it seems a recent phenomenon, brought about by the relentless pace of modern civilisation, in reality workaholics have

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Dealing with mistakes

So you’ve accidentally put salt in the client’s coffee. Or you’ve pressed the ‘delete everything’ button on your PC. In the words of the late, lamented Douglas Adams, Don’t Panic! Handling mistakes is as important an aspect of work experience as any. ‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new’, Albert

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Fighting for equal pay

Men and women now have equal rights in the workplace. But some, says Emma John, are still more equal than others An overwhelming 93% of employers are confident they offer women fair, unbiased pay systems, according to a new survey. Yet the poll, by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), is only one of a number

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Getting on with the boss

Want a super relationship with your boss? Then learn how to manage them properly, says award-winning writer Adeline Iziren Helen Sears has a great relationship with her boss Graham Lancaster. Key to its success is Helen’s ability to manage Graham. No, she doesn’t order him about, but rather than passively responding to his demands, she

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Phoning without fear

Award-winning writer Adeline Iziren teaches you how to woo a potential employer over the phoneSo you’ve identified the job you want and your potential employer? Great. No doubt you’ll be trawling through the web to find out as much as you can about the company. That’s great too. But to get the edge over your

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Figure-happy: the road to a better bonus

When Santa visits the City each Christmas, he leaves a bundle of slips of paper on the desks of each manager. These are the presents for the hardworking men and women of the square mile. Depending on whether they’ve been good or bad, the number on the slip will have more or less noughts. ‘Tis

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Office ethics

According to Management Today magazine, two in three employees say they lie to their boss. Whose responsibility is it to maintain ethical standards in the workplace? There is little doubt that a company’s ethics are becoming ever more important in the way it is viewed by its investors, its employees and its customers. Two years

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Fighting stress

The 1990s will be remembered for giving us the Teletubbies and stress. After the workaholism of the eighties, stress-related illness broke into our vocabulary and our workplace. Along with repetitive strain injury, cases of stressed-out workers made headline news and the western world became more aware of the physical dangers of overwork.

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Finding accommodation

Finding suitable accommodation can be expensive and time consuming, especially in an unfamiliar city. Not so long ago, low interest rates and competitive mortgage deals led to a shortage of decent rental property. Today, home owning is more expensive and has released property onto the rental market.

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Managing debt

Going to college these days entails a serious financial commitment. Students graduating this year face average debts of 286, according to a survey conducted by Barclays. The research found that 80% of graduates owed money to the Student Loan Company, 61% to banks and 28% to credit card companies. The rising cost of tuition fees,

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Dotcomming it: what are entrepreneurs looking for?

Graduates’ attraction to dotcoms is as much to do with the freedom and scope that the new economy offers, as it is to do with making money quickly. So, how can the big companies make their corporate cultures more attractive to budding entrepreneurs? Tony Vickers, an expert in organizational behavior, assesses which cultures attract entrepreneurs

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Key ways to apply for jobs

There are many ways of applying for that prized job, none perfect and most designed to make it easier for the employer. Here forum talks through how candidates can maximize their chances of success Anything that makes it easier for employers to find the perfect employee should be good news for the candidate, because each should

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