Getting the most from work experience
If you want to maximise your chances of finding employment in your chosen field, focused work experience can really help you on your career path.
The Toughest Jobs That Sound So Simple
There are a lot of jobs that from the outside looking in seem so simple that a cave man could do it. We look at these jobs with such cynicism, that we oversimplify their job requirements and feel that we could walk a day in an employee’s shoes with ease. The reality is that there
How to Deal with an Annoying Boss
We’ve all had bosses who made our lives difficult: the chronic micromanager, the chatterbox who over-shares embarrassing details from his personal life, or the Houdini who magically disappears whenever you need her. How should you handle a boss’s annoying habits? We turned to the experts to find out.
Learn How to Manage Job-Search Stress
Thirty years ago, I was fired with enthusiasm. Looking back, I know that if I’d stayed in that mismatched job, I’d have lived my life less fully and not grown in ways that serve me now. This is easy for me to say now, but at the time I felt angry, victimized and embarrassed. For
Finding Family Support After Losing Your Job
If you’ve been downsized, you may have decided that you’ll just be able to survive what comes next. Congratulations. But your family may not have the same confidence. Anxiety, uncertainty and fear may be gripping your spouse at this moment. Partners try to put up a good front, but down deep they’ve been shaken. Knowing
Starting salary
“Can you give us some idea of your salary expectation?” is the question that strikes fear into the heart of every interviewee. Just how do you answer? Pitch it too high and you look unrealistic and overly confident, pitch it too low and you undervalue both yourself and your ability to do the job.
Relocation packages
If your skills and talents are much in demand, some of the biggest employers from around the country will be tripping over themselves to snap you up – and they may offer you more than a generous starting salary.
Networking
Any job-hunter can develop a network of useful career contacts without a company director in the family. Networking is easy if you know how, and job-hunters who develop their own employment contacts need never be short of career advice and job offers. Here are five networking opportunities which everyone can take advantage of:
Handling rejection
It took JK Rowling a whole year to find a publisher willing to print her first Harry Potter book. Some of the rejection letters barely bothered to address her personally. It was, she admits, a very difficult time.
Application no-nos
Potential, experience, talent and enthusiasm are meaningless if you can’t fill in an application form properly, or submit a decent CV and covering letter. Read this guide to avoiding job application crimes and, with luck, you should stay out of trouble for the rest of your career.
Successful applications
You’ve seen your ideal job and sent off for the application form only to find it leaves a big dent on your doorstep when it arrives. It’s huge and you’re having second thoughts about applying. Don’t be daunted. Read it through slowly and carefully. Chances are it’s not as horrendous as it looks at first
Do the right thing
Employees are increasingly taking ethical considerations into account when deciding where to work. The expansion of the non-profit-making, environmental and charitable sectors means there are plenty of options for those who want to make a difference
Interviews – Telecoms – John Steele
John Steele, Human Resources director at British Telecommunications, talks about graduate entry at BT, and what it takes to be a successful HR professional
Interviews – Technology – Steve Bennetts
Steve Bennetts has recently joined Content Technologies, the e-content management and security company, as chief financial officer. Bennetts qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young, but his most recent position was at Amazon.com where he was European finance director. He lives in the Thames valley with his wife and two children.
Interviews – Media – Pippa Wicks
Pippa Wicks, 37, is chief executive of FT Knowledge, a recently created division of UK media company Pearson that is charged with creating online learning programmes aimed at schools, colleges and universities around the world. Wicks was recently chosen to be one of the faces for the current exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery, Management
Interviews – Media – David Bell
David Bell is media giant Pearson plc’s director for people and chairman of the Financial Times. He tells us that the best journalists are inquisitive, individualistic and therefore ‘somewhat irritating’. Bell talks about his own career both as a writer and a recruiter and gives tips on how to land a job at Pearson
Interviews – Media – Michael Prescott
Michael Prescott is political editor of The Sunday Times where he has been a journalist for more than ten years. Educated at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, he then went on to do a degree in journalism at the Center for Journalism Studies, Cardiff University. He lives in Islington, with his wife Rachel Storm –
Interviews – Media – Gerard Baker
Gerard Baker is the Financial Times‘ bureau chief in Washington, where he lives with his wife and three daughters in American University Park. The combination of his exhaustive research and lucid style has given him an enviable reputation as an economic expert on both sides of the Atlantic. We caught up with him in the
Interviews – Media – Philippa Thomas
Philippa Thomas, 34, works as Washington correspondent for the BBC. She is married to State Department reporter Richard Lister. In her spare time the pair can be found ‘kayaking in Alaska, driving sled dogs over frozen lakes on the Canadian border, and falling down quite a lot of ski slopes.’ She says life as a
Interviews – Media – Roxanne McMeekin
Roxanne McMeekin, 24, is a reporter for financial magazine FT Mandate. She started as an editorial assistant at Reed Elsevier, publisher of science journals, before moving to The Financial Times business division