Careers Work 2.0

National ‘ICT in CEG‘ event is back!

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:14:00 +0000

The return of this conference to the national scene will offer ideas aplenty on practical innovation in ‘careers’ delivery.

It’s good to see the national ‘ICT in CEG’ Conference and Exhibition sponsored by UCAS Progress returning to the schedule for 2012. This event always proves popular and this year sees keynote speakers David Andrews, OBE, and Paul Chubb of Careers England, line up alongside the promised and usually packed programme of workshops, presentations and exhibitions. The emphasis is always on practical innovation and each of the two days has a specific focus, ‘post-16 and adults’ and ‘key stages 3 & 4’. Key themes include webinars and careers, time management in the virtual world, ‘Facebook’ in Careers, VLE/MLE compliant CEIAG support systems and digital careers information. Exhibitors include Career Mark, Investors in Careers, Matrix and Passportfolio.

Event details: 1st - 2nd March, Monkbar Hotel, York More information

Social Media Assistant vacancy - SE London

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:28:00 +0000

Job title: Go4it Social Media Assistant (.5) This post is fixed term to 21st December 2012)

Salary £20,000 pro rata. A defined contributions pension scheme will be available with these posts.

Details We have recently secured ESF funding to deliver a 3 year pan-London project working with teenage parents and Looked After Children/care leavers and are now seeking to recruit a Social Media Assistant. They will create, maintain and develop a social networking hub that targets young people who are eligible for the Go4it project, keeps them engaged and provides them with information and access to a peer network and professional support.

To apply for these roles you must have experience in the use of social media tools and techniques and evidence of active participation in social networking and online communities with an understanding of web TV. You must also have an understanding of the needs of vulnerable young people and the barriers they may face. You must be a creative thinker with excellent communication skills and a conversational/witty writing style

For further information please contact nanette.higgins@prospects.co.uk or telephone 07584 236486

Location South East London

Closing date 4 January 2011 at 12 noon. Interviews will take place on 10th January

Applications Complete Expression of Interest form and return it to nanette.higgins@prospects.co.uk

The future of work ... and careers advice

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Wed, 04 May 2011 07:59:00 +0000

Interesting article in People Management about Lynda Gratton's forthcoming book "The Shift- The future of work is already here"

Lynda identifies five forces that will share the way we work in the decade ahead: Technology, Globalisation, Demographic trends, The need for a low carbon economy, and Societal Change.

Rapid and continuous technology advances will bring us ever more powerful applications in handheld devices. 5 billion more people around the world will get connected to the internet - bringing new voices, ideas and connections. The growing development of "The Cloud" will allow applications to run within a global infrastructure rather than having to be installed locally on our desktop computer or internal company networks.

Lynda sees the emergence of global mega-companies at one end, and of millions of "micro-entrepreneurs" at the other. The goods and services created by workers in China and India will move up the value chain, increasing the global aspirations of the companies providing them.

There is also a shift in education, with emerging talent pools in India and China, boosted by strong emphasis on study of science and technology subjects, considered harder or boring by western students.

New ways of working could leave people isolated, working with only virtual connection to colleagues. But the networked nature of society could also allow people to reach out, connect and create new opportunities, developing as micro-entrepreneurs.

Lynda suggests there will be a shift from worker's being "shallow generalists" to being "serial masters" with deep levels of skill and competence. The shallow level of knowing a little about a lot is no longer the route to opportunity creation. Anyone with access to the internet and wikipedia can gain a shallow insight into a topic. The "serial" aspect reflects the likelihood many of us will face longer working lives, and need to re-skill to master new areas of expertise.

Rather than working in competitive isolation, the future way to flourish will be to be an "innovative connector", sharing ideas and gaining inspiration from: your "posse" - trusted connections; a "big ideas crowd" being your extended network (friends of friends); and your own personal "regenerative community" - your closest friends and family.

So if the world of work is changing does this impact careers work?

The model of advice delivery which has flourished under Connexions has emphasised the generalist approach. Former specialist careers advisers became generalists, advising teenagers on the widest range of personal support topics. What's now needed in an internet savvy, connected world is the ability for young people to connect easily with the expert. Not just connection with an experienced generalist careers adviser, but instead to an adviser with a deep level of knowledge of the specific industry, occupation or company a learner aspires to join.

The questions, issues and challenges a client may face are likely to require multiple experts with different specialisms over time. The adviser who helps you choose your GCSE subjects at age 13, or understand the intricacies of veterinary medicine, may not be the adviser who helps you apply for a voluntary opportunity or internship.

The challenge for careers advice services is getting past the idea that generalists with access to a knowledge base can meet most advice needs, or that the client should only work with one named adviser (usually allocated by the provider for the provider's convenience). The technology to enable client driven selection of advisers surely exists - sites like Horsesmouth already demonstrate this - young people can scan through thousands of mentors to find specific attributes or expertise that match their current requirements.

For some clients of course facilitation and support are needed to select an adviser. For many clients the advice given by a generalist would still be helpful. But if careers providers are to be at their most effective, they need to embrace the notion of specialism and expert advice in order to meet the needs of clients and the expectations of those (e.g. schools and parents) who will be paying for impartial advice and guidance in the future.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koalazymonkey/

Getting More From Google - Ten Tips to enhance your websearch

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:43:00 +0000

At this year's National Career Guidance Show 2011 in Leeds and London I present a session offering ten tips to improve your Google search experience. Come along to the Royal Armouries in Leeds on Thursday February 17th at 11.15am, or to Wembley Arena in London on Thursday March 10th at 2.30 pm. Entry to the National Career Guidance Show is free.

View the slides at Slideshare and look out for the audio narration I'll be adding in due course! The ten tips are:

1. Keep it simple
2. Use search syntax
3. Make use of maps
4. Filter your results
5. Use search tools
6. Tailor your search settings
7. Refine with advanced search
8. Personalise by logging in
9. Make Search social
10.Protect your privacy

Getting more from google

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Enhancing Choice? the role of technology in the career support market

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:41:00 +0000

UKCES, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills has published an interesting report on the role of technology in careers support. The report is authored by Tristram Hooley, Jo Hutchinson and Tony Watts.

The choice of the term "careers support" rather than "careers advice and guidance" is interesting, and the authors consider a wider cast of players, including friends, family, parents, tutors, alongside the professional adviser. Here's a brief summary of some of the key points from the research.

It is suggested that individuals can benefit from support and guidance on how to invest their "career capital" - i.e. the individual can maximise return on their talents, social and educational positioning. But with the complexity of education and career choices, it can be hard for an individual to do this without career support. Outcomes are not exclusively determined by career capital, but it is however an important factor.

The report asks whether technology can improve people's choice in the ways they access support, and also increase cost-effectiveness. At present career support services have a high profile with government, but policy makers are currently having to rethink delivery models in the light of scarce and reducing funds.

In the careers support market very few consumers of advice and guidance pay for what they receive. It's a complicated market with confusing entitlements and some instability in the organisations and institutions providing services. User understanding of what's available and how to access is increasingly dependent upon using the internet. This inevitably excludes or impedes access by some groups. The authors suggest digital literacy and search strategies of users are often poor. We need to consider digital literacy as a career management skill and focus on helping people raise skill levels.

International comparisons found only a limited niche market for the "individual pays" segment of the career support market. Where governments have withdrawn funding for services this has led to considerable reduction in availability of career support.

The authors find that ICT is changing the way career support is being provided, and has enabled new players to enter the market and achieve high penetration. ICT is being used to reduce the cost per user, reaching larger volumes in largely self-service web-based delivery modes. One of the arguments for encouraging people to use online resources and self-directed learning is that such activity makes face to face adviser sessions more effective, since clients arrive more prepared for their session.

Services like wikijob and Horsesmouth are cited as examples of sites which emphasise the value of collectivised knowledge and the input of non-professionals, rather than the expertise of qualified advisers.

There are basically 5 ways in which career support services are funded:

1) Government pays - but this tends to limit the scope for innovation, as services tend to be tightly defined in procurement processes.
2) Charitable body pays - more innovation and flexibility is possible but this can lead to problems of sustainability as funding dries up.
3) Individual Pays - a niche mainly confined to high income individuals seeking advice and support. A number of providers have attempted to sell e-books and career focussed apps to a broader audience, but have not yet found a viable market to individuals.
4) Opportunity Providers pay - for example recruiters - although there are some good sites like monster, with useful content, such providers tend to avoid the intensive and costly offer of personal support. The value in these sites is in the quality of content and frequency of update.
5) Embedded - for example within an education provider's offer to learners, or as part of an employer's offer to employees.

The report suggests further research is needed into how government could stimulate a hybrid model where both government and individuals contirbute to the cost of career support services, and the potential of apps in this marketplace.

Policy levers could also be applied to encourage employers and education providers to embed career support into their operational models. Government can influence the sector through quality assurance and regulation activities. Key outcomes of such intervention might be:

* The sector being encouraged to upskill career support practioners
* Development of protected status for career professionals
* A kitemark for quality career support web resources
* Provision of quality careers and labour market information through a single national portal
* More flexibility in service commissioning by the public sector, to encoruage provider innovation
* Provision of services to those unable to fund themselves

The report concludes by welcoming market development as offering a greater range of services, and the hope that consumers are well informed, with digital literacy skills enabling them to recoup maximum benefit from a diverse range of support. While government can shape, recommend and encourage market development, ultimately individuals are responsible for managing their own careers.

I think there is a long way to go in building digital literacy among professional practitioners before they could begin to help clients improve their digital literacy. Too often practitioners report organisational restrictions on internet use, but I think the issue goes deeper than this.

Some professional careers advisers remain blissfully ignorant of the best digital career support available. I recently delivered training to experienced advisers and many reported not knowing of such sites as icould, thestudentroom and horsesmouth. These are innovative, popular careers support sites which many of clients use already, or would certainly benefit from being signposted to.

It is hard to see how any professional adviser could help their clients to maximise their "career capital" without considering the potential of digital career support offerings, whether those be through contacts within social networks, the support of online mentors, or the collectivised online wisdom of peers.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/

Careers practitioners should inhabit rather than colonise the web

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 14:19:00 +0000

People turn to the net to find what they need to know about working life, and that includes learning about the world of work, career opportunities, places to study and and train.

The web contains (according to one estimate) 23 billion pages of information, indexed by Google. That amounts to an enormously complex haystack of information, opinions and viewpoints. Today's seeker of career advice faces an unprecedented range of influences - good & bad, inspiring, off puting, up-to-date, out-of-date, misleading, insightful or just plain wrong.

In his recent pamphlet "Career-learning thinking for contemporary working life", Bill Law outlines the view that Advisers can and should be helping clients scrutinise and probe the information they find on the web.

Bill's view is that we, as career practitioners should inhabit the net rather than colonise it with our exclusive expertise. Rather than ignoring the places on the web where people are already conversing about career questions, it is very tempting to set up our own specialist websites as expert enclaves.

Some of my colleagues have been trying this inhabitation strategy! They are delivering advice and guidance directly through Facebook to their teenage clients. The reception has been very encouraging, and there have been good results in terms of engaging with harder to reach young people, and gaining positive outcomes - i.e. into work and training.

When you look at some of the career related advice and views people express on Facebook, or in Yahoo Answers, or all sorts of other forums, you could stand back and feel outraged and want nothing to do with it. Alternatively you could respect the alternative nature of some of the advice on offer, (it's never going to be the same as our beloved expert authored career leaflets) and start joining in conversations and work with clients to help them improve their ability to evaluate, question and challenge.

Image by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/

Young opposed to web guidance

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Mon, 24 May 2010 07:48:00 +0000

I've heard lots of people referring to this article from Children and Young People Now, which reported on research by NICEC/CfBT into adviser skills and practice in web guidance.

After reading the executive summary of the research, I have to say I thought this an odd conclusion for CYP Now to reach. It's out of kilter with other surveys - for example Habbo just published research from 5,300 young people indicating that 72% would be happy to declare a brand their friend on the site. Even Razorfish's survey found 40% of adults were happy to declare a brand their friend on Facebook. And within the NICEC/CfBT Executive Summary the researchers stated: "young people think that internet-based services could be an effective way of delivering guidance services more flexibly and effectively in the future.”

The full version of the NICEC/CfBT research is now available, and having contacted Jenny Bimrose, one of the report's authors, I can confirm the CYP Now story is pure journalistic spin! It seems one young person commented they would not like Facebook used for careers advice and that they saw it as their own personal social space. The press picked up on this, and made a very different story with a message almost completely opposite of that which seems to come from the content of the research!

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dantaylor/

10 ways to support higher education applicants

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:51:00 +0000

Earlier in January John Morgan, President of a prominent teaching union in the UK was quoted as saying: "All the modern student needs is open transparent information about all aspects of the course, including its wage earning potential and actual job prospects, based on past graduates. Social networks will do the rest."

Take a look at the peer to peer advice requested and offered on popular sites like The Student Room or Yahoo Answers. You may come away shocked at the eagerness with which learners bypass career advice professionals and get answers from their peer group. This starts to look less shocking when you see the convenience factor - you can ask a question more or less anonymously, at any time of the day or night, and get answers almost instantly.

The quality however may leave something to be desired in some cases. But you can often detect real insight and advice based on personal, current experience, which any careers professional couldn't possibly get close to.

All this said, I don't think the role of careers teacher or adviser is quite redundant yet!

Here are ten roles I believe we can take on, which offer important support to our students in their university applications:

1. Explorer: Finding out about what’s out there. Trying it for yourself. Subscribing to expert blogs, or just using StumbleUpon to discover cool tools and sites.
2. Reviewer: Sharing your personal assessment of the suitability and value of what you find. Use social bookmarking tools like Delicious, or start your own blog.
3.Producer: Making your own content, through blogs, video clips and audio podcasts. Get a FLIP video camera, upload clips to YouTube, or podcast using radioinschools online studio, or Audacity.
4. Networker: Understand social networking processes. Learn about others experience and interests, and make referrals, or requests on behalf of clients. Visit Flowork to learn more, join Linkedin, network with fellow career professionals, set up a Facebook Fan Page for your institution.
5. Safety officer: Understand internet safety. Advise on safe social web use. Challenge risky behaviour online. Visit CEOP and Thinkuknow websites. Get training.
6. Intelligence Officer: Identify opportunities and intelligence sources, set up and monitor feeds on topics of interest. Help others create their own monitoring systems. Learn to consume RSS feeds using iGoogle, Google reader or other tools.
7.Tutor / Coach: Help students develop skills of online search, analysis and evaluation in the context of careers and labour market information. Encourage students online activity and model effective approaches. Help students with advanced search techniques, champion digital literacy in the curriculum, and be present online.
8. Curator: Manage, or commission your own online careers information resources/portal/ learning space. Start a virtual careers centre Create space on your VLE, start wikis or forums for students to share their research. Involve your Connexions Personal Advisers, or Careers Advisers/Counsellors.
9. Equalities Officer: Challenge stereotypes, and foster diversity and inclusion. The social web has created a platform for old prejudices, discrimination, and behaviour which can undo the work of those promoting equality and diversity in education and employment.
10. Guide: Signposting learners to appropriate / best content or people. Help individuals find their way to the best tools and resources for their needs.

Just when you thought your job was reducing in scope! Another ten hats!

Failure proof goal setting

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:53:00 +0000

It's that time of year when talk turns to our goals and resolutions. And like an old record, there are those stories telling us our good intentions are mislplace, since the majority of new year resolutions are (as this Guardian newspaper article suggests) "doomed to failure".

But at any time of year, those planning their careers, seeking jobs or course opportunities, or simply wanting to improve aspects of their life, can benefit from goal setting.

The things is - how to make them failure-proof? Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire found in research that those who succeeded in achieving their goals, adopted several strategies:

* They broke goals down into smaller achievable steps or focussed on just one goal at a time
* They kept a diary of their progress
* They told their friends about how they were getting on with their goals
* They had a positive focus to their goals rather than a negative one

There are many online tools to use for goal setting. Some are free, others require subscription. Two of the best I have found are inpowr and lifetick.

Inpowr has an excellent self-assessment tool, which will remind those with coaching experience of the "Life Wheel", or UK careers advisers of the "APIR assessment". It helps identify areas where you may want to set goals. It uses a "tag cloud" to help you think of goals you could set yourself, based on what other users have set themselves. It then connects you with those other users, through community features for mutual support and discussion online.

Lifetick is a subscription product, although the free version has most of the same features, including an Iphone version. The main difference is that you can only work on 4 goals at a time. I like Lifetick's approach which first gets you to think about your values, and then links goals to specific values. The process is more sophisticated than Inpowr, and there are on-screen prompts to help you set SMART goals. The reporting features and goal tracking are extensive.

Happy goal setting!

Virtual School Counselling/Career advice

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:48:00 +0000

It's interesting to see new models of teaching appearing, and that alongside online learning, there is an emerging need for virtual career advice and counselling support. Dr Erin Berry-Sams spoke at the INACOL Virtual Schools Synposium in November 2009. She has 3,000 online learners in her care at Virtual Virginia. She offers virtual career and school counselling services to them.

Erin described the Functions of virtual school counsellor, and a distinction from the face to face school counsellor. Face to face school counsellors may not be fully aware of what supplemental courses actually involve. This is where the virtual school counsellor may come in. This role may help a student where issues are connected with the virtual course.

The Virtual Schools counsellor may offer:
• Individual counselling (in conjunction with local face to face counsellors)
• Academic and career counselling
• Group counselling
• Consultation (e.g. with teachers when students have special needs)
• Curriculum and classroom guidance
• Systems support

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alui0000/

Virtual Schools

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:40:00 +0000

INACOL VIRTUAL SCHOOLS SYMPOSIUM

At the end of last year, several thousand delegates gathered at the Inacol Virtual Schools Symposium to share ideas and learn more about the rapidly developing area of virtual school education in the United States.

Susan Patrick, INACOL President gave an insightful keynote. She predicts a global shortage of teachers over next 10 years. 70% of US school districts offer at least 1 online course. 45 have policies and state-wide programs. Online learning is reaching 1% of student population. In 2005 around 20,000 K-12 (5-18 year olds) made online course enrolments, but in 2009 that has already topped 1m. Florida Virtual School is a leader in the field and has 154,000 student enrolments.

27 states allow full time online learning. Virtual schools are being used for meeting the needs of students getting back on track, for gifted students to take more advanced courses (e.g. Stanford University online programme) and helping students develop skills for future.

In Turkey 15m students have used online education systems developed by ministry of education. Australia is aiming to provide a laptop for every high school student.
India – would need 200,000 new schools to cope with population demands, so want to use virtual instead.

In China – 100m virtual school students are anticipated in next 10 years.
Singapore closes down its physical schools for one week a year so teachers and pupils can use virtual learning instead. All educators are trained to use such collaborative teaching approaches. The country is wanting to ensure continuity of learning in the face of potential pandemics – e.g. H1N1(Swine Flu).

Reasons for continued growth:
1. Online learning expands options to study courses otherwise unavailable.
2. Online learning growing rapidly (30% annually) in the US.
3. Many research studies show online learning can be as effective or better when compared with face to face study.
4. Achieving equity in teacher distribution.
5. Supporting struggling schools, and a new model for sharing access to the best teachers.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/

3D Virtual Connexions Advice Centre

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Presented at INACOL Virtual Schools Symposium, Austin, TX November 2009.

We began with a bright idea of having a virtual, "Second Life"-style counseling center for our local 13-19 year old students. This case study explores how we overcame various barriers and obstacles to commission and establish a safe, virtual environment, where teenage students in our area can access resources, chat with counselors, and join live group sessions on topics such as career, health and personal welfare.

3 D Virtual Connexions Advice Center

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Quality, Choice and Aspiration

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:10:00 +0000

The government's new strategy for young people's Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) in England was published at the end of October.

This strategy has been a long time coming, and basically calls for more and better advice. It also calls for upskilling of careers teachers in schools, and greater involvement with parents. The social web of course offers a suitable vehicle for communicating and engaging with many parents - not all - but many. The key here is that social web engagement, once mastered can be faster, equally effective, but potentially less expensive than more traditional methods. Clearly there won't be lots of extra money to fund school parental engagement in the years ahead. Social web outreach is an obvious no-brainer here.

An interesting commitment in the strategy is to develop an online mentoring resource by the end of 2010. This could usefully build on the work already done by the Horsesmouth Foundation and its excellent site, horsesmouth.co.uk , which has amassed a willing body of some thousands of mentors, happy to share their wisdom and stories with young people seeking mentoring support. It would be a shame if public funding is used to establish a rival mentoring site, when a thriving community of mentors and mentees already exists in a similar space.

Whilst the commissioning of research to identify and disseminate mentoring good practice is useful, I don't believe it is necessary to be too prescriptive about what should or should not constitute online mentoring. Horsesmouth has not for example forced mentors to undertake any training, or demonstrate competencies in order to be approved as suitable mentors. Instead the community models good practice, and the rigorous moderation takes care of any potential miscreants.

One of the prongs of the strategy is "state-of-the-art online IAG". The on-line access section of the strategy does not have a lot of detail, but quotes from recent BYC and NCB surveys telling us 61% of young people cited the internet as a key influence on careers, only narrowly behind "parents" at 65%, "friends" at 60% and "teachers" at 58%. I don't think it's quite so easy to separate out "internet" from these other influences, since many young people will use the internet as the communication medium to talk to their friends, tutors (if they could) and other mentors. What needs to be remembered here is that friends and family are influential, but the way young people communicate with their friends and families probably includes the use of internet social web tools.

I agree that technology has considerable potential to transform access to high quality IAG. Social networking, web-chat and on-line video content are suggested as means of enabling a more personalised delivery of IAG, which can respond to young people's interests. You only have to look at the great clips at icould.com to see what a huge leap forward is created by this collection of people's real-life career stories.

The implication though is that a centralised strategy is being proposed here - the national Connexions Direct service is described as "the main online and telephone service". There is a danger that local authority Connexions service providers will feel that they don't need to worry about the social web too much, since Connexions Direct will be taking care of all that, from their centralised contact centre.

The pledges of innovation in on-line services describe projects already underway or in pilot at the centralised, national contact centre - Connexions Direct. So one should expect DCSF to fund the development of the official Connexions Direct moderated chat-room, their message board, and their web-cam facility.

But local delivery partners should not sit back. Apart from anything else, practitioners need to be able to signpost and help young people make sense of the enormous range of information on the social web.

It's unrealistic to believe that creating a few officially preferred IAG sites, counters the thousands and thousands of other social web content sources. Advisers need awareness of what's out there, access to the social web, and confidence to use sites.

Of course the strategy may turn out to be academic if scrapped by an incoming conservative government next year. Although David Willetts does speak of his party's belief in the importance of IAG, he envisages a different delivery model to the current one. It's hard, however to imagine any new tory model would fail to recognise the power and potential of the social web to transform IAG delivery.

icould launch

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:39:00 +0000

This week I attended the launch of the innovative careers website, icould.

The site is a great example of the potential of the social web in careers work. It comprises more than 1,000 video stories, featuring a mixture of celebrities and members of the public telling their career stories.

This narrative approach is an exciting development and provides those exploring career ideas a new way to learn about the world of work. Everyone's story is unique, and the personal element is deliberately designed to inspire people. It's a refreshing alternative to the standard, impersonal careers information sheet handed out to generations of advice seekers.

Registered users can comment on stories, and share their favourites through a range of social media connections - e.g. Facebook, Bebo, Digg, Delicious etc.

Although you can search by occupational areas, the clips database can also be searched by very different life themes - for example stories from people who took risks to get where they are today, or people who have faced discrimination, or who did not blossom until after leaving school.

Some example stories are available on youtube - search for the tag "icouldstories".

Internet Jobsearch Part 4 - Social Web Presence

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:10:00 +0000

SOCIAL WEB

Employers and recruiters routinely check out people online to see if their application forms are thruthful, and whether there is more information about them on the web than they have supplied in their CV or application letter. A quick search on google, or using a people search engine like pipl.com can yield a much better insight into what a job applicant is really like, showing details of who their friends are, and their social interests.

• Jobsearch need not be an individual activity if you get your whole social network on your side, helping find each other new career opportunities. The people in your network can be an invaluable source of help, advice and referrals. Tell your network about your jobsearch activities, ask for referrals.

• Tell others about opportunities you find which you think might interest them. For example if you find out about a new company opening in your town, it may not offer the type of work you are looking for, but it may be of interest to someone in your network, or their family, neighbours or friends.

• It’s not a good idea to say bad things about your work or employer on your social web profile.

• Check the privacy settings on your social network accounts, and think about what you want to be public, and what you’d prefer to be private between you and your close friends and family.

• Some employers keep tabs on their employee’s social web activities, and those who bring their company into disrepute are sometimes sacked as a result of what they say online. Sometimes what you think is a joke, or amusing photograph might be perceived differently by your boss, co-workers, or others in your company.

• Some subjects are best avoided on your social web profile (and also where you comment or are mentioned on other people’s sites) as they can give the wrong impression to a recruiter. References to drugs, alcohol, sex, illegal activities and extremist views (e.g. racism/sexism/homophobia) are all likely to influence recruiters negatively.

• Check what people will find if they search for you on google or pipl.com. If you find things you’d prefer employers not to see, take steps to remove content or ask friends to remove (e.g. drunken party photographs) from their sites. Photographs are a common feature of search results for people, so you may want to review what photos come up in results, and post new, more appropriate photographs online if necessary.

DEVELOPING A POSITIVE WEB PRESENCE

One of the best ways to increase your positive web presence is to start a blog using your real name, and write about topics which reflect your career interests. Search engines like google index blog articles, so the more articles you write the more frequently you will appear in search results for your name. Don’t be surprised if you turn up at interview and are asked a question about your previous blog posts.

Check sites and resources on the topic of “Personal Branding”, which offer advice and tips on how to develop and improve your online presence and reputation.

Respond to other people’s postings in blogs or discussion forums, on newspaper or professional journal or professional body websites, where you have something thoughtful and useful to add to discussions.

Ask or answer questions in Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers, or within Linkedin. This type of activity can help you promote yourself and your interests, and link you to others with similar interests in your chosen industry.

INTERNET SAFETY

• Be careful with your personal information. Don’t publish your CV publicly on the web with your full address, telephone number and email address.

• Don’t arrange to meet people you’ve only met through a discussion forum or social web site.

• For advice on safe web use for young people visit www.thinkuknow.co.uk.

• There are unfortunately some employment related scams around and if you receive unexpected job offers at enormous salaries, from people you don’t know, for jobs you’ve not applied for, it’s most likely spam or some kind of scam. Ask your adviser if you are unsure about an opportunity.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27180696@N02/

Internet Jobsearch Part 3 - The social web

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:38:00 +0000

Social websites like Facebook, Myspace, Xing and Linkedin offer more opportunities for the internet job seeker.

• Some companies have profiles which you can monitor, or link to as a friend or fan. This will allow you to keep aware of new recruitment initiatives, or other company news.
• Some employees (past and present) set up unofficial social web groups for their company which you may be able to view or join. This can give you a different insight into an organisation, and may offer inside contacts, for advice on applying or being interviewed by a particular company.
• Professional groups are also common on social websites, and these generally welcome anyone interested in a particular field. This can be a useful source of industry insight, as well as advice on forthcoming recruitment opportunities.
• HorsesMouth.co.uk offers over 16 year olds in the UK free online coaching and mentoring. Mentees can search for a mentor with background, skills and interests relevant to their career aspirations.
• Careers services – some careers and recruitment services have social web profiles, and these offer another way of keeping in touch with advisers and recruiters.
• Professional social networks like Xing and Linkedin can help you find career histories of people who work ( or have worked) at a company you are targeting. This is useful as you can often gain an insight into the skills and background an employer may value. You can also see the sort of career progression which may be possible for people in specific roles. You can also start or become part of online professional communities, relating to your specialist interests.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaycameron/

Internet Jobsearch Part 2 - Company Research

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:13:00 +0000

Company websites are a great source of information for jobseekers. You can find content which will help you evaluate whether you want to work for a particular company. For example, you might look at their company report, or mission and values statements. You might also be able to access information about projects they have been involved with, those recently launched, or planned for the future. Many company websites feature news about the company.

Official company website information can help you prepare a more targeted application letter or form. It can also help you prepare for an interview where you are likely to be asked “Why do you want to work for our company?”, and also “Have you any questions you’d like to ask.” Both of these questions give the jobseeker a great opportunity to show they know something about the organisation and its activities.

Search engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing all allow you to restrict search results to news stories. This allows you to check for recent media coverage about a potential employer. Perhaps they just appointed a new chief executive, or launched an expansion programme, or commented on a government proposal.

“Google alerts” allow you to be emailed when a company is mentioned on the web, or when their content is updated. This can be a useful means of keeping in touch with developments at a company you’re interested in working for.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ollieolarte/

Internet Jobhunting Part 1 - Job Boards

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:47:00 +0000

Today many recruiters make use of the internet to publicise jobs and find candidates. Every job hunter can benefit from using the internet as part of their job search strategy.

JOB BOARDS

General Job board such as Monster, Jobsite, Jobserve, Totaljobs, Jobcentreplus and Fish4jobs are among some of the UK’s most popular.

Microblogging site, Twitter is also being used by some recruiters to advertise job opportunities. Following, or monitoring specialist twitter recruiters may be worthwhile for some jobseekers.

Specialist job boards focus on particular sectors, such as IT or teaching. Some of these are linked to industry publications , or professional bodies and trade associations.

Some companies also operate online job boards just for their own vacancies. You can monitor these boards if you know a company is likely to advertise jobs you’d like to apply for.

Some Connexions /Careers services and adult employment advice services operate online vacancy boards for their students and customers.

• Ask your adviser which job boards may be most suited to your job search
• Learn what features your selected job boards offer – for example can you register your details, upload your CV, or receive email alerts of new jobs?
• Talk to your adviser about adapting your profile with a particular job board if you find you don’t get suitable matches.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/booleansplit/

Free online course for blog and twitter novices

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:58:00 +0000

Here's a link to the free online material I created for a workshop on using blogs and twitter. The session aimed to raise awareness and familiarize careers, education and employment professionals with blogging (specifically using WordPress). Participants examined personal and business motivations for blogging, different styles of blogging, as well as trying out micro-blogging with use of Twitter and Yammer.

Feel free to try the course material with your own colleagues if you wish! Look forward to hearing whether you find it useful and how you get on.

Blogging to improve employment prospects

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:55:00 +0000

These days the web is highly participative - people contribute. People don't just go there to READ other's expert content. Netpop's research in the United States suggests non-contributors are now in the minority.

Jobseekers, those researching careers and those seeking career development can all benefit from blogs.

Producing your own blog can help people establish greater control of their online identity. At present many employers and admissions tutors search online to see what they can find out about individual applicants. This might trawl up facebook entries, photographs, youtube clips, as well as professional profiles on sites like xing or linkedin. If you are active blogger, any web search could also draw recruiters or those searching for you to your content.

We can help our clients to audit their online identity. For many people, "presence" could be important, as recruiters are looking to see whether you are engaged in the social web at all. Not being there could mean your client not being shortlisted for a job, and reduces the chance of headhunter approach.

What you share is important too - the links, files, content, ideas you post. Is it meaningful, legal, relevant?

What is your reputation? Do others comment postively on your posts? Are you considered knowledgable or expert and therefore being linked to by others?

Who are you connected to? Which other bloggers do you follow? The relationships we make visible online say something about us. For example if you follow industry leaders, employees from a company you want to work for, it demonstrates you are keeping yourself updated professionally, and might have some insight into how the company operates, and it's values and priorities. Following people in your industry, or the career specialism you aspire to gives you access to social labour market information. This is different from the statistics about employment in different fields, which some advisers share with their clients. You can't interract with employment stats, but you can ask a question of a blogger, or comment about their posts on a blog.

Recruiters are interested in who you are linked with, who inspires and influences us. For example a relevant professional network could mean you'll be perceived as someone who can bring business with them to a new employer, or be able to solve problems more easily because you can call upon your network for support.

Slides from ACEG Conference presentation on careers work and social web

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:57:00 +0000

Here are the slides from my 3rd July 2009 workshops at the Association for Careers Education and Guidance Conference in Cambridge, UK.

Careers Work and The Social web

View more documents from larbal.

Jobseekers increase hiring chances by developing a strong online brand

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:55:00 +0000

A survey of 208 employers by recruitment firm Harvey Nash and the Department for Work and Pensions finds social networks are becoming an increasingly mainstream tool for recruitment.

Half of those surveyed claimed candidates would increase their chances of being hired if they invested time in "developing a strong online brand"

Unfortunately this message is not getting through to young people, with separate research finding only one in ten 18-24 year olds making use of social networking sites for the purpose of finding job leads or making useful career contacts.

One HR manager, Matthew Garrett says: "social network sites like LinkedIn and Facebook have become absolutely critical in finding new hires. Not only do they give us access to people who we might not find elsewhere, but they are also an excellent way to understand more about the candidate beyond just their CV. Certainly for figleaves.com, job seekers who have a strong online presence do stand out from the crowd, and we would encourage more people to invest in their online 'brand'.

18-24's are also bearing the brunt of unemployment in the current downturn. It is vital that career advisers working with teenagers and young adults fully appreciate the changing practice in recruitment sector, and advise candidates on how to develop a public online presence, designed to complement the formal CV, resume or job application. So many employers now check candidates details on the web that we must assume every employer will be making such checks.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toohotty/

8 ways careers educators can use the social web

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:57:00 +0000

Here are some ideas of ways in which careers teachers and advisers can make use of the social web in their work with young people.

1. Set up a Careers Dept page on social networking sites. Find out which sites your learners prefer. Even if your institution blocks access to social websites, your students will still be using it outside school, so there is still an argument for having a presence.

2. Set up a careers forum in your institution’s Virtual Learning Enivornment. Your virtual learning environment may offer a way of establishing a collaborative space which students and teachers can access. Many institutions block access to most social networking sites, but VLE’s often have similar features such as document sharing, discussion boards, blogs, wikis, personal profiles, polls and surveys, status updates etc. While generally not as slick as the popular social networking sites, your VLE can offer a safe, controlled environment for collaboration and networking within your insitution’s community. Popular VLE’s include the free, open source Moodle, RM Kaleidos, Frog, and Microsoft Learning Gateway (SharePoint).

3. Set up occupational wikis, learners can update. Wikis are sets of linked webpages which can be created, edited, amended by their readers. Wikipedia can offer a good starting point. Content about a particular occupation, or region could be copied into your own new wiki, to provide some material which groups of students can build upon. Students add new pages and sections, and update the content as a result of their team research efforts. Many VLE’s will have WIKI features available, but there are also online services such as PBWiki and wikidot, which have free or low cost versions available. Various controls allow you to limit access by unauthorised users.

4. Encourage groups of learners to annotate and share web pages they find in their careers research. Diigo allows groups of users with shared career/education interests to view each other’s favourite webpages, and leave sticky notes on them, with their comments. When logged into diigo you benefit from being able to see your friend’s comments about the websites you visit – for example a user may highlight sections of a university website as being particularly useful.

5. Encourage groups of learners with similar occupational interests to share their bookmarks on Delicious. This site allows you to store all your bookmarks online, and share them with the world (or keep them private). Interestingly you can see who else has bookmarked the same site, and this can lead you to view another person’s bookmarks on your topic of interest. Often the resulting recommended links will be helpful to your own research.

6. Get learners to pose questions on Yahoo Answers and then evaluate the responses they receive to careers questions, or examine archived Q&A's from the site. Yahoo answers allows users to pose and answer questions. There is an active community of users who ask questions which are career and education related. The answers given are often immediate, sometimes quirky, and quite mixed in their accuracy, sensitivity, and impartiality. But they are real people’s views, and you do see real insights from people who know about specific jobs, giving information you would not find easily from more traditional careers resources. It’s helpful to discuss issues of accuracy, impartiality, bias with learners and help them to evaluate the quality of the answers they might get from sites like this.

7. Use Horsesmouth for learners aged 16 and over to find (and also become) an online mentor. There are thousands of mentors available. While their identities are not currently checked (you just have to have a UK mobile phone number), all discussions are carefully monitored and moderated by professionals, who intervene if they are concerned about conversations between mentors and mentees. The site also allows nuggets or pearls of wisdom to be shared. This is interesting because it potentially links young people with highly experienced professionals, with great understanding of their chosen occupational area. There are other ways to source online mentors, perhaps through sites like linkedin, or other social networks. If an institution is encouraging such use of social networks it will be important to check local policies, and if soliciting for mentors on behalf of young people, institution staff should seek to verify mentor identity.

8. Help learners find and subscribe to blog and RSS feeds from key experts in their chosen sector. This is a way of keeping up to date with the latest developments and issues in a particular profession or area of study. There are millions of blogs. Technorati offers a means of finding blogs, and often bloggers will list the other blogs they follow or recommend. Many news media sites will also have RSS feeds too. Setting up a blog can be a means for learners to express their own interests and establish some online identity and personal branding. Increasingly employers and admissions tutors check individuals out online. Having something positive in the form of a blog can be a useful way to prepare for such checks.

Permission to dream!

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:45:00 +0000

Klaus Nigel Pertl from Mindstore led a popular session on performance development at the National Learning Platforms Conference, held in Manchester, UK on 10th June 2009.

Klaus suggested we are used to change being smaller and more gradual than it is today. We used to “swim through” the waves of change by working harder and longer. But we can’t just do this in today’s business world because the size of the waves are so much bigger, and no sooner than you swim through you are hit by the next one. We need to become “surfers” and learn to enjoy the massive opportunities that big change creates, rather than simply battening down the hatches and weathering the storm. Action cures fear.

We all need more energy to cope with change. 5 factors for success:

1. STRESS handling – learn to relax, deliberately calm yourself down every 90 minutes, eliminate stress factors, change your belief system as to what things cause you stress (tell yourself daily and in 21-28 days such beliefs become habitual).
2. POSITIVITY – accept reality and when it is less than satisfying look forward and consider the next step. Immunise yourself by avoiding the use of negative words – don’t say “not bad” when you mean “good”. Rather than talking in the language of problem and worry, think of confidence, strength, challenge and opportunity.
3. CREATIVITY – we need both left and right brain activated to solve problems creatively. When you are being creative you have more alpha brainwaves, (similar to being relaxed). Define what you are looking for and understand the task ahead. Remember the subconscious mind is always working on potential solutions to our problems, so don’t expect immediate answers all the time. Pressurising ourselves does not always lead to faster solutions.
4. EMOTION – replace must or should with love to. When we are motivated positively by emotion (love, interest, pride, desire) we are much more likely (80%) to follow our plans through to fruition, compared to those without emotional motivation (10%). Goals become more achievable when emotionally backed.
5. GOAL SETTING – enabling ordinary people to do extraordinary things requires a new approach to goal setting. Committing and setting a goal marks the beginning of something – it is no longer a dream. BUT tying things down at the start to being “realistic and achievable” is not inspiring and constrains goals by pulling back with left brain thinking. Forcing goals to be realistic and achievable is a bit of a holy cow. These factors come from our past – so tend to bring us back to what we’ve done, tried and tested before, rather than allow us to be open to new ways. Also realistic and achievable requires us to plan. The obsession with planning makes ideas collapse. Plans have a place, but the details should be developed along the journey. The right brain is about flexibility and innovation. Maybe we use 10% of our potential each day.

Setting goals with the right brain.

P – PASSION – set goals which excite you and touch your heart as well as your mind, taking you out of your normal comfort zone. Ask yourself WHY you want it? What is your driving emotion? What excites you about this?

F – FANTASY – use imagination to think about something that is not yet reality.

D – DREAM – tap into alpha brainwaves in your relaxed state – create images, see yourself having already achieved what you want. Use visualisation since your mind can be programmed by seeing the ideas, the opportunities and this activates the subconscious mind.

Klaus closed by asking "When did you stop dreaming? Are your partner and kids still dreaming?"

As Careers Advisers I guess we must look frankly at the way we work with people and check we are not shutting down people's dreams, and that we ourselves continue to follow our passions. Are we being too rigorous in adheing to the SMART goal setting methods with our clients, and our organisations? Does everything always need to be quite so specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound?

Connected Generation 09

noreply@blogger.com (larbs) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:01:00 +0000

There are still some free places left (at the time of writing) for the Connected Generation 09 Unconference on 11th July. It's being held near to Victoria Station in London, and will bring together a range of people interested in understanding digital technologies and using them effectively to engage with young people.

The "unconference" format allows the sessions to be largely proposed and selected on the day by participants, who convene discussions, workshops, meetings and demos according to what people feel are the hot topics of interest on the day. Very different to the usual planned conference agenda!

View the event website here.

Image credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/