School Leavers/Graduates

Chris was involved in the Career Inspiration Summit back in December, this event was aimed at the “leaders of tomorrow” and had some really interesting insights from a range of speakers in different areas of business talking about their career journeys and experiences in business.  The IoD supports, represents and sets the standards for directors and business leaders in the…

2020 The Pandemic Year, has students leaving school this year without physically having taken their GCSE and A ‘Levels exams. Some students have been working hard and preparing themselves for these important exams only to have the experience of exam taking, taken away from them. I am sure some will be relieved to not have the pressure of exam taking but there will be other students who may feel…

First impressions are incredibly important and none more so than when you are applying for a job. Your first encounter with your future employer starts when you send them your CV and covering letter. Most people think it’s at interview stage and plough lots of time and effort into researching and preparing for this, forgetting the other crucial elements that get you to that stage in the…

I was recently meeting a young school leaver to help give advice.   They had worked for a short time in an office administration role but had not succeeded as they did not like using the telephone to actually ‘speak’ with people as “everyone our age just uses social media, no one uses the phone to speak”. Actually this is a common observation by employers, not…

I received an email from someone asking about their chances of having a complete change in career direction. I think like many people, they have had the time (really had the time!) during lockdown to look at the job they are doing and realised it is not really what they want, or it may be they are faced head on with the loss of their job or the prospect that redundancy might just be around the…

When you applied for your current job? How long ago was that? 2 years? 5 years? In my case 19 years! As I was writing this I thought I would do as I preach – seems I have taken on a lot more than what was on my initial job spec and added a few more strings and achievements to my bow than I realised! Updating your cv does not have to mean you are looking for a new job, it can mean you are ready…

  For those that pay any notice to my rantings (high five to you three...), I do keep harping on about 'soft skills', but that is because I am reminded every day how important they are. Having read a few articles, I came across a piece by Matthew Kerr (June 2019) that said, “A deciding factor for 72% of CEOs surveyed cited soft skills of more importance than hard skills.” What’s the…

It feels like the first few weeks of 2020 have passed in the blink of an eye… Can you still wish anybody a Happy New Year when you’re nearly through the first month? How about a question, then: What do you expect of school leavers and graduates starting their first job this year? 2019 was the year of our ‘Future of Guernsey Workforce Survey’  (…