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Showing posts with label candidates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label candidates. Show all posts
Friday, 12 November 2010
Could demonstrating harm your future job prospects?
07:27 | 
Posted by
ATC
The papers this week, have been full of the 50,000 strong demonstration In London, against the increase in student fees for Higher Education students. Because of a small minority, it is clear that some of the messages that they wanted to communicate have been lost behind the headlines of smashed windows, unprepared police and a fire extinguisher being dangerously thrown from the roof of a building.
I have read newspaper articles and listened to the news and watched Newsnight and heard from students who condemned the violence, those that said a few broken windows are nothing, those that say violence is the only way that their voice can be heard and those that just wanted to attend and silently express their anger about the burden of debt they may face in the future. As I listened to the reports and I read articles, there was one issue that kept coming up for me which hadn't been mentioned. I kept wondering whether the people involved were fully aware of the messages they were communicating and how they could impact on their future job prospects.
In January of this year it was reported that “7 out of 10 employers research candidates online”, but as we go around our daily lives, are these figures that the majority of people even thing of? The photos, the messages that we post randomly, could they be held against us at a later date. It's easy to argue that most of us are aware of the importance of what information we share with other people and being careful to set the right privacy settings. However, the key issue is not the control of our own settings but other peoples. It’s possible to be completely unaware of photos that other people post on their walls, with comments, names, dates and times.
I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t demonstrate or they shouldn’t be seen on a demonstration. The right to demonstrate and freedom of speech are rights that as a democracy we should welcome and celebrate. All I wonder is that when the students of today demonstrate, lawfully and peacefully and a tiny minority throw missiles, or break windows or scream abuse – are they thinking about the possible impact on their job prospects of the future?
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Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Structured Interviews
11:24 |
Posted by
ATC
The rights and wrongs of using structured interviews to fill a job vacancy have recently been discussed in a number of articles and forums on professional websites including the CIPD's. It's interesting to see the contrasting viewpoints. There are those who are clearly in favour of using a structured approach, believing that it makes the process fairer and those against it, believing structured interviews are inhibiting and not the best way to find out about a candidate.
The different views seem to be split about 50/50. Those working in the public sector are mostly in favour of structured interviews where questions are planned before hand and the same questions are put to all the candidates. On the other hand, those in the private sector mostly favour unstructured interviews, reasoning that this unformal approach allows the flexibility to find out more relevant information about the candidate.
Having worked in the public sector for most of my working life, I favour the structured approach. It shouldn't be inhibiting, because it's perfectly acceptable to ask extension questions - which of course will be different depending on the responses of different candidates. Clearly some organisations have managed well using an unstructured approach and want to continue to use it. However, for anyone who has had little opportunity to develop the necessary interviewing skills for this less formal approach they could easily find themselves in trouble. More often than not candidates will have the opportunity to talk to each other and if they are later choose to challenge a decision, suspecting that the process has not been fair - the panel members could find themselves accused of discrimination. Is it worth the risk? In my view no - but then I have never found the structured approach inhibiting and on the couple of occasions when my decisions have been challenged an independent assessor was able to confirm that the process was entirely fair.
Which approach do you favour?
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