Current Fashions In Interviews

I have commented before about how there are fashions in interviews:
http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/in-interviews-say-as-little-as-possible.html
http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/interviews-you-are-weakest-link-goodbye.html and my recommendations for running interviews effectively: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/rooksmoors-guide-to-conducting-job.html  Looking back over these old postings has reminded me of how much fashions in interviewing have changed over the past 3 years. Who changes these fashions and where you can find out about them, remains a mystery to me. I guess you need to subscribe to some human resources journal to find out what is now required. The woman who lived in my house used to be sent the latest style of CV by her sister who appears to have had a supplier of these. I wonder why there are so many changes so frequently. To some degree I guess it is to keep human resources people in work or to make sifting out applicants easier. As yet I have to encounter a human resources department which is not over-staffed or one that is busy. Given that entire departments at two companies I have worked for take a whole day off not leaving even one person to answer the phones and that at least one had enough time to specifically write to the Department of Work and Pensions to try to get my benefits stopped, they clearly have a lot of time on their hands.

Certainly one thing they do not do is communicate what they have changed to other departments. The most disheartening thing, when you have followed every instruction to the letter to be told by the interviewers ‘well that’s not how we used to do it’ and ‘you must have got it wrong’. You are blamed for them not being updated that now applications come on this form or are sent to this person. I know blame-shifting is second nature these days, but to blame the poor applicant for a lack of communication within your company is terribly mean spirited.

Thus, having applied for 39 jobs since the start of June and having attended 14 interviews, with 2 more scheduled, I thought I would alert you to new trends in recruitment for the Autumn 2012 employment season in case you are out there trying to get a job.

The first thing is the deterioration of online application systems. About 90% of the jobs I apply for, I apply through an online system. This means I have to set up an account with them. I must be on fifty different companies systems now even if I have just applied for one job. In some cases this can be an advantage as I do not have to type in how many ‘O’ levels I got in 1983 again and again. I am always astounded how much information they want which is utterly irrelevant to the job. Does it really matter if I got an ‘A’ or a ‘B’ for O Level Chemistry in 1983? I am not applying to be a chemist. I suppose it helps with the filtering. I guess this is the reason why you have to list what school you attended and where, so they can simply bin those who did not go to Eton or one of its equivalents.

The problem is that these systems are unstable. They can lose everything you have written in an instant. They can suddenly deny you access to certain pages. Contacting the company whose website you are applying through is useless. They only see it from their side and so do not see the buttons missing for people coming from the public side. I had to abandon one application because there was no way I could register for an account, only people who already registered could get in. I emailed the company which sent me a link back to the page which was missing the registration button, telling me it was there. Again I am portrayed as the stupid one. Of course, a lot of companies simply buy in these systems without checking if they work or are suitable. I have mentioned before how you get 2000 characters to respond to 25 job requirements, working out at something like only 380 words. For one company I could not fit my response in the box they provided and asked what the character limit was for it and they said they did not know. Conversely, I have been given 5000 characters to write my nine character national insurance number into and 2000 characters to write ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the question about whether I had a right to work in the UK. Some employees are aware how bad their systems are to the extent that I have now learnt their names and simply email my application to them rather than trying to wrestle with the system. 

One element which has certainly been around for the last five years if not longer is the fact that if you cannot match every single one of the characteristics listed on the job specification, do not bother applying for the job.  Often if you say you have not used Software Package X but are very experienced in Software Package Y, which in my sector tends to be far more up-to-date than X, your application is often rejected even before it is seen by a human.  The trouble with this matching every requirement, typically 20-30, is that you can never progress.  You are only interviewed for jobs that you have entirely done before.  There is no ability to step up a level.  This is contrary to the long standing trend in the UK going back probably two centuries, that you moved job to climb to a higher position, something in contrast to Japan for example.  To progress you must pay to go on training courses and get certification yourself and in your own time, without support from your company even if they benefit from you doing this.  Being unemployed I do have the time but not the money to go on such training.  As a consequence my career having peaked in 2010 is now on a downward trajectory as some of the skills I have become obsolete, I cannot apply for as wide a range of jobs as I could have done two years ago.  People tell you that it is your job that becomes redundant not you as a person, but actually in the UK today, that is not the case.

Both salaries and leave are falling.  Jobs I held back in 2005 are now paying £5,000 per year less now than then, despite the sharp rise in the cost of living since then; petrol is twice the price per litre that it was in 2005.  Interestingly pay rates for the same jobs at different companies have now become incredibly varied.  I have seen everything from £27,000 to £44,000 per year for an identical post in different companies.  The most leave I have ever had in a job was 38 days and the average has been 33, but many jobs are now offering only 20 days.  The number of job specifications which state 'must be flexible as to hours' which in its poorly phrased way suggests that you will be expected often to come in early and work late or at weekends.  Clearly despite falling salaries companies want to squeeze more work out of each worker.  As discussed below, this is aided by new technologies which mean you are expected never to be free of the office.  The other thing is 'must be able to work under pressure and to tight deadlines'.  To me, any office especially one which is not associated with the media, where there is constant pressure and tight deadlines is a highly disorganised and inefficient office.  In addition, this requirement contradicts the many others about you being able to organise well, manage your time and prioritise effectively.  Consequently it suggests that the company expects bosses to suddenly spring work on you and expect you to do it for them.  I suppose that with so many attitudes in the UK returning to the 1950s we should not be surprised at this.  However, it hardly suggests working practices that are going to make British industry competitive.  The 1950s were the time when efficiency in British business slid fastest despite the growing prosperity not only in Britain but across Europe and in Japan and North America.

The length of time vacancies are advertised has been reduced with some being taken down within a few days of being advertised.  I imagine that is to reduce the number of applicants.  On a number of occasions jobs I have applied for have got back to me to say that the decision has been delayed by some weeks or the interview arranged for a date two months into the future.  Also vacancies have disappeared usually because the funding has been withdrawn.  I have found that there is absolutely no point in asking about these vacancies and certainly not to point out that you spent a lot of time applying for the post.  In my field it generally takes 8 hours and 5000 words to apply for a position.  The Job Centre presses you to chase up employers you have not heard from.  However, these vacancies which ultimately never have an interview and effectively, disappear, are treated by companies as a particular case.  Often their disappearance is the result of funding changes or difficulties or changes in policy so to respond to queries about the vacancies going is embarrassing to companies to the extent that they can be hostile to queries about them. This is added to the fact that they know they have wasted money in advertising the post and even beginning to analyse applications.  I have learnt it is better to fob off the Job Centre with an excuse which is probably close to what actually happened even if the company would not say it, e.g. that the funding for the post was reallocated and they decided not proceed with the vacancy and hope that the Job Centre staff do not insist on written proof of that supposition.

The other thing that has been reduced is the length of time in which you are notified of an interview.  Back in 2009 when I was invited to an interview 2 days later I was quite surprised but this is now the norm.  I rarely get even a week's notice.  The shortest notification was at 15.15 for an interview at 14.30 the following day, so less than 24 hours.  What made it worse was that the email giving me this information did not actually arrive in my In-box until 22.30, leading to me going to bed immediately.  Fortunately it turned out that the administrator has her work emails going to her smartphone day and night and she texted me back that night to say she had received my message.  I have not been able to afford a smartphone, but it is clear employers are now expecting you to be accessible via email even well outside office hours.  The thing about such short notice of interviews is that it discriminates against anyone with caring commitments.  In addition, it discriminates against people already in a job but looking to move.  Employers still prefer to employ someone currently working rather than someone unemployed, yet there is no way that you can book leave for the following day.  Thus, this approach clearly contradicts the actual attitudes of the companies with no real benefit in my view and in fact preventing many good candidates from attending the interview.

One thing which has certainly appeared in the past year is the need to prove your identity when you arrive at an interview.  The UK has stepped away from identity cards more than once in recent years, but these days to get a job, because of the immigration regulations, you have to constantly prove your identity.  All the markings on my passport have worn off as I have had to use it so often.  I cannot remember when I last travelled abroad, perhaps four years ago, so effectively my passport is no longer used for foreign travel, it is simply my UK identity card.  Mine has expired but I lack the funds to renew it and do not know anyone suitable to sign the photographs.  As yet I have not been challenged for using an out-of-date passport, but I know soon someone will say that they cannot be certain whether I am still British and will bar me from a job on that basis.  I do not know how anyone can claim that immigrants are taking British jobs because the nationality proof requirements are so stringent even if you want to attend an interview let alone actually get the job.  Of course, bigots exclaim loudest from positions of ignorance.

There are some interview trends that I am happy to see have apparently died.  From about 2003 up until last year 95% of the interviews I attended, somewhere around 80, insisted that you did a PowerPoint presentation.  Now, I became very adept at these.  Though some people complained my slides were too plain and lacked decoration, most welcomed their clarity.  The key problem was that in so many cases the interview panel could not operate the equipment.  On a number of occasions the interview was postponed by 1 hour whilst the technical staff were fetched.  On other occasions, I simply had to hold up print-outs of the slides I had produced.  This year interviewers have turned right around and say there will be no facilities for such presentations and you should not bring them.  The new fashion is 'initiating a discussion' on a particular theme.  I quite enjoy this approach.  The key difficulty is not being able to gauge how long to speak for.  This is the same with the responses to questions, you want to appear knowledgeable but not exceed the time the questioner has in their head for what is an appropriate answer.  The tolerated duration varies between the different members of the panel and bears no relevance to the length or complexity of the question asked nor to whether one question was asked or four were asked wrapped up to appear as a single question.

Another trend that I am glad to have seen the death of, is the requirement to bring along a copy of every single qualification you have ever received.  This never seemed to have any point for me as you cannot get 'A' Levels unless you have done GCSEs (or if you are as old as me, 'O' Levels) and you cannot get a degree unless you have 'A' Levels or some equivalent.  So each level effectively renders the previous one obsolete.  In the case of specific skills, such as have you studied French to 'A' Level when you did a degree in Financial Management is a fair thing to ask if appropriate for the job, but up until last year it was every single scrap of paper accumulated since I was aged 13.  Now about 20% of the interviews I have attended ask for qualification certificates and in every case only the highest.  However, you do still get asked about your competency in English, in fact, this is asked more than before, I think as adjunct to the immigration scrutiny.  I suppose also given how poor spelling and grammar is among young people today it is a fair point even for those with a degree, but to someone of my age it seems a bit silly.

A less common fashion is a revival of what I call the 'civil service' style.  I have had tens of appalling interviews in my career but one that sticks out in my mind was with what was then the Department of Employment in 1993 for a job in a Job Centre.  The lead interviewer held up a piece of paper in front of her face and simply read in a very mechanical tone a list of questions that all started with 'give us an example of ...'  I suppose you could say it was a very fair process, it was pretty much like being interviewed by a computer.  Two interviews I have had recently have used this style.  They have a list of 'competencies' and expect you to give an example which shows that you can do all of them.  They do this in addition to a normal interview.  Now, such requirements are standard on job specifications but they are not often checked in this mechanical way.  A challenge is that they often include a range of different aspects.  The classic one which I see on about 80% of job specifications is 'must be a team worker but also be able to work on your own initiative'.  Now this is one requirement yet responding to it you have to show skills that are in fact in the opposite direction.  Unsurprisingly the interviews at such companies using this competency approach constantly over-run as it is difficult to get through 20 competencies, a typical number in 30 minutes.  The last one I attended started 45 minutes late and rather than the 30 minutes I had been assigned mine ran to 45 minutes, adding a further 15 minutes to the delay for the next candidate.  Many interview panels simply pick a duration at random and do not make any effort to judge whether the number of questions and reasonable answers to these will fit into the time they have assigned.  It happens both ways.  At an interview due to last 1 hour we found it was all over after 40 minutes with all the questions thoroughly answered.

Two interviews on the same day with different panels is a fashion which, whilst not common, still seems to be around.  I have no real problem with this approach though often you find yourself repeating things to the second panel you said just moments before to the first panel.  The first panel is often in a rush as they are conscious of over-running, first because in two-panel interviews each session is shorter than a standard single panel interview and second because they are conscious that any delay at their end with impact on the scheduling for the second panel.

In my sector, something which has gone through a big revival is the activity test.  Sometimes these are cognitive analysis exercises.  However, they are generally purchased from generic business suppliers and in my position are not always suited to the jobs I do, particularly in the case of the level of proof which is required to make a judgement.  Most, however, consist of summarising a document or producing a policy briefing based on it.  Generally these are fine, though you need to learn to move fast to set up a strange computer to how you do things, especially if you are left-handed.  Some companies give you all the company documentation relevant to the task as if you had time to read it.  These are internal handbooks and guidelines not accessible outside the company.  Thus, whenever I am given so much documentation which could not be processed in the 30 minutes always assigned for the task, I know an internal candidate is favoured or in fact, as with so many aspects of interviewing, the panel have thought it a good idea to set a test but have not thought through how long it will take or what in fact it is supposed to be demonstrating.

I must say that employers are getting better at letting you know if you have not got the job.  A couple of years ago you simply heard nothing, but these days they send an email, sometimes telephone and in one case actually sent me a rejection letter.  I think they have realised that in a time of high unemployment, they get people ringing and ringing to find out what has happened, something we are strongly encouraged to do by the Job Centre.  Though they loath having to send out rejection messages, companies have learnt that it ultimately saves time fielding calls from concerned applicants.  Only two of the 14 companies have offered feedback on my interviews.  About a third have either ignored requests for it or have refused to give it citing confidentiality of the interview process.  Some of the feedback is useless, wheeling out the set phrase 'another candidate better matched the job description' which suggests they cannot really articulate what I did right or wrong because that judgement could easily have been made from the application form alone.  The number of companies paying interview expenses has fallen to about 1 in 3.  The rates have remained the same which means you are worse off with rising petrol prices.  The level varies quite considerably.  Having attended interviews at companies which lie less than 7 Km apart I received £35 to drive to one but £90 to drive to the other.  Of course, even with the rise in petrol costs, driving can be up to four times cheaper than travelling by train to the interview and as companies often do not pay beyond the main journey you are often stuck walking kilometres from the station or having to ride the back streets and housing estates on a local bus, assuming you can find the right one.

My concern in all of this is that British companies have still not found interview methods which provide them with the staff they actually need rather than what they think they need.  I am hearing of too many companies not being able to fill vacancies which in a time of high unemployment is very strange.  It seems to come from them setting job specifications that cover so many different skills that you need an individual who has had three or four different careers to be able to fulfil them.  In addition, the interview process is often so poor that the company does not know whether they have got a suitable person or not so err on the side of caution.  They have no willingness, however, to train or develop staff, so when they cannot find the people with 100% of the skills they want down to a very specific level, they would rather go without.  This leaves more work to fall on the existing staff increasing inefficiency.   You can do well with someone who has 90% or even 80% of the skills and they will like being able to expand into new areas rather than feeling they are trapped in a job which is identical to all the ones they have done before.  Companies also really need to reflect on what they actually need the person to do in the job rather than pile up a whole list of dream requirements that apparently make the company seem dynamic but actually make it appear poorly run.  They also need to give people time to apply for jobs and to arrange to attend interviews.  By using a 'just in time' approach to interviewing they actually exclude a lot of candidates who in fact may be the best they would get.  As with so much in British business, we need to move away from 'seems' being the driver for so much behaviour to approaches based on the actuality.

A Year Of Living Joblessly

This posting started out being entitled 'Joining The Ranks Of The Long-Term Unemployed' to mark my year without a full-time job.  However, incredibly I have been offered a job which starts today, 12 months to the day from when I was laid off by my previous employer.  Whilst I have been incredibly fortunate, after 80 job applications and 29 interviews to have escaped unemployment (for now) and stop the sale of my house, I still feel it is worthwhile reflecting on the impact being unemployed for longer than all the combined previous periods of joblessness in my life has had on me.

The latest figures I can find for long-term unemployed people, i.e. those without work for 12 months or more, date back to summer 2010, so with the recession having continued since then, I imagine they are higher.  The figure in July 2010 was 787,000 people, with 50% of unemployed people over the age of 50 falling into this category, the suggestion being that they will never work again.  I have heard that current figures are over 900,000 people, though cannot find hard data to support that.   In addition, it is claimed possibly millions of people are in part-time work as they cannot get a full-time job and so there is also a category of long-term 'underemployed' who are not able to contribute as much to the economy as they could and would like to do.

Anyway, as of today, I suppose I can count as long-term unemployed.  The last time I had a full-time job was 12 months ago.  Strictly I suppose I am not counted because I worked for a couple of days per week for a period of six weeks around the start of 2011.  However, it did nothing much to raise my household income.  I guess I will also not count because I am not claiming jobseekers' allowance.  I exhausted my contributions based payments back in December 2010 and because the woman who lives in my house runs her own business and works more than 24 hours per week, I am excluded from claiming incomes-based jobseekers' allowance.  It is for reasons like this that there is always a discrepancy between the number of people claiming jobseekers' allowance, currently around 1.45 million and the actual number of unemployed people, now 2.48 million, according to BBC figures.  This is because benefits tend to look at the household income so an unemployed husband/wife (or co-resident lumped into that category) or grown-up child living in a house with a man or woman working will often not be entitled to any benefit, but still be without work.  If it had not been for HM Revenue and Customs realising that they had made a vast mistake in the tax I had paid, then by now I would have had my house repossessed and guess I would be begging friends to sleep on their floor.  I certainly count myself one of the lucky ones.

What does it signify being long-term unemployed?  Well, the first thing seems to be that people feel free to treat you as if you are feckless or lazy or an idiot.  As has been discussed before on this blog, I think this varies depending on the area you live in, as in areas of high unemployment, it has to be a fact of life for lots of people.  Living in southern England where the recession is only steadily biting, and especially in a district where most residents seem to be self-employed, the Thatcherite attitude that you are only unemployed because you want to be, persists.  Without any knowledge of the vacancies available or what qualifications you need to fill them  people insist that there is work.  As I know from trying to get jobs in local shops, these days it is not an issue of being qualified but having a whole array of industry-specific qualifications whether to work in a baker's or as a travel agent or an estate agent.  With unemployment high there are always lots of people around that have such qualifications that I do not have and so I got knocked out of the running at the application phase, especially these days when so much recruitment is about matching requirements to the applicant's statements as the first phase.  If you do not have a 100% match then you stand no chance.  So you get told that there is work and then bewildered questions about what you are doing wrong turn quickly to condemning you for being flawed in some major way.

Though less common than it used to be, there often comes the suggestion of setting up your own business.  Given that we are in a recession and established businesses are folding every day and 50% of new businesses collapse within 6 months, I do not see this as an escape from unemployment, just a way to quickly lose whatever money you may have remaining.  In addition, if we were all budding entrepreneurs, would we not all be doing it anyway?  As programmes like 'Dragon's Den' show, even many people who think they are entrepreneurs are often sadly deluded and many more people get rejected even on that show, than win funding.  Why should it be any different in real life?  The laziness comes in the assumption that that is the answer for everyone, when in fact it is only the answer for a small minority and then only with luck rather than skill.

Ironically, whilst long-term unemployment is usually seen as being your fault, people also treat it like an infectious disease.  Unemployment defines my life as it has for the past 12 months.  I go nowhere, I talk to few people, so being out of work and applying for work are the key elements of my life.  Yet the moment you start talking about them, you get the 'I don't want to hear that' attitude, almost as if it is a contagion that through talking you will somehow blight that person's job.  This myth is one the government and employers like to perpetuate, that unemployment is the consequence of your personal actions.  If you have been dismissed for inappropriate behaviour, then, yes, that is acceptable.  However, very many unemployed people have been made redundant as a result of lay-offs affecting hundreds if not thousands of people.

We have minimal control over our working lives these days.  Unless we can go back in time and change which career path we went down.  When I started in my industry back in 1994 it was seen as a secure one which was going through a period of boom and now it is in crisis.  How could I have predicted in 1994 that instead I should have been taking travel agents' qualifications so I could still get a job in 2011? 

People say 'save'.  I have done this throughout my life.  I used up my first batch of savings covering my mortgage while unemployed for five months in 2009.  I have now used up my redundancy package and tax rebate paying it in 2010/11.  Of course, I had mortgage protection, but it does not apply if you are not claiming unemployment benefit and you cannot claim that if someone in your house works for more than 24 hours or you have been in fixed-term contract work.  I should have saved the premiums on paying for that insurance.  If I had got a job just 3 months after being unemployed or even 6 months, then I would be comfortably off and ready for when the next crisis hit.  We are only at the start of the government-augmented recession, we have years of this to go.  It took from 1979 to 1994 before the economy recovered last time, so on a tight estimate we have about until 2023 before we can breathe easily in the UK, perhaps longer given how severe Cameron has been compared to Thatcher in the damage he is intentionally doing to the economy for ideological rather than pragmatic reasons.  However, all that money is now gone, so next time I lose my job it is going to be very nasty.

Of course, I have not been lazy. I have now applied for 80 jobs which works out at 1.5 applications per week, below the level of 2 per week that the Department for Work and Pensions insists on. However, that average does not reflect the seasonal ebb and flow of vacancies and that in some weeks I have applied for 6 vacancies and in others none. In addition, applying for jobs these days is not just about sending in your CV. On average I write 5000 words per application, with some as long as 10,000 words. The longest, with 51 requirements, took me 8 hours to complete. In addition, as so many applications are done on unstable online application forms, I have probably re-typed many thousands of words again when the system has crashed and lost all that I have input. I lost two hours' worth of work last month because they system decided to drop out. Another even timed me out, after three minutes, before I had time to set my password for the application, then would not let me access or delete or replace the account which only had my name and address on. When I emailed the company I was told that a lot of people had had a problem with the online application. Why not get it fixed then?

I estimate I have written 400,000 words in applications, enough for four doctoral theses or a series of novels (I used to calculate things on the basis of an Agatha Christie novel, they were 60,000 words long, but these days they seem very short, so probably 120,000 is closer to the average). Of course, a lot of it is repetitive stuff and I still have no idea why companies want to know which 'O' levels I got in the 1980s, what grade I got for each of them and the precise day (not just the month or year, but the actual day) on which I was awarded the qualification. What difference does it make if I got a B or C in Chemistry 'O' level on 29th June 1984 for whether I am a good office manager or not?

I have had 29 interviews which works out at more than one every single fortnight.  Of course, they have not been spread out evenly and things like Christmas, Easter and the run of bank holidays, means they have been ill-distributed; on 4 occasions I have had 2 on the same day.  I have applied for jobs ranging from £19,000-£54,000, meaning, in fact my life could have gone down very different paths if I had got a job from one extreme or the other.  The same applies to where I will end up living.  The geographical bounds of my applications are now Southampton-Swansea-Edinburgh-Colchester, an area which covers a large chunk of the UK's population and economic activity.  In southern England, of course, it is distorted because a lot of the jobs in a particular circumference are actually in France and some UK employers seem reluctant to accept applicants from other areas.  One employer in Hertfordshire actually said to me 'we've never employed anyone from the other side of the M25' as if it was an iron curtain.  It is bitterly ironic when the phrase 'get on your bike' has returned to attack the unemployed with, you find employers who have a difficulty envisaging employing people who live elsewhere even within the South-East region.  Of course, being unemployed, you cannot be picky, you know you have to be willing to go anywhere and rent a shitty room in a house that you have had to compete with six others to secure in order to get work.  Quality of life does not even come near the equation.

The biggest problem for me being long-term unemployed is the fear.  Having already lost my house and the career I once had, I worry how much longer this can go on and how much worse it can get.  Employers are reluctant to take on the long-term unemployed as if they have succumbed to their disease and are now incurable of all the bad habits that unemployment instills in people.  They do not understand that we are so desperate we are willing to work for poverty wages, wherever they choose and dare not question whatever outrageous demands they may make.  That is the impact of 12 months' lashing with the whip of unemployment.  I am doubly cursed now because I am over 40 too.  An article recently said employers see the over-40s as lacking energy and being fixed in their ways.  This is ridiculous, I have had to adjust so many times in my life, I have worked for four different employers at times, that I am honed in the art of being flexible and adjusting the work changes.  As for energy, I have never rolled in hung over like many in their 20s, I do not spend time texting my friends or updating Facebook pages, in terms of productivity I will be better than someone 20 years younger.  However, of course, such prejudices are not challenged and in fact as attacks on feminism have shown, in many ways, prejudice in terms of what you are is again acceptable, just as David Cameron and his supporters have desired.

Stretching out in front of me is an ongoing path of uncertainty.  Will I still be unemployed this time next year?  How much poorer can I get?  I know there will be loads of disappointment.  I have been rejected 28 times from interviews and another 51 times been told I was not even good enough to get there.  Every piece of feedback seems to contradict the one before.  Just recently I was told that I did not come across as sufficiently sympathetic to workers when apparently being overly-sympathetic was criticised in my last job.  Even now with work, nothing seems certain.  I have been incredibly lucky, but will always remain fearful that it will be short term.  I was laid off from my old job only 7 months after being appointed to it.

I am both weary of how long having no job went on for with no succees and retain a fear that this is the pattern my life will hold in the future especially as I progress further into middle age.  No-one seems able to offer practical help, they just seemed to be able to harangue me or avoid me.  Joining the ranks of the long-term unemployed does not permit access to a fraternity, rather you simply become classified a pariah.  Of course, I am grateful that I am now in a job, but I know that there are many hundreds of thousands of people in the UK in even worse situations with even less hope than me and I mourn for that and the long-term damage it is doing to the UK.

Will I Ever Work Again?

As regular readers know, since the start of June, I have been unemployed.  My unemployment benefit based on my national insurance contributions has now run out.  I could apply for benefit based on my income as it is now so low, but hit a stumbling block.  Owing to the fact that the woman who lives in my house runs a business, even though it made a loss last month, and works on it more than 24 hours per week, this is too much for the Job Centre and they say that the household income will be too high for me to claim benefit.  This seems to stem from their belief that everyone working earns at least the minimum wage each hour.  Of course, with the self-employed, some months (and currently many months) you actually lose money.  However, because she works too hard to scrape together her income, I cannot claim benefit any longer.

As of yesterday I had applied for 65 jobs in that time and have attended 18 interviews; I have another one next week. The average application form requires around 5,000 words, the most complex one needed 10,000 words, which took me 8 hours to write.  I estimate that since June I have written over 320,000 words in applications, equivalent to more than three doctoral theses or five novels of the length Agatha Christie wrote.  My 'hit rate' had improved moving from 1 interview for every 5 applications to almost 1 for every 3 by the start of December.  However, I still have no job.  In some cases the feedback from the interview (forthcoming from about half of the interviews I attend) has made it clear that I stood no chance because a local candidate, 'someone who could draw on specific examples from this company', was in line to get the post.

To some degree I think I am now also facing gender discrimination.  Almost all the jobs I have applied for are in offices with at least 10 female workers for each male one.  One even admitted that they had a 'token man'.  I am not saying that the discrimination is apparent to the interviewers, but we all know that there is a tendency for people to recruit people like themselves and to recruit the 'face that fits' in the office environment.  With 90% of the staff, female, it is clear that in so many offices, I am not like the interviewers or the bulk of their staff.  Consequently, with so many candidates to choose from, this is going to be another factor which makes it close to impossible for me to be appointed.  It is ironic as being a child of the 1970s I am far more of a feminist than many of the women coming out of universities today.

I have noted 'The X Factor' approach used by one company which meant I was sent home even before reaching the interview stage.  Fascinatingly, a lot of interviewers end their feedback saying they are sure that I will find a post soon.  I have been hearing that since early June.  I believe they are simply assuaging their own discomfort.  Many of the people who have interviewed me have been very poor at the job and being British, in most cases, are not good a giving people bad news.  Conversely, some have been more than happy not simply to reject me, but to send me three page reports outlining everything that I did wrong and even accusing me of having lied on my application form.  They have done this on their own iniative as usually it is down to the Human Resources department to tell you that you have not got the job.  Given such harsh feedback, I have gone on two training courses run by the Department of Work & Pensions, helping people with interview technique, I even attended an 'executive level' session.  However, this does not seem to have helped.  At the last interview at which the panel asked what seemed to be straight forward questions, they kept correcting my interpretation of the question, saying I had misunderstood.  After a while I almost felt like leaving before the interview had finished, as it appeared that how they used language and how I use it, were so far apart that I would be battling to say anything that they felt was relevant. 

I have now taken additional guidance from a retired personnel manager who said that however complex the interviewer's question might be, I should not respond in kind.  He said that I must do a kind of 'verbal Powerpoint' presentation and stick to four statements at most.  He advised me that a huge error on my part was to give any context; I should not say, 'at my last company they had a hierarchical management system which meant that...', I should just respond, 'I can do...'.  It does not make me any better or worse a manager, but it is clear that I am still not dancing to the interviewers' tunes in the way they insist (though, of course, never tell you).

Feedback has been contradictory.  I have been told that I am 'insufficiently blue sky' and then that I was 'insufficiently hands-on'.  I have been told that I am applying for a job 'below' my 'level' (even though one of these posts was exactly the same as the one I was made redundant from in 2009) or aspiring too high for other posts.  It seems that unless my last job was exactly the same level as the one I am applying for then I am ruled out almost immediately.  I cannot say, 'just give me the job, I will work at any level you want', because you have to continue the pretence that somehow employment is much the same as it was last year.  If, after the interview, you outline how challenging the situation is, you hear that all-too-common phrase these days 'I don't want to hear that'.  I do not want to hear it or face up to it, but I have to, because it is the truth, that is what is happening to people, no matter how much you may wish to keep believing it is different. 

The sense that unemployment is somehow 'contagious' seems to have reappeared and the 9-year old boy who lives in our house, is now finding friends are not allowed to come round, as if there was a red cross on our door saying 'unemployment victim; stay away'.  Do these parents think I will rob their child or press him to work in our house?  I know it is irrational and the people themselves could probably not explain why they behave that way, but it certainly feels like them kicking you when you are down.  The only thing that makes life tolerable in such a situation is good interaction with people and anyway, the boy is not to blame for my joblessness, so why should he be punished?  You can see why sociologists investigating the 1980s talk of how it blighted a generation; not those out of work, but the children in jobless households.

I am a friendly, one could say, avuncular, manager.  A lot of that stems from my personality, but also because I know that if people feel trusted and that their knowledge and skills are respected, then they tend to work for the best.  I really believe that keeping people informed about what is happening in the company is the way to get them engaging with it and working well.  However, I dare not outline my approach to management any longer as it is clearly out of fashion.  At the last interview, disparingly, one of the panel told me that my approach was clear.  I am now certain that I will have to begin lying and begin to portray myself much more as a manager to harangues his workforce and keeps the flow of information to them very restricted.  The 1980s style of management is back in fashion, very clearly.  This is ironic as staff are aware how treacherous the current economic situation is and that their jobs are often at risk, they do not have to be keep being told it.  Nervous staff do not take the initiative and conceal errors rather than revealing them in time to have the situation rectified.  At the last interview, even haranguing, was not felt to be enough and there was an eagerness somehow to use regulations as a way of managing staff rather than setting the parameters.  Even if the economy suddenly improved tomorrow, the negative consequences of these troubled times are going to impinge on the work place for years to come.

People say I should be trying to get other jobs.  Everyone assumes that you can always simply apply for a job in a shop or some manual labouring post.  As it is, I am applying for jobs with a salary less than 45% of the level that I earned before.  I have applied to shops and have found constantly that I lack the NVQ or the ABTA or other professional qualification that is taken as the basic level for entry into so many posts.  I was lined up for a 3-month temporary post, via a temporary employment agency, at a company 45 Km away.  However, before I could simply take it up, five other people came forward and they implemented a formal interview process. 

This situation will not improve in the new year.  At the local job centre, both of the two staff I have been handled by in the past six months have told me they will not be employed there after the end of December and it seems that quite a few of their colleagues are on fixed-term contracts which will not be renewed for 2011.  The first influx of public sector redundancies will begin flowing into the jobless pool.  I imagine a lot of them are already applying for other jobs anyway.  I have not seen any increase in private sector jobs; even the usual increase of seasonal work seems muted.  The job centre staff believe that locally, due to the number of retail jobs in the area we will experience higher than average lay-offs in the new year when the 20% VAT comes into force, though other people have commented that it might not be that bad. 

I am 43 and am competing with people who are younger, can understand what an interviewer is asking and have a range qualifications that are demanded.  My house is up for sale though with the prices falling I may come away from this house with no money left over even to rent a flat, separate, of course, from the woman from my house due to her job.  I will be dependent on my family, and it really seems a retrograde step, moving back in with your parents aged 43, but the only other option seems to fall on the mercy of the council and beg a place in a bed-and-breakfast.  Of course, there will have to be a furniture and book sale at my house to get rid of all that we have gathered in this house.  It seems ironic that 1-2 years ago, I was looking for my career to take the next step and was ironically optimistic that it would.  Now, I would be happy if I could get a job in a shop over Christmas.  It is at least 21 years until I can retire, probably longer by the time I am in my 60s.  Given how hard it is proving to find work, even now before the worst of the economic depression has kicked in, is there any chance of me working again?  I keep applying, I keep pretending at interviews that everything is going fine, but after so much effort and so little success, I do wonder whether I will still be unemployed this time next year or even longer term?  My career seems to have been snuffed out so very quickly.  Despite that, happiness is compulsory, and you are not allowed to appear disheartened let along disgruntled or depressed even at the job centre.  David Cameron's objective of measuring our level of happiness seems, in that light, to be very sinister and I am reminded of rank upon rank of smiling faces marching past Chairman Mao.

The future for me seems now to be not the steady career of rising through office management over the next two decades, but rather scrabbling around with the other middle-aged, washed up managers trying to beg a job.  I know that I am going to have to work very hard not only to understand the ever-changing tricks of the interviews but to remember when a complex question is thrown at me, to respond with bare-bones answers.  I also must pretend to be a much harsher, aggressive manager.  However, there is no certainty that even if I master these things, that years of unemployment do not lie ahead of me.

The 'X Factor' Approach to Job Interviewing

The 'X Factor' is one of those programmes that even if you have never watched an episode you are aware of it through the cultural ripples it makes.  It is the most enduring of the talent shows (having started in 2004) that have been on British television over the past decade amongst others being 'Pop Idol' (2001-4) and 'Britain's Got Talent' (2007-).  Such programmes are revivals of the 1970s shows 'Opportunity Knocks' (1956; 1964-8; revived 1987-90) which had the public vote for acts and 'New Faces' (1973-8; revived 1986-8) with a panel of judges, which 'discovered' a number of comedy and music acts that have persisted.  Basically all of these recent programmes, whilst combining judges and popular votes, unlike the older shows, have open auditions that allow members of the public to come in and perform in front of a variety of 'celebrity' judges who then decide whether they proceed to the episodes of the show in which the public vote and whittle down the contestants to a final winner.  A lot of people enjoy the early stages of the programme in which members of the public, often with minimal entertaining talent but general a lot of self-confidence perform.  In many ways they particularly enjoy the ridicule element and especially cutting remarks from judges like Simon Cowell who has made a fortune through his involvement with the programme both in the UK and USA; versions have been produced across the World.

The trouble with the popularity of such programmes is that their methods seep into our everyday behaviour.  Often this is through catchphrases, such as 'you are the weakest link, goodbye' from the quiz game show 'The Weakest Link' (2000-) in which contestants vote off their opponents, or 'is that your final answer?' or 'do you want to phone a friend/go fifty-fifty' from the quiz game show, 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' (1998-).  Those these programmes stem from an American approach to game shows and have prospered in the UK, their versions across the world, for example 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' is seen in one version or another in 100 countries, also propogates the attitudes that the programmes require.  Certainly in 'The Weakest Link' players have to think tactically to go with the trend of other contestants' voting but also eliminate their toughest rivals.  Such devious thinking has been taken further in programmes like 'Golden Balls' (2007-) and the briefly running 'Shafted' (2001; axed after 4 shows) bizarrely hosted by former MP Robert Kilroy-Silk in which players had to cheat and lie to beat other contestants to the money prizes.  I have noted the impact also of 'The Apprentice' (in UK, 2005-) which masquerades as a business show but is in fact just another game show in which contestants try to outdo each other in business-related tasks and someone is eliminated each week. 

These are entertainment shows and you may argue that they are harmless.  However, it is important to note that not only their catchphrases but their attitudes which penetrate our society.  The sense that you can only succeed by pushing down others can be seen as an element of a capitalist society, but that is not necessarily the case.  Certainly that kind of behaviour in the workplace is not going to benefit the company in the long run.  Ambition is a good characteristic in the workforce but is very wasteful of time and resources if it is unbridled and sees success only be embarrassing or restricting workers around you, who, are, in fact trying to do their best for the company.

Where I have seen the greatest penetration of 'X Factor' behaviour is in terms of job interviews.  I guess this is not surprising given that the programme seems to have an effective way of filtering out large numbers of applicants down to a number of half-decent ones.  With unemployment rising and companies often having little idea how to sift among numerous applicants whilst not falling foul of anti-discrimination legislation, they are unsurprisingly falling back on patterns of behaviour they have seen on television.  Regular readers of this blog will know that recently I applied for a job which had 51 essential requirements in its specification.  It took me 8 hours and 10,000 words to respond to each of these.  Of course, many of the requirements were duplicated, but despite me raising the huge number, 3-4 times more than for other comparable jobs, the company sniffily said it had elicited a strong field.  Looking around the six candidates that did not seem to be particularly the case.  Two of the candidates were internal, and one said that she felt she had only been brought in to make up the numbers.  The others seemed fine but not overly strong candidates for what was a senior position.  I suggested to the company that people unlike me, unemployed, and currently working in similar roles would not find time in the short period between the job being advertised and the deadline falling (many companies in my sector allow only 5 days now) to complete such an application.

Anyway, how did they decide to cut down even the six that they had called (I was going to say 'for interview', but as you will see it did not turn out to be as I and others expected)?  Well, they asked us to do a presentation.  This is a very normal part of the recruitment process and, as I have noted before, even with the use of Powerpoint declining candidates are usually invited to present on some big issue for the company.  Taking the often very lengthy title and shaping it into something you can cover in ten minutes is a challenge, and not really one that matches the kind of skills you will need in the job if you get it.  However, it is a ritual and you have to do it.  Often it is a lottery.  In my experience one employer wants minimal detail and the next wants much more.  I have been told that I should not refer to my past experience but point to developments in the future.  I thought I had done that and was then told not in sufficient detail.  If I could predict the future that accurately I would still be doing the lottery.  Another classic one recently was that in my presentation and interview I did not refer to examples from that company's current work.  Given that I have not worked there since 2001 when it was under a different name, if I had known that much about it, it would be verging on industrial espionage; of course, it was just an excuse to recruit the internal candidates, increasingly the common way to cut down the numbers.

Back to the presentation.  Usually this is the precursor to the interview whether immediately or later in the day.  However, in this most recent example it has become very much like an 'X Factor' audition piece.  In contrast to (most) interviews (still, fortunately) after 15 minutes you were judged and an hour later told if you got through to the next round, i.e. the interview.  Not being clairvoyant I failed and was sent home, not having been interviewed.  I made a round trip of 440Km and stayed overnight, on top of the huge application form I had spent a day completing, all for 15 minutes and some sandwiches, not even a cup of coffee. 

I had been invited to a process like this last year, even more abrupt: after 10 minutes of presentation to a panel not of specialists, you would be told to stay or go home.  That would have involved a round trip of 512Km and another overnight stay.  I had planned to go by train but to get a decent price on train tickets you have to book a precise time slot on the train so I would have been gambling if I got through the first phase in the morning or whether I would need to stay in the city until 15.30 or even 17.30.  It was not a gamble I was going to take and I withdrew my application.  Given the amount you have to write on the applications and the fact that many employers take up references before the interview you would think they had more to judge you on than how you can come across in a presentation.  Misinterpret the title (which on more than one occasion has been sent to me with words misspelt) or not have local examples and you are out, just as if you sang off-key because you were nervous at an 'X Factor' audition.  Signing on at present I cannot refuse to attend any interview I am called for, but I certainly would not have put in the effort to get to the 'interview' if I knew in fact I was there to perform for just 15 minutes; I would have 'broken down' on the way or got stuck in some of the numerous road works on the UK's motorways at present.  However, no indication was given that this 'X Factor' approach was to be used, and so, like a fool, I thought I would actually be properly examined not ruled out on the basis of not taking the same interpretation of the title as the panel.

I am an experienced manager who has a range of skills and knowledge which would benefit many companies.  I never pretend to be something I am not, I certainly make my approach to management very clear and I do not lie about my experience.  However, I can see no way to get a job in such a context, despite all the interview training I have received and the fact that, in the past, I have both trained people in how to give presentations and have been highly praised for presentations I have given.  With the 'X Factor' methodology being apparently accepted as a legitimate way to select candidates, it seems that these things count for nothing and I should instead be having radical plastic surgery and learn how to juggle so that I can win through what is now little more than an entertainment/game show format for recruitment.

P.P. 15/04/2011
I have now done 25 interviews in 10 months.  Whilst unemployment has risen during that time, some companies seem to be coming to their senses about job applications.  Given that the jobs I go for typically have 70-100 applicants for every post (I am often told the precise number who applied) companies are realising that if they list 30-50 requirements then it is going to take someone in their company hours to read the application forms and so specifications have dropped back to 15-25 per job.  Of course, I know some industries come down to selecting application forms at random, but as yet, it does not appear that they are doing that for the level of job I am applying for.

The other thing that dawned on me, when for the fourth time I saw a vacancy advertised that I had been interviewed just a few months earlier, that too many companies see a successful interview as a skill in itself.  I guess I was picking up on this when I first wrote this posting.  However, it is only as it has become apparent that whoever they employed in at least four of the jobs I went for, moved on in less than 12 months, I realise that they clearly did not get what they wanted from the recruitment process.  In addition, feedback from a number of interviews has made it clear that I did not get the job because I lacked the skills and expertise required to do the actual job, but just because I pitched myself wrongly in the interview, coming across as too practical in one, too theoretical in another; too confident in one, lacking in confidence in another.  However, the judgement has been on the interview itself, not what the interview revealed about my ability to do the job.  I think this is a key problem, too many companies assume that being able to perform well in interview is somehow a guarantee that you are suited to the job.  They have forgotten that, in fact, an interview should be the process in which you find out more about the applicant.  It seems ironic to judge people on their success in interview when the job will often not involve doing anything like that ever again.  For too many companies, an interview is no longer a process for gaining information it has simply become a competition with someone 'winning' the job for completing the contest.  Consequently, a few months down the line, the company actually finds out that the person best at interviews is not necessarily best in the post, hence the rapid re-advertisement.  You do wonder if the company has changed its attitude sufficiently not to keep making the same mistakes.  Interviews are a tool not an end in themselves!

Managing Time at Work: The Challenge of Presentations

As regular readers will know, I have recently been applying for jobs.  Having been made redundant twice in a year, I have been able to consider how the economy has deteriorated in the 12 months of Summer 2009 to Summer 2010.  One thing that is immediately apparent is that the job situation has worsened.  It is not only that the number of unemployed people has continued to rise steadily, but also that the return of the 'whip' of unemployment seems to be encouraging employers to depress pay and demand longer working hours.  I noted back in July 2008 how employers were feeling that the workforce was becoming lazy because it was not fearful enough of losing jobs.  See:  http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2008/07/unemployment-as-whip.html In my last job I encountered a manager who loved to respond to any request from the workers that they were lucky to have a job and encouraged all the managers around and below her to do the same. 

Compared to a year ago almost every managerial position I have seen advertised is paying below the national average UK annual salary of £31,300 (€37,663; US$45,547) though it varies across the country from £21,550 in South Wales to £46,462 in London.  The bulk of these managerial jobs are offering £18,000-£23,000 per year  (€21,659-€27,675; US$26,193-US$33,469) despite being located in the South-East England region where the average salary is £32,819.  In addition, in contrast to last year there seems to be a sudden upswing in jobs demanding 'unsocial' hours or evening and weekend working.  This implies that the companies are short staffed or that the bosses somehow want to squeeze more out of their managers (and Heaven help the non-managerial staff) effectively reducing the hourly pay rate by simply imposing longer working hours.  Of course, all of this smacks of the 1980s.  The employers have got back the 'whip' and are cracking it with force. 

Saying all this, I guess readers from across the USA may be wondering what I am complaining about.  There unemployment is nationally 20% meaning around 60 million people are without work, almost the same number as the entire population (including children) of the UK.  Of these two-thirds have no unemployment insurance and ironically in the land supposedly of entrepreneurialism and the small business person it is often the self-employed who are most vulnerable.  I must say that throughout my life I have been a strong advocate of democracy, but have come to believe now, that there is no democracy in the UK or the USA.  Even when politicians want to combat the greed of the ultra-rich they find they are unable to do so.  Then under President Bush in the USA and now under David Cameron in the UK, we have policy makers who strive to further benefit the wealthy at the expense of the ordinary person.  I always looked on those who sought the overthrow of the state as foolhardy but as I age and see how the ordinary person is not even allowed to keep the meagre gains made in recent years, there seems no other solution that will give a chance to more than a small elite, however capable you might be.  It was interesting to read that the Walton family behind the Wal-Mart chain in the USA (they own Asda in the UK) alone has as much wealth as the poorest 40% of the US population, i.e., around 120 million people.  It shows you how petty your own savings and even the funds of governments are compared to those of the ultra-rich on this planet.

Anyway, my despair at the smashing of the UK economy driven by pigheaded, discriminatory economics, is distracting me from the focus on today's posting.  I am glad to note, that whilst job specifications seem to have reduced the number of requirements they set out, dropping in many cases below 15-18 requirements (compared to the 20-36 range I had last year; the peak being 36 essential and 10 desirable requirements for one post), they still seem to include many of the same sort of things.  Perhaps the detail has decreased, for one job I applied for recently the final essential requirement was summed up by a single word 'Flexibility' ('yes, I can touch my toes!').  However, new, pretty discriminatory, stuff seems to be slipping in: 'Must have the health to be able to cope with the rigours of this job'; it was not a vacancy as a mountaineering trainer simply an office manager, which does raise questions about working conditions in the company.  A perennial is 'time management' and that is the one I am going to focus on today.

Time management constantly seems to be something that bosses demand but seem incapable of doing themselves.  In many ways it is another coded signal that their company is under-staffed and they will be expecting you to work beyond the stipulated working hours.  I must say I have noticed that all reference to 'family friendly' employers has evaporated entirely.  Of course, employers want people who do not prevaricate and complete by the deadlines, but there is something more in British working culture which contrasts, say, with that of Scandinavian countries.  It is the assumption that if you are not working long hours you are not working hard enough.  I was warned once that in Sweden it is seen differently, that someone who is working after normal hours is inefficient because they cannot get their work done in the allotted time.  As a manager I see it this way.  I accept that there may be occasions of special demand when people need to work longer, but if I see them doing this day-after-day then I am concerned either that they have been allocated too much work or that they are out of their depth with the work and may need to be substituted, have more training or be allocated stuff that is within their capabilities.  I know from my previous job that such views are heresy and instead as a manager I am expected to see workers as inherently lazy, always trying to get out of working and having no pride in their work.

Of course, with social networking sites, email and even online poker, it is easy to while away your time appearing to work and yet not doing anything constructive.  Yet, all managers are alert to these things and any with an gramme of experience knows what to look out for.  My last two teams were so utterly terrified of appearing not to be working hard enough they dared not even speak to their colleagues and their relief when I encouraged them to talk to one another was visible.  In fact it quickly revealed duplications and different methodologies which could be standardised which had not come to light because the workers had been afraid of talking with each other for fear of seeming to slack.  There are lazy workers but they are not hard to spot.  Workers who are working in fear do not work well, but that is not from laziness, it is because a well-trained worker who has clear instructions and the ability to raise questions is always going to be more confident and in fact far more productive. 

When I talk of Aesop's Fable of the Wind and the Sun, no-one seems to understand it.  Aesop lived around 620-564 BCE and if he could get a handle on principles that are still applicable to today's workplace then managers of today can.  In the analoguos story the Wind bets the Sun that he can make a traveller remove his coat.  The Wind blows and blows but the traveller hugs his cloak ever more tightly to his body.  Then the Sun takes his turn and shines brightly on the traveller who immediately removes his cloak, so the Sun wins.  Having had enough management books based on the works of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' (probably written at the same time as Aesop was working, perhaps some decades later) maybe it is time to produce one based on the work of Aesop.

Of course, time management does not simply apply to day-to-day work and it is in connection with presentations that I have seen it fail the worst.  I seemed to go through a spate of colleagues in the early 2000s who seemed to have no control over their timing when making presentations.  In that era, Powerpoint was at its zenith (released in 1987, certainly in the UK it do really rise to its height of usage until the mid-1990s), though despite it having been in popular usage in business for many years few people seemed to know how to use it conceptually though they could so technically.  Perhaps I will do a posting on the worst Powerpoint presentations I have ever seen, but for now will refer to it as an element of poor time management in presentations. 

I had a manager who had no idea of how long anything took.  Unfortunately she was responsible for scheduling a number of conferences in a year.  In her scheduling there was no room for anything to go wrong.  There was no slack for technical faults or a person over-running with what they said (which, of course, happened regularly, because like her, they were poor at managing their time).  Every year the schedule would be sliding after the first speaker and by the mid-morning break it could already be 30 minutes off target.  Such a slide leads to things being dropped from the programme and from questions (usually the most useful part of any business presentation) being suppressed. 

One problem was that this manager had no idea how long her own presentation was going to take and generally as she opened the conferences, this meant that they were already behind schedule after she had made her introductory speech.  Usually she scheduled 10 minutes for herself and speak for 20 minutes.  Having sat on interview panels with this woman, I know that she believed that a question about time management was to ask specifically what piece of software the candidate used to manage their time.  She asked this obsessively, providing no benefit to the interviewing process.  Software dates quickly and just because a person uses a piece of software does not mean they are using it correctly or in fact has engaged with the mental principles behind more than just superficial use of it.  She never made any efforts to find out how much she could say in the time she allocated herself.  I know that I speak 5000 words in 60 minutes at a steady but not rushed pace, with time to point to things on the screen.  So, if I am allocated 20 minutes, I know I can say 1600 words and probably need to be looking at 1200 if I want a couple of questions asked.

Very few people in business, despite the fact that most of us have sat through tens, possibly hundreds of presentations in our careers, seems to remember that the change over between speakers is never lie a baton exchange in a relay race.  There has to be applause for the previous speaker, they have to move at least aside if not off stage and their successor needs to step up.  Even if their presentation is ready to go the moment they reach the lecturn (something I have never witnessed in my entire career) they need some time to get their head in gear.  Many times they or the assistants will struggle to get the presentation going.  This is why there seems no point in allocating anyone a 10-minute slot, easily a third of that time can be eaten up with just the human things of getting in place to speak and getting the graphics we seem to insist on, running.  (Saying this, the era of Powerpoint seems to be passing and I have had two interviews this year which have insisted that it was not used; in contrast to 2004 when I failed to get one job purely on the grounds that I had not used Powerpoint in the interview).

Another classic example was from a colleague of mine.  She worked in a department which had a very poor concept of time management on a day-to-day basis.  Deadlines would be set which had no bearing on reality.  This colleague would regularly fly from Luton airport to Edinburgh airport, returning the same day.  The time in the air was 1 hour each way, plus an additional 1 hour at each end for check-in, security check, boarding, etc.  So even if the travel went smoothly she would be travelling for 4 hours out of the day.  In addition she lived 40 minutes' drive from the airport, adding 1 hour 20 minutes to the journey.  Whilst in Edinburgh she would be in meetings all day, usually 09.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. or 5 p.m., so almost a working day.  Thus, in total, even if everything went smoothly, she would 'work' 11 hours 20 minutes (assuming she took 1 hour for lunch; often it was just 30 minutes or a 'working' lunch instead).  Any time away from the office is seen as a 'junket' and a treat whereas of course it can be tiring and I certainly witnessed her not breaking from work on the aeroplane or in the terminals.  Part of the reason for this soon became apparent because she was expected to deliver a report and make a presentation at 11 a.m. on the morning after each visit.

This rule even applied the day that the flight out of Edinburgh was delayed by 4 hours due to a fault in the aeroplane's rudder (or whatever the technical name is).  It was a noticeable incident because the aircraft had taxied out only to find it could not turn and had to be hauled back tail first.  In addition, we came back through Arrivals despite not having been any further than on to part of the runway.  A young man who complained, not particularly loudly was dragged off by security staff and we did not see him again.  Another interesting thing was that having got back into Arrivals having spent an hour on the runway loads of people's mobile phones went off, they were being called by irate taxi drivers at Luton booked to collect them, demanding why they were not there.  The passengers had to explain that they had not been permitted to use their mobiles while on the aircraft and it was clear that no-one at Luton had informed anyone about the delay. Anyway, we reached Luton sometime after 10 p.m. and my colleague drove home and managed to finish her report at 2 a.m. for presenting at 11 a.m. Of course, for some reason one of her managers could not make it in so it was postponed.  The detachment between the working norms and what happens in reality, plus the amount of sleep people needed, fostered an environment that was going to lead to disgruntled, exhausted employees and probably a far less good quality report than if the travelling colleague had been given, say 48 hours, to produce the report.

Anyway, despite  working for this very time demanding department, my colleague seemed to have little inkling of the implications of not paying attention to what can be realistically covered in the time scheduled.  She and I were asked to do a presentation about our project.  We were given 20 minutes between us and agreed to split this equally.  Very foolishly, I went second.  My colleague put up 38 slides which she would had to have covered in less than 16 seconds each if she had wanted to fit them in and, even then, that would not allow any time for questions.  Through rushing and skipping over some she managed to get through 19 slides in 19 minutes, leaving me a single minute for my section.  I had prepared 5 slides but did not even bother pulling these up.  I walked on and said simply 'the project worked well; people liked the software it created' which had been the nub of my section of the presentation, then stepped down.  The disconnection between the amount of data to be covered and the time needed to cover it, is astoundingly common.  Years later a senior colleague who even trained people in making presentations argued that more than a slide per minute was fine, even then not allowing any time for questions, which she generally expected.

I have run training on making presentations and right since I started my career I have been complimented on my ability to speak to time.  I am not smug about this and go back to first principles each time I prepare something.  However, with practice you get to know yourself and your material well enough to change pacing and content 'on the hoof', for example, if you realise people are not comprehending what you are saying or know less about it than you believed.  However, being good at these things can often work against you.  At one presentation I had 10 minutes to speak.  I produced 4 slides.  The first was the title of my talk and the fourth were my contact details.  This meant that I had 2 slides with the meat of the presentation each with 4 items on, allowing me about 1 minute per item (not per slide as is usually the case).  I delivered it in 8 minutes allowing some time for questions, but the audience simply sat there, seemingly stunned.  They had expected the spinning images and sound effects that had filled the presentations and clearly had not expected me to finish on time.  The half-embarrassed over-run with an excessive amount of data and slides has become such the norm that audiences now do not seem to be able to cope with anything actually done to time.  The same applies to audiences who want slides on the screen and also to have them replicated on paper in front of them.  The lecture worked for at least 3000 years before the invention of Powerpoint but it seems that business people have been seduced into requiring overload which actually communicates only a fraction of the message the presenter is seeking to deliver and often in a confused and harrassed manner.

Time mangement is a vital skill for business.  However, what is termed time management is really overworking and in fact real management of the time spent on tasks, and, in particular, the proper matching up of the time scheduled for an activity and the work which is to be done in it, is very poorly understood right across British business.  Pointing this out, though, is not going to win you any fans and, in fact, you will be looked upon as being peculiar.  Instead you will be compelled to adhere to the norms that expect over-running and incomplete presentation of the information.

The Headache of Online Applications

As regular readers know, I have recently been applying for jobs of all kinds in the hope that I can find work before I run out of money and my house is repossessed which I calculate will happen by December.  Compared to last year when I applied for 38 jobs, had 16 interviews and only received feedback from 3. In some ways the situation this year has got both better and worse.  Out of 35 applications I have had 7 interviews, and another due next week, all but 2 of the sets of interviewers this year have provided feedback.  The feedback was sometimes quite expected, i.e. they had a candidate already working for them who knows their business better than me and at other times it has been quite offensive, accusing me of having lied on my application form.  It does seem that my interview skills needed polishing and so I was lucky being unemployed that a local training centre gave me a free two-hour session.

Of course, in contrast to the past, interviewing skills are not the only ones you need to get a job.  Once you would simply send in a CV or complete an application form then hope to be called for an interview.  Then things moved from paper-based applications to electronic ones.  Saying that, in interviews Powerpoint seems to have passed its peak of the early to mid-2000s and people are now wanting presentations done by you simply speaking or using handouts at most.  The step from paper-based to electronic application forms was very much in my favour.  For some reason the way I wrote seemed to be either juvenile or threatening and it meant that I only got 1 interview for every 25 applications I put in.  Being able to complete the application in Word which generally came in, in the early 2000s for the kind of employers I apply to, meant my hit rate rocketed to 1 interview per 3-5 applications even though I was writing basically the same thing.  Now, of course, we have gone a further stage.  Rather than simply emailing your completed application, now you have to log on to the company's human resources website and complete the whole application online.

Application forms were not always best designed and sometimes you were desperately seeking the right place to put in good information about you.  Like all recruitment processes, they seemed obsessed with details that had no relevance for the job you are applying for.  Having completed my O Levels now more than 25 years ago, I do not really seem what impact whether I got a B or a C in Physics really has on my current skills and knowledge.  Furthermore, what significance is the date I was awarded that O Level or what the address of my school was back in the early 1980s?  Yet, time after time whether on paper or electronic forms I have to give all of this in detail.  Some take it even further and I had a ridiculous situation of being in an interview last year with a man sitting in the corner of the room comparing photocopies of my faded, typed certificates from the 1980s against all the originals.  I did not even get the job but the company insisted on keeping the photocopies for a year!  Why?  I have no idea.  To me it seems that many companies have little idea what they want out of their recruitment processes and so end up putting in these rituals as if they had some significance.

Now, I have commented on poor interviewing before, and today need to focus on the difficulties of online applications.  I am good at the applications, so much so that people are startled (sometimes angry) at how poor I appear in real life, hence them accusing me of lying on the forms.  I never bother to lie, there is no point: given how much trouble I get into writing the truth imagine the risks I would run lying.  However, interestingly, at two interviews in the past year I have been told that I am the only candidate to have completed the application form correctly.  This means that everyone else I have been up against has failed to do it right.  The forms may be repetitive and restrictive but they are generally not at all difficult to get your head round; the problems come from other sources, as I explore below.  Weirdly it seems I could still get interviews if I did my applications less well and it would help reduce the level of disappointment interviewers get when they question me!

The first issue that you encounter when trying to do an online application is the same as you encounter when trying to buy or pay for anything online, you have to log on.  For most of us these means setting up a new account.  However, having been unemployed so much recently, and applying for jobs with the same companies time after time, I kept getting told that I already have an account with that company and should use that, and, no, I cannot set up a new one.  Even when I have guessed how they see my user name, I have to try to remember the password they tolerated this time last year.  Of course, you can have them email you a reminder, but nowadays you are told that 'for security' there will be an intentional delay before the reminder is sent out, so you lose another 2 hours waiting for it to turn up in your inbox or more often your Junk box.  A plea to employers, please do not send out emails with simply 'HRdept' or 'HRServices' or 'Resources' in the email address; most email systems will send them straight to Junk immediately.  Get addresses that are more distinctive if you want them to get through.  So, finally you get to log in.  That is only the first hurdle, many more will follow.  I do wonder what is the point of logging in.  Going back to a company I had applied to for a different post a fortnight before I logged in and expected all the tedious details like my address, schooling and previous jobs to be remembered by the system.  It was clear that the account was working but had stored none of the information I had put in before so I had to go through right from the beginning once more typing in all the minutiae it requests.

A key challenge with online application forms seems to be the common mismatch between whichever department is recruiting the staff and the IT people who build the websites that you apply through.  Neither seems to be aware of how the other thinks.  Consequently I regularly apply for jobs with more than 25 requirements which I am expected to respond to and yet I read 'limit 4000 characters' sometimes with 'including spaces'.  Now, even if you use words no longer than 5 letters long that gives you less than 800 words to write.  This means you can only use 32 words per requirement.  You could basically type 'yes, I can do that' repeatedly, but certainly not 'provide evidence of your use of these skills'.  Typing in the name of one or two of the companies I have worked for uses up a quarter of my allocated words.  Of course the websites are generic for all sorts of roles across the company, but there is clearly no conversation between the web developers and the departments recruiting as to the amount of information the latter are demanding.  Of course, as I have noted before, many companies put far too many requirements for their jobs and they are often repetitive.  However, even if you halved it, to, say, 12 requirements, you would still have only 64 or fewer words and for most of the jobs I am going for, you need at least 200 words to say anything sensible (and, of course, many of the words will be longer than 5 letters).  A couple of the forms have further complexity.  Certain ones will not accept particular characters, difficult if you have ever worked abroad.  Some even do not accept common punctuation marks; one removed all the full stops, brackets and amphersands from my text.  It accepted full stops on some pages and not others and would not accept brackets anywhere, so some numbering had to be ended with a comma and some sentences simply with a space!  It seems no-one had tested the form using it in a way most people would.

Another key problem is pull-down menus.  Rather than allowing you to put in free text, increasingly it appears, you have to select from a long list.  Sometimes these lists seem unnecessarily extensive, I am not certain how many people entitled 'Lord Colonel' or 'Professor Reverend' the companies I apply to be employed by; even 'Sir' and 'Dame' seems a little too much.  In terms of towns and counties you seem to get a bewildering mix of locations 'South-End-on-Sea' rather than 'Southend' was one interesting option I saw.  Many of the towns seemed to be in the Russian Federation rather than the UK and the same applied to counties, many of which were located in India.  One one application form it seems they simply scooped up what people put on former applications, so one 'town' was a street address and Hampshire appeared both as 'Hampshire' and 'Hants' its old postal abbreviation.  If you leave these sections free text then people can put in their address no matter what country it is in.  When you reach the equal opportunities section, companies seem at a real loss as to which categories to put.  I think some intentionally are taking a dig at Nick Griffin who claimed there were no black Welshmen, as you can select 'White British' and even 'White Scottish' or 'White Welsh'.  As for mixed-race people you can tick a whole plethora of combinations.  The most genders I have seen is four (male, female, male to female transgender and female to male transgender); in my estimate they have left out hermaphrodite. I think the diversity information is useful to gather, but there needs to be real thought about drop down menus which make it complex especially as you have to search so far down the list to find 'United Kingdom' and you get so tempted to select a British dependency from further up the list instead.

The worst situation with the pull down menus, however, is on qualifications.  Of course, you are asked to put in everything you have ever studied even if it has no relevance to the job.  "Yes, I see you got a 'B' in Latin 'O' Level in 1981, excellent, that will really help with quality control of the production of our oil pipeline fittings'.  Then they do not have the qualifications you have studied from the list.  They have ever form of German doctorate you might want to take, but a lot of standard UK qualifications, especially professional ones, are missing.  Do you simply leave them off or stick them under some other category or try to get them into some free text part of the form?  I do not know, I have tried all approaches.  As UK companies recruit not only from across Europe but globally, it will be impossible to list all possible qualifications.  What does an engineer from Shanghai have on their list?  What about a call centre manager from Mumbai?  Can you list all the different qualifications?  Even if you tried you would have a list even more unwieldy and irrelevant than the current ones.  Again, it seems, that rather than being fit for purpose the choices are simply what someone on the website building team can think of.

The other key problem with online applications is how little time you get to complete them.  In recent days I have done one with a 20-minute time out and one with 30 minutes.  I know they do not want people staying logged into their system all day, but again there clearly has been no discussion between the web staff and the people recruiting.  Even if you do not have to type in every school, every employer and every training course you have attended since your birth, the requirements section, which, as I noted above, has an average of 25 things to respond to.  I cannot write anything coherent in less than 1 minute on each requirement.  The best online applications either save automatically periodically or allow you to save when you like.  At least then if you get timed out you (should) have a chance of logging in again and continuing.  Some of the functionality leaves a lot to be desired and the guidance shows how poorly the sites are designed.  One advised me to keep clicking forward on to the next 'page' and then back again (of course not using the browser 'Back' only the small misaligned one on the page) to ensure my answers we not lost. 

The worst, despite me logging in, timed me out having given me 30 minutes to answer 29 requirements that were to be put into 5 different groups on the website to the 7 groups they were in on the job specification.  Naturally I logged back in again and was frustrated to find that not only had I lost all the content on the page I had been working on, but that despite all the promises, all the content of the previous pages had gone.  I had to face typing in all my O Levels once again with no guarantee that I would not lose it all again.  The only solution was to mock-up the online form in Word and cut and paste (very quickly) the answers from each section.  I guessed it was worthwhile because given how difficult the website is to use, many potential applications are likely to give up reducing my competition.  However, what is the point of having an online application if the only way to complete it is to create your own form and copy over?  At least this online application allowed cutting and pasting, many disable that function meaning you have to type out every tedious bit of employers address or qualification again and again.

I know that with 70 applicants for every graduate vacancy, companies are seeking to reduce the number of applicants.  However, the online application forms which are now the norm for so many posts, seem simply to be poor and difficult to use due to the fact that the people building them have little idea what is required of them or how applicants will actually be expected to use them.  You get a good one only when the web designer has some experience of such forms and those that do seem very limited in number.  The general ignorance among so many staff about how websites work means they do not feel in a position to intervene or even ask for particular functionality.  There needs to be good dialogue between the recruiters and the web builders in a company as there should be between the marketing staff and the website builders.  People forget that often an online application form is the first real encounter a person who is considering working for you, has with the company.  On the basis of the bulk of (well, in fact almost all) the online application forms I have used, I would believe that UK companies are incredibly badly organised and have no control over their web presence; not something which is going to encourage me to work for them or, in fact, hire or trade with them.