If the latest survey from global recruiting company Kelly Services is to be believed, almost half of UK workers think they’ve made the wrong career and study choices.

Many of those who took the survey thought that their education hadn’t properly prepared them for future employment and one in five felt that they had chosen the wrong career.

As a young person considers their options after school, university is often cited as the only logical thing to do. Degree choices are then susceptible to becoming, merely, extensions of a favourite subject at school. Each year almost 100,000 people quit university before the end of the first year.

The University of Bolton has the highest drop-out rate of any further education institution in the country. Thirty eight per cent of students from there, according to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, who started their degrees in 2005 will quit. The average university drop-out rate in England and Wales is 22%.

Perhaps, one way of preventing instances of a degree/career mismatch is to have more vocationally orientated A levels, training courses or apprenticeships that give students a taste of what to expect from their future that would, at the same time, point them towards a more rewarding career.

[pic courtesy of leoscholars]

We’ve all been tempted once in a while as that Monday morning alarm goes off - ah the joys of phoning in sick! What’s not to like about getting up at midday and spending some quality time in front of Bargain Hunt and Jeremy Kyle? I’ve been told that hanging your head over the bottom of the bed while on the phone creates quite a good croak.

There’s a website out there that’s making things a whole lot easier for anyone thinking of phoning in sick. Doctorsnotestore.com, is selling all sorts of sick notes on NHS headed paper with real doctors names that are completely false. They cost as little as £25 and can be delivered the next day.

Sites like these have been around for a few years but it’s only now that they’re being targeted at the UK market, specifically. American sites like Best fake doctor notes, with the company tagline:

you too can get sick today!

offers counterfeit jury letters, chiropractor and dental notes all for the bargain price of $15.

Doctorsnotestore.com can also provide documents in the style of any UK private medical centre. Although slightly worrying considering our sickness benefit statistics in the UK, part of me admires the entrepreneurial spirit of the site’s creators in spotting an opportune gap in the market.

The UK currently has one of the highest proportions of people on incapacity benefit in Europe after numbers have more than trebled since the 1970’s to 2.7 m and it’s predicted that long term unemployment due to ill health costs the tax payer more than £7 billion a year.

Back in February this year, health secretary Alan Johnson called for doctors to take a lead in tackling the problem by issuing “well notes” rather than automatically signing someone off as being ineligible to work. Dame Carol Black the National Director for Health and Work, has previously told BBC news, that she is looking at the issue.

[pic courtesy of Mister Rad]

According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics , 4.3m adults and 1.77m children live in welfare-dependent households. The number of homes where no one is working has risen by 43,000 since 2003.

These figures represent almost one-sixth of the number of UK working-age households that include at least one person who is of working age.

A study, Work and Worklessness Among Households, by the ONS found that 40 per cent of parents had no one in employment while the rate of unemployment among couple households was 5 per cent.

Debbie Scott, chief executive at Tomorrow’s People, an independent charity that helps the long term unemployed back into work, told Recruiter:

We are acutely aware that there are unacceptable numbers of households with people that have never worked. We need to work with the whole family in getting them back to work. We are about to commission a research project to identify some strategies to look into this problem.

Apparently some people study for weeks for a Microsoft interview, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Of course, it’s understandable the interviews go on for days; you don’t want to end up looking red-faced.

No amount of studying could prepare you for an interview like the one I found carefully recorded on sellsbrothers.com.

I bet you’ve never been asked this in a job interview:

Interviewer: The prince of darkness walks in front of you

Interviewee: You mean like the devil?

Interviewer: Any prince of darkness will do

Interviewee: Ok

Interviewer: What do you do?

Interviewee: <pause> Can I run?

Kind of ironic, don’t you think? Especially with Microsoft’s reputation as the evil empire.

However, what’s most important to take away from this little excerpt is - would you just shoot him or waste him? The distinction is very important.

[pic courtesy of the Official Star Wars Blog]

Continuing on from our first “Chinwag interview series: tales from Google HQ” we’ve got “Microsoft and the questions game”. This time we’ve unearthed some of Microsoft’s interview secrets and their just as mind-bending.

Back in the day Microsoft’s interviewing process was ground breaking. The interviews were more about technical knowledge, problem solving and creativity as opposed to the goal and weakness interview most companies used at the time with questions like, “Where do you see yourself in five years time?”

Their process was eventually copied by Google, Yahoo! and today they’re still used by the majority of IT companies out there.

For all their jobs there’s the usual screening call to test your ability, followed by the face-to-face interview over two days - one day of personal interviews and one day of the technical variety.

The interviews are designed to seek out the most creative and adaptable minds out there. Candidates who make it to the second round are given a pen, paper and white board and expected to design and rationalise their answers.

Previous interviewees have been asked things like,

Design a music system for a car. What are the features? Draw a picture

Design a coffee machine that will be used by astronauts

There is no right answer to any of these questions but Microsoft obviously want to gauge technical clout and separate the men from the boys, so to speak. They are after all, one of the most innovative and recognisable companies in the world – they’ve got standards to keep up. Being able to solve a question like this:

I am your grandmother. Describe what MATLAB is to me

can’t guarantee you a job at Microsoft but it obviously means you’re pretty smart.

Slightly off topic I know, but forgive me, we were talking about Googleplex earlier but what’s better a free staff canteen or a free mango-lassi drinks machine in the office? The Valley Wag, that little satirical gem, has got a competition running now for who has the better head quarters – Google or Yahoo!? I know which one I’d rather have - I’d explode after a month at Google: I wouldn’t be able to help myself.

Anyway I’ll leave that one with you…;-)

[pic courtesy of Brajeshwar]

Over the next few weeks the Chinwag Jobs blog will be investigating what it’s like to interview with digital heavyweights. First up, Google. This new series of articles will unearth what perks you’ll enjoy working for these new media king pins, what you can expect from an interview and what type of things you’ll be asked.

Getting a face-to-face interview with a company like Google is an achievement in itself. There’s has been talk for a while now, bounding around online, about the baffling things Google ask their interviewees. Should you ever find yourself inside the hallowed walls of an interview room at Google HQ, the selection below are just a sample of the peculiar things they’ll ask you:

How many golf balls could you fit in a school bus?

No idea? Yip, me neither..3,454,034 perhaps? OK I just made that up – you can tell right?

How about this one:

You’re shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

Any thoughts? (Answers below, no peeking!)

There’ll be none of the usual, “What could you bring to the role?” type questions.

No, no, Google want to see your ingenuity. They want to test your lateral thinking; your ability to spin a yarn. Their interview process is also one of the most intense around - that is according to some of these people who’ve been through it.

I imagine their offices to be very zen like with hoverboards in the corridors and glass bowls of M&M’s on the desks.

The best description I’ve ever read about Google’s recruitment process came from software developer Ben Watson of Geo Eye. With this one, the beauty’s in the detail. He documents his whole trip to their Boston offices for the day and even takes pictures outside of the window.

If you can answer any of these questions then you could have just what it takes to work for Google, that’s not discounting the years of experience, not just technical, that you’ll need to get your foot in the door.

For answers to the above questions visit this eclectic list on Gamedev’s forums.

[Pic courtesy of Ozaking]

For those of you out there still feeling a little rough round the edges after the bank holiday weekend, suffer no more - your luck could be in.

If new proposals from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) are to believed we’re to see a new bank holiday weekend in October. The new holiday, or Community Day as the TUC are calling it, will celebrate the 20 million volunteers we have in the UK today.

The TUC have been calling for an increase in the number of annual bank holidays for some time now. Four years ago they actively petitioned to increase the number of annual bank holidays to bring the numbers in line with the European average of eleven.

Having the Community Day’s in October would effectively split the longest period of time we have without a bank holiday weekend, 25th of August until Christmas day, in half. The day will not only celebrate the work of existing voluteers but it will, it’s hoped, encourage more young people to volounteer.

The campaign, backed by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), National Council for Voluntary Organisations and Volunteering England, will see young people given the opportunity to organise street parties, voluteer in hospitals and take part in conservation work.

Generally, customer-facing industries do very well off the back of bank holiday spending but they’re hugely beneficial for the economy as a whole too. In the process of encouraging people to venture out and do something different with their extra Sunday they’re unwittingly cajoled into parting with their cash.

Take this weekends Notting Hill Carnival, for example, it annually injects around one hundred million pounds into the local economy and surely that’s no bad thing.

Here at Chinwag we’ve been running the Digital Pulse survey since March 2008 in association with Gabriele Skelton. It’s a monthly “confidence index” that gauges how confident or otherwise folk in the new media sector are feeling about the digital biz and their place in it.

Our Quarterly Analysis goes deeper, and offers an in-depth analysis of trends and developments in the digital industry based on three months’ figures. It’s also a useful guide to those looking to get into the industry as well as those already on the inside.

We’ve been beavering away, tallying up the score sheets and crunching the numbers to see exactly how digital’s doing in the second quarter of 2008. Questions range from rating your confidence in current and future market conditions, to how you feel about the job opportunities for you out there.

On the whole, the results threw up some interesting anomalies. Overall sentiment dropped 2.5 points (or 2% from April to June 2008). Confidence levels in current market conditions this quarter sit at 120.9 points with confidence in predicted market conditions slightly higher with 126.1 points.

Confidence at the end of the second quarter was lower than the end of the first – reflecting the impact of broader economic woes on the sector. June’s figures, however, were up 1.4% from levels in May this year. Over the next few months we’ll know if this is a blip or we can attribute this to a recovery in the industry as a whole.

One survey question that returned negative responses was salary satisfaction levels; the figure dropped 2.3 points over the three month period. Still, this was an improvement over April and May when salary sentiment dropped to below 89 points – due, in part, to the rising cost of living rather than a distinct crisis in the digital sector. As the price of fuel, food, energy and lending has shot up wages no longer stretch as they once did.

The Quarterly Analysis replete with charts, graphs and all manner of statistical nuggets can be found here.

As long as online is a way for companies to boost their customer base and attract advertisers while keeping overheads low, digital will always have a unique selling point. However, with belt-tightening across the board in both media and client-side, the possibility of cuts in digital budgets or staffing cannot be entirely ruled out, especially in less profitable sectors like online publishing.

If you or your colleagues fancy taking the Digital Pulse survey, it couldn’t be easier. And the more people that fill it in, the more accurate it becomes!

It’s just six questions, and only take a minute to do. Plus for every survey completed we donate 25p to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund).

The south-west is the destination of choice for web design graduates according to top creative and marketing recruiter, Gallery Resources.

According to Joanna Snell,the company founder and director,

the jobs market in that area is at the highest it’s been for two years

…with Gloucester, Worcester and Somerset thriving with graduates often walking into mid-range salaries there.

Of course, as Joanna says,

you can walk into a good job if you have the right kind of degree regardless of what the economic conditions are like.

Which is great but for most graduates it’s never usually that straight forward. Figures from the University of Dundee estimate that 40% of the jobs available to graduates will accept any kind of degree. Good but what if you’re in the other 60%? If you come out of university with the “wrong” type of degree you could find yourself excluded from 60% of the graduate job market without knowing it.

Only the fields of architecture, medicine, dentistry or law require a specific vocational degree to work in that particular sector.

In the digital realm often the opposite is true. Candidates come from a wide range of academic backgrounds in to a very niche sector; due in part to the digital skills shortage. The same shortage, I presume, that’s making it easy for web design graduates to walk into great jobs. As Joanna Snell puts it they’re being “snapped up very quickly”.

As business decisions are increasingly driven by web analytics, the first great wave of web design graduates look like the crucial way of guaranteeing a return on investment online.

Michael Phelps - the half-man/half fish, superhuman swimming machine. His record-breaking Beijing Olympic haul justified the hype greasing the international presses.

It may be a while-off yet for Phelps but what does an ex-olympian do when they reitre? Sprint off into the sunset? A life of coaching kids? For us mere mortals retirement arrives after 40 years of a fairly prosaic working life.

According to a survey by Bayfield Search and Selection, the legal and technical recruitment firm, Olympians are more likely than the average person to find success in the business world.

The discipline required by the two are much the same. Organisations want the same thing that a top athlete has in droves. Qualities like self-confidence, motivation, dedication, and the desire to win are all traits of those at the pinacle of their respective fields.

Menzes or Ming Campbell the sprinter-turned-advocate, turned liberal democrat leader was once the fastest white man on the planet. He held the 100 metre record from 1967 to 1974 but his career since retirement brought him equal notoriety.

Adrian Moorhouse, the British swimmer who dominated the sport in the 80’s is now the managing director of his own company, lane4 people. Colin Jackson, a silver medalist in the 88 games, went on to found the multi-media production company Red Shoes.

For those with the talent, dedication, and luck to make that Olympic dream a reality, the life of a professional athlete can be on a par with a Hollywood heavyweight. Phelps already has companies like Visa, Speedo, Omega, Hilton and AT&T sponsoring him and off the back of Beijing his profile has exploded. On that great barameter of public opinion, Facebook over 1,316,509 people have officially declared themselves fans so far. Incidentally this is just a whisper more than the number of followers Barack Obama has on Facebook. Could the wrong guy be running for president?

But it isn’t all plain sailing (or swimming) for ex-Olympians. The majority of Olympians don’t go on to become professional athletes and which means the majority are not going to get the multi-million pound endorsements. For some retired athletes every proceding Olympics acts as a opportunity to simply rake in more mullah.

Mark Spitz, the man whose record breaking medal haul was smashed by Phelps, is now being sponsored by Botox. The campaign, entitled, “Your Presonal Best” promotes Botox as a muscle paralyzer and wrinkle blitzer. Maybe it’s all that salt water: it ages the skin