Zookel Blog: News & Views

As reported by many sources this morning – experts believe Alistair Darling could be in line to receive a £1 billion dividend from lower than expected unemployment figures in time for next week’s Budget.

Sounds like good news right?

In truth I’m not so sure. Why? Here are the simple facts:

• The number of people claiming unemployment benefit had fallen at the fastest pace in 13 years last month. Alongside this unemployment also dipped for the third month in a row.  +VE
• The number of long-term unemployed — those out of work for a year or more — jumped by 61,000, or nearly 10 per cent, in the three months to January. -VE

• Unemployment dropped to 2.45 million in the three months to January, according to the ONS. +VE
• The rate of employment, measuring the number of people in work, also fell to a 13-year low of 72.2 per cent. The number of people in work dropped by 54,000 to 38.8 million in the three months to January. –VE

• The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance in February dropped from 1.63 million in October last year to approx. 1.58 million people. +VE
• The number of people dropping out of the jobs market altogether has risen sharply. Indeed “economically inactive” people — those who cannot work because they are studying, sick or looking after children — climbed by nearly 150,000 to a record 8.1 million in the three months to January^*1. –VE

• Independent forecasts that the jobless total will now peak at a lower level than expected (hence the saving accruing to Mr Darling due to decrease benefit payments). +VE
• More than one in four people in Britain of working age is now either unemployed or not looking for work. -VE

Summary:

There are definitely some good positives, but also enough offsets (or warning signs) that it would be premature to say we’re out of the woods in terms of jobs. In truth whilst a lot of us are feeling more positive^*2 not even the most aggressive economist will be able to make that call (with any degree of confidence) until such time that we see true meaningful economic growth.

——————

^*1 figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

^*2 Warning: an overly positive outlook is a common character trait of start-up employee.

Unemployment unexpectedly fell for the first time in 18 months in November 09, with the Office for National Statistics stating that the broadest measure* of unemployment fell by 7,000 to 2.458 million, leaving the jobless rate at 7.8%. Good news right?

Largely yes, although it must be said the headline figures mask a number of slightly worrying trends, chiefly:

• The number of people in the labour force who are neither working nor looking for work, with the inactivity total rising above 8 million for the first time since records began in 1971.
• Full-time employment fell by 113,000 to 21.2 million, while part-time employment did not rise fast enough to compensate, increasing by 99,000 to 7.7 million. These figures are following the trend of women finding part-time jobs while men, predominantly, are losing full-time ones.
• Whilst the under-24s joblessness rate fell by 16,000 to 927,000, this still left a fifth of young people out of work.
• The long term unemployed (i.e. the number of people out of work for more than a year) jumped 29,000 on the quarter to 631,000, the highest level since late 1997.
• The ONS reported that wage growth slowed to the lowest on record at just 1.1% year-on-year (excluding volatile bonus payments in the three months to November).

So, what does all this mean?

1. We’re clearly not out of the woods yet.
2. The next set of figures will be extremely revealing as we could reasonably expect that some of the part time jobs created in the lead-up to Christmas will have been cut. The question will then become whether we will have seen sufficient growth (or reduced decreases) in full time roles to offset this.
3. The young and the regional worker is still extremely vulnerable.
4. The lack of wage growth (and the potential for reduced household incomes where part time workers are replacing full time) could affect consumer spending this year – which could in turn lead to further employment pressures.

Encouraging start to the year definitely! Green shoots perhaps to early to say, but let’s hope.

Regards,

Zoe

* The narrower measure of people claiming unemployment benefits also dropped by more than expected in December, falling by 15,200 to 1.61 million, the biggest drop since early 2007.

This month we’ve been honoured with the announcement that Zookel has been nominated as a Finalist in the 2009 National Online Recruitment Awards (the NORAs) for the Best Newcomer in Online Recruitment 2009.

Sounds interesting, but what exactly are the NORAs?

The NORAs have been created to acknowledge and reward excellence in online recruitment practice. Established in 2001, this year will be the ninth annual NORAs, and the list of past finalists and winners accurately describes the evolution of the UK online recruitment sector, which is now recognised as the most advanced and competitive in the world.

The NORAs are now firmly established as the standard by which recruitment websites are measured, and having received almost 25,000 nominations for 654 separate recruitment websites this years awards expected to be the most hotly contested ever.

Great but why’s that exciting?

In short whilst it’s still very early days for Zookel as a business this is exciting for two reasons:

1. It’s an opportunity to thank Zoe & the team (ever growing as it is) for their hard work, dedication, persistence and at times outright brilliance over the last weeks and months.
2. Perhaps most significantly making the shortlist (from over 650 nominations) means we’ve been recognised by our users, clients and peers as an up and coming job site.

We’ll find out a little later in the year if we’ve managed to scoop the award (although to be honest being nominated in such exalted company is prize enough) and in the meantime we’ve been working hard to make sure there are masses of new jobs online for you to choose from.

Thanks!

Paul & Team Zookel

Having just finished reading James Lavin’s book Management Secrets of the New England Patriots; From Patsies to Triple Super Bowl Champs – I thought it was worthy of reflecting on a couple of key takeaways:

1. Similar to the Sydney Swans (an AFL team in Australia) and their “no dickheads” policy The Patriots focus on the group or team dynamics over the individual.
2. Whilst some players inevitably have a higher profile – as stated by Lavin The Patriots “don’t want a team of overpaid stars and a bunch of resentful journeymen making the league minimum” instead they “bring in people who value being part of a successful organization, and like to be around other hard-working guys who want to win,” The result: Few Patriots players have stellar individual statistics, but the “team” has two of the longest winning streaks in National Football League history. And it has won three Super Bowls in four years.
3. Similarly the Swans have overlooked potential recruits with “superior skills” because they didn’t have the right character. As their manager (Paul Roos) says “I won’t name the names, but we’ve been laughed at sometimes for overlooking kids because they didn’t have the qualities we wanted…a few years later, the same blokes are making headlines for the wrong sort of things. They’re underperforming”. The result: The swans won the AFL title for the first time in 72 years in 2005 and backed up by making the finals for five straight seasons.
4. Both teams have taken somewhat radical steps to reinforce the focus on the group for example:
   • The Swans have implemented the practice of a leadership group and co-captains. The leadership group are senior players who set the code of conduct, dictate the culture, and importantly deal with any breaches to the code. The idea of co-captains again reduces the focus & pressure on one individual to be “the man” and instead relies on the combined strengths, skills and differences of three.
   • The Patriots have shied away from individual performance goals and focused instead on broad measures. If the team wins a set number of games, or if fans and coaches vote a player into the Pro Bowl, bonuses kick in. There are also smaller penalties and incentives meant to bring about shared responsibility. For instance, if an offensive lineman jumps offside during practice, the entire offense does a lap, not just the player. “The idea,” says Lavin, “is make everybody feel responsible for everybody else.”

Is The Swans / Patriots approach the best (or indeed the only successful one)?

Clearly not.

However the success and uniqueness of the approach they’ve taken does reinforce that adding the culture & management structure of the company you’re interested in joining (or the indeed the potential new recruits fit within the company culture & management structure) to your evaluation (or selection) criteria is critical.

What do we do at Zookel? Personally I’d much rather play in a champion team than a team of champions.

Good luck with the continued job hunt.

Paul & Team Zookel

I must admit I wasn’t surprised to read this week that a growing number of highly paid workers are swapping stressful company jobs for careers in the more secure public sector amid fears of redundancy. The trend – an obvious reversal on the boom years – appears to be a direct result of uncertainty surrounding the recession.

To summarise the highlights of the Capturing Commercial Talent Survey commissioned by Hays (a Zookel client):

• 63% of public sector employers have noticed an increase in applications from the private sector.
• 50% of public sector organisations said they had skill shortages they needed to address in order to deliver high quality services.
• 80% of those said they would be best filled by a private sector worker.
• The NHS has noticed the most extreme change, with the number of applications for jobs having more than doubled since January from 40,000 to over 100,000 (with roughly the same number of vacancies).
• Some workers have been prepared to take pay cuts of up to 60% to guarantee themselves work through the next few years.

Whilst perceived job security remains the most important factor in employees decision to ‘jump the fence’, there were also a number of other benefits quoted including:

• The potential for shorter working hours.
• A greater work-life balance including part-time hours and the ability to work from home.
• Excellent benefits packages.
• The chance to make a positive difference to society.

Short term sacrifice for long term gain, work-life balance, or straight forward career change no matter the reason the questions remain: will the fence jumpers stay put or want back to the more glamorous jobs once the recession ends? and: whilst public sector employers are more than happy to take on those with private experience, will it work in reverse?

Food for though if nothing else. As always good luck on the job hunt!

Zoe & Team Zookel

Source for stats: Evening Standard Article

There is something unique about Glastonbury; it has an aura and reputation unlike any of the other festivals on offer over the summer period. Whilst music fans scramble to get tickets, bands are also busy trying to make sure they are on the lineup for Britain’s most famous live music event.

And when a group of the guys here made the trek to Glasto this year it made me think – are the comparisons between a band getting on the lineup & a candidate getting an interview for a new gig (pardon the pun). Here’s what I’ve come up with:

So, who knew being in a band and the job hunt were so similar?

I guess there’s just enough space left for the blatant plug – if you’re looking for a way to stand out from the crowd and drive your career forward, log on to Zookel. Think of it as the Glastonbury of job sites – the best place to get noticed!

Zoe & Team Zookel

TechCrunch Europas 2009

We’re proud, impressed, and ever so slightly embarrassed that TechCrunch, the go to Tech blog, has nominated Zookel for the Best Bootstrapped Startup award in the TechCrunch Europas.

What exactly are the Europas? As described by TechCrunch:

These awards will recognise and celebrate the most compelling technology startups, Internet and mobile innovations of the past year (Summer 08 – Summer 09), with the tech community invited to have a say in which finalists should be recognised.

What does it mean?

As the only job site recognised in the category we’re pretty excited to be nominated, particularly in such exalted company. That said, we’d be lying if we said we wouldn’t love to win!

What do I need to do?

If like TechCrunch you believe we’re onto something please cast your vote for us today.  And if you’re so inclined tell your family. And friends. And the random people that follow you on Twitter.

Thanks!

Paul & Team Zookel

I’ve increasingly been reading about (or more like seeking out) innovative strategies both individuals and companies are coming up with to deal with the economic downturn.

Having previously asked the question what can we learn from Graham Edwards. I thought it would be good to look at it from the other side and consider what we can learn from the strategy of Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre.

The background story in a nutshell:

• Facing the need to find $20 mil in budget savings Levy was being forced to consider layoffs.
• Levy examined the details of how the Hospital worked – especially how the often-overlooked frontline employees did their jobs. He was impressed by what he saw, and wanted to both protect the lowest wage earners and recognize their commitment.
• When Levy gathered his 6000+ employees together to discuss the options rather than making mass redundancies, he offered a creative solution: “I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I’d like to get your reaction to it,” Levy told the assembly. “I’d like to do what we can do to protect the lower-wage earners — the transporters, the housekeepers, the food-service people…If we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice. It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.”
• The consensus was that the workers didn’t want anyone to get laid off and were willing to give up pay and benefits to make sure no one did.
• As a result of the combined commitment of the management and staff the number of necessary redundancies has reduced dramatically, from over 600 to about 150, and this will be achieved at the same time as providing earnings protection to the 900 lowest wage workers.

The three lessons I take from this brilliant initiative are:

1. Creativity is not an option it’s a requirement. Just as candidates need to be increasingly creative when presenting themselves (using videos and psychometrics etc) and networking for new jobs, so do Employers when determining how to deal with the downturn.
2. Honesty & Transparency is the best policy. We’ve consistently endorsed honesty in terms of candidates CV’s & interview answers. Equally as employers (putting aside the times when you can’t legally share all you’d like to) we believe that the only way to gain trust and respect is to treat employees with honesty & transparency.
3. Mindset & Attitude are key. Could Levy have achieved this without having a team that reflects the mindset & attitude he wants within the organisation? Unlikely. Equally would you as an employee or job seeker be willing to make a similar sacrifice if you didn’t share the same mindset & attitude as your colleagues? Also unlikely*.

See other lessons? Let us know by leaving a comment. And as always good luck with the job hunt, and please feel free to drop us a note if we can help.

Paul & Team Zookel

*Granted we’re biased as one of the reasons we built psychometrics into the core of Zookel is to allow candidates to understand their career motivations and the type of company they’d be successful working for.

We’ve created a new button ad which we think is great! It’s a little playful, makes you stop and think, and most importantly lives up to the Zookel promise of doing things a little differently.

Zookel's latest button Ad

We’re now just waiting for the calls from the Palace and No.10 respectively. In the meantime we’d love to hear what you think of it before we roll it out completely.

As always good luck with the job hunt, and if you haven’t done it already don’t forget to join Zookel (and take advantage of the free career tools including psychometrics, video CV’s and Zookel’s social networking integration).

Zoe & Team Zookel

Job offers rarely come as a complete surprise. Even if you’re headhunted the process is likely to take more than a month to complete. So my question is – Why do candidates almost always wait until the offer is in hand to start evaluating it?

The answer – most candidates consider the offer to be primarily about the salary. Whilst it’s true salary is critical, people working solely for money will eventually feel unfulfilled.

So if salary’s not the only factor – What should candidates be considering before the offer is made?

The four most important – pre offer considerations.

1. The job. You’re likely to have applied for it, but that doesn’t mean you actually want it. From the initial application through to offer you will generally go through a number of interviews, during which time you’ll learn more about the true nature of the job and the day-to-day responsibilities. The more you can find out about the job before receiving the offer, the more likely you are to make the right choice. Asking yourself the following questions will help:

• Does the job match your interests and make good use of your skills?
• How important is the job to the company or organisation?
• How long do most people who enter this job stay with the company?
• Is the job a lateral move or promotion?
• Does the job title adequately describe what the job is?
• How will accepting the role alter my lifestyle?
• Are there clear opportunities for growth and advancement?

2. The organisation. During the interview process you’re likely to gain a greater insight into the organisation, its culture and whether it is a good place for you to work. It’s also likely you’ll have the opportunity to review any press articles, track the share price (if it’s a public company), and ask peers within the industry for their opinion on the company. Factors to consider include:

• Does the organisation’s business or activity match your own interests and beliefs?
• Is the organisation financially sound and what are the growth prospects?
• Should you work for a relatively new organisation or one that is well established?
• What is the reputation and image of employer?
• Who are the organisation’s key competitors and how are they viewed in comparison?
• Is the organisation rigid or flexible? Does it work strictly by the book?
• Does the organisation have a record of layoffs or downsizing?

3. The Industry. The industry the company works within or earns the majority of its revenue from (for multi industry companies) has a large influence on the company culture, will impact on how success is measured, and will to some extent shape the boundaries of its future growth prospects (assuming it remains within that industry), Some questions to think about:

• Is the industry high growth, commoditised, or at risk from technical innovation?
• How does the macro environment or business cycle effect the industry?
• Is there any industry dependence on government policies and programs?
• Is the general publics’ view of the industry positive or negative?
• Would working in the industry help your long term career prospects regardless of the organisation?

4. Your Manager & the team. The impact of your direct manager and the team you work within is often underestimated when taking a new role. And yet when you talk to people who are happy within their role they will consistently refer in part or whole to their boss and workmates. Without a boss who is committed to helping you learn and succeed, and a team that works towards common goals you may quickly find the other benefits of a role simply aren’t worth that much. It’s therefore worth trying to:

• Assess how the boss will serve as a mentor, and what you will learn from him/her.
• Ask questions around his/her interpersonal and management style.
• Talk to your potential boss about the team before you accept the position.
• Understand (as much as possible) the team structure, chemistry & dynamics.

Should I do this for every role I apply for?

Definitely not – that would be a waste of time and energy.

You do however want to consider them before any final interview. Not only will they make you better prepared for any offer when it comes, but they should also help you to ask sensible, clear, concise questions in the interview itself. And as an employer I can assure you that seeing a prepared candidate with considered questions is always positive!

As always good luck with the job hunt, and please feel free to drop us a note if we can help.

Paul & Team Zookel