This years  ”Apprentice” was   the winner selected from an apparently  broader range of applicants  than usual,  in order to reflect the current poor labour market and the realistic choice that businesses face today when looking at job applications .

Apparently they offered the chance to  people from a range of backgrounds including entrepreneurs, people who were made redundant, fairly recently qualified graduates,  applicants who had had no formal training or experience in interviews whatsoever as well as those that had some more solid but progressive work experiences.

To be one of the twelve selected was an achievement and, although most viewers enjoyed pointing out the flaws and weaknesses of the applicants, we should also commend these people for their resilience, determination and willingness to expose themselves, warts and all, to the general public.

Of course the ultimate aim is to get a job offer, and it is hard to console oneself  if you are on the end of being the runner up or final shortlist without being selected. The advantage of seeing this happen on tv is that you do get to experience what an interviewer may witness in a job interview and hopefully learn a few lessons about how to present yourself in relation to other applicants in a business interview.

Although it is a tv show, it isn’t that far removed from reality in terms of the way people conduct themselves and how selection proceses can be made. For example, I recently heard that London job applications for a Saturday post with a major American retailer ,aimed at the “teen” market in London, involved group role play interviews where individuals (mainly teenagers) were asked to play out a scenario and discuss how this would be dealt with. It also covered questions about the corporate branding of the retailer and asked applicants to consider what their ethos or values were and how these were reflected in the  way they worked.

I was surprised that this was aimed to 16- 18 year olds specifcially and think this probably illustrates how the part time job market has become more and more competitive  in a time for ec0nomic difficulty and is now starting to reflect the processes that the permanent job market adopts.

I was fascinated, but not surprised, to discover that the biggest issue that private businesses have faced this year, has been the skills shortage amongst staff and prospective employees.

Many companies we have worked with have struggled to fill jobs as a result of a lack of qualified applicants and despite their efforts to source candidiates via  a variety of methods. Indeed we have noticed that may firms who chose to cut costs and employ their own internal recruiting teams, have also had to go externally and use recruitment companies to help them source people.

I think next year we will see an increase in  junior or less experienced people  being empoyed  and trained as the  lack of skills shortage starts to unravel. Despite this there has also been a dramatic increase in business that many of our clients  have also seen,  with some witnessing a 30-50% growth in 2010 alone.

It is good to see that companies are being optimistic about the future despite the furore that the public sector cuts have created, the hike in  VAT in January 2011 and the employment legislative burden that comes with the legal changes throughout 2011.

Many people decide to  postpone any job hunting til the New year as they focus on Christmas parties, Christmas shopping and the holiday period. We find that before Christmas can be a great time to look for a new job as companies choose to rap up their recruitment before the year end and  are eager to use up their  recruitment budget for 2010.

Some of the fastest turnarounds have taken place in the week up to Christmas. We have known candidates to go for an interview and come out with a job offer on the same day.  A great way to start the holiday period.

If you are thinking of holding out on your job search, it might be worth thinking again. if you get the groundwork done before the holidays, then the winter blues wont feel so hard when the holidays are over and the dark days of January kick in.

The use of technology and particularly text (txt) messaging to communicate has had an enormous impact on the English language and literacy in general.

We accept that there are many new words emerging in everyday life however this cannot replace the need to write and spell correctly. We frequently see cvs with spelling and grammar mistakes in them and when you look at the increasingly poor level of English language teaching at schools in the UK, one starts to question whether the correct and traditional use of the English language is going to be less and less important in the future.

I personally feel that having an excellent command of the English language is still vital when job hunting and also applying for roles which require presentation skills and communication skills. It’s a bit like reading a well written book. The better the writing the more compelling we could find the writer. The better written the cv, the more interesting and appealing we will find the job applicant.

A very active last quarter with the number of London assignments on permanent positions double the last quarter in 2009 and the temporary market up by 35%.

This is very encouraging although we are still facing similar issues of lack of flexibility in clients expectations (which means a longer turn around in jobs being filled) and the rise in demand for candidates with specific skills.

The financial services sector is specifically bouyant and we have also noticed a rise in demand for language skills.