Physics just got easier
According to Tim Oates, director of Cambridge Assessment, which owns and manages OCR one of the leading exam setting bodies, the physics syllabus has been made easier. The reason for this, apparently, was to make it easier to attract girls and less bright pupils to study physics at A level.
(I find it pretty offensive to females to regard them as less intelligent. I’m sure that some of the girls I know from Oxford University studying maths would feel the same, as would my PhD wife).
What happens when less bright pupils get to university? According to Alison Wolf who headed a government-ordered review into vocational education, universities are having to provide catch-up classes because too may teenagers with top A-level grades are not ready to cope with the rigours of a degree.
So, that’s a good reason to make A levels easier then?
Tesco to boost graduate recruitment by 30%
Tesco which is Britain’s largest private sector employer is set to recruit 440 graduates in the next 12 months
Tesco has today delivered very welcome news for university-leavers as graduate recruitment in the next year will increase by 30% – almost 10 times the national average.
This will see the country’s largest private sector employer welcome 440 graduates to its 17 schemes available across our operations in stores, distribution and head office. Continue Reading »
Build your Future in Conservation
According to research by ConstructionSkills, an industry financed skills council and English Heritage, the future of pre-1919 buildings, of which there are 5 million could be at risk as over two-thirds of the workforce undertaking the repairs does not posses the right skills to do the job properly.
There is only one buildings conservation accredited surveyor for every 85,000 traditional buildings and only one engineer with relevant conservation experience for every 276,000 buildings.
This severe shortage in know-how is the reason that the National Trust has created a new three year apprenticeship scheme that is training young men and women in traditional skills Continue Reading »
Employability – Why It Matters
In the summer of 2009, the UK’s higher education institutions produced 400,000 new graduates. They entered the labour market at perhaps the worst time in a generation. In order to convince prospective employers that they would be a productive addition to the workplace, new graduates needed highly developed employability skills together with experience of the world of work.
So what is employability?
Employability skills have been defined after extensive collaboration with business by the CBI as:
‘A set of attributes, skills and knowledge that all labour market participants should possess to ensure they have the capability of being effective in the workplace – to the benefit of themselves, their employer and the wider economy.’
Employability Skills include:
Tony Levene’s guide to spotting job scam websites
Award-winning consumer journalist Tony Levene has many years’ experience of exposing scam operators.
If you are looking for work on job websites refer to this list.
- Beware of sites that redirect you to others. You might start out with a “.co.uk” and be moved to a “.com”
- Be suspicious if details of the employer are vague while details of the job are very precise
- Be concerned about salaries that are higher than you might expect
- Look out for a list of impressive skills required followed by “no experience needed”
- Read the small print – bad grammar or spelling are giveaways
- Do not include your date of birth – it is not a requirement; your work and/or educational history will tell employers roughly how old you are
- Do not include your marital status – it is of no interest to employers but can help scamsters
- Do not include your place of birth. Together with your name, it can be used to find personal details
- Only give your first and last name – middle names can help scam operators identify your details
- Be wary of giving out your postal address – it is not needed with email services; a general location will do
- Be wary if the email address does not contain the name of the company, but just the name of a service provider such as Yahoo! or Hotmail
- Look out for disclaimers like “these firms are now recruiting” if you see impressive corporate logos. It does not mean they are recruiting through the website in front of you. These logos are almost always unauthorised
- Finally, remember: if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is
Applicants per vacancy by industry sector
High Flyers Research has produced its ‘end-of year’ update on graduate recruitment in 2010 amongst the top graduate employers. This shows the revised number of graduate vacancies by sector in 2010 and the number of applicants per vacancy.
Here is an excerpt from the research Continue Reading »
Can it really be that bad!
A survey of 16,000 final-year students by High Flyers Research has found that 64% of them are not expecting to join the job market this year. Apparently, only one in five final year students expects to leave university with a job.
To make matters worse, Continue Reading »
European cities lead the world on quality of life for employees
The 2010 Quality of Living Survey, from HR consultancy Mercer, surveyed 221 cities and found that Europe boasted 16 cities among the world’s top 25. Vienna retained its 2009 title as the highest ranked city, followed by Zurich in second place and Geneva in third position.
In the UK, London Continue Reading »
Do you really want to work at Morgan Stanley?
How much “guidance” is needed to address the etiquette demands of new office layouts? If you believe what “Dealbreaker” reports then certain staff at Morgan Stanley have received fairly detailed instructions on how to conduct themselves when working in their cubicle-style offices.
Here’s the memo staff are said to have received:
Subject: Cubicle Etiquette
‘As our team has grown and our space has become more populated, just a few reminders to basic guidelines for cubicle life.
Privacy
Never enter someone’s cubicle without permission. Behave as though cubicles have doors and do not enter before you have eye contact “permission” from the occupant.
Don’t “prairie-dog” over the Continue Reading »
Graduates are not getting the jobs they want
Nearly six in ten new graduates are not working in a job related to their degree, according to research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
The survey of 700 workers who have graduated in the past two years, shows that 58% gave the reason for this as being unable to find a suitable job, while 28% claimed their degree Continue Reading »