Jackie Hartley’s BLOG

So, the IAG Quality Standards, as written by consultants Mouchel Parkman, have been dumped and David Andrews brought in to rewrite them (see YoungPeopleNow magazine article). Apparently ..

A spokeswoman for Mouchel Parkman said: “We were contracted to produce draft standards and the contract ended in May. We published the draft standards and they were well received. We recommended that the department road test the standards, and we understand that is what they are doing now.”

The consultation on the draft standards ended in March, and they were due to be introduced in April. But criticism from the advice and guidance sector appears to have led to a rethink.

Hardly well received. I blogged on people’s reactions at the York Conference back in November last year, hardly what you might call ‘well received’. What annoys me is that anyone with half a brain in the IAG world could have told the DfES that David could have done that job first time round (and I suspect a few people did tell them but were ignored) and saved a lot of time and MONEY! I mean, how much money did Mouchel Parkman get paid? Have they been asked for a refund? It’s no wonder there is not enough money to do all the things that need doing in education when it is wasted like this. It makes me so angry. Anyway at least we have now got someone who knows the field, writing the standards so maybe we will get back some of the ground lost in the latest policy tsunami. Let’s hope so.

Technorati Tags: IAG quality standards, Government consultants

If you are struggling to keep up with all the new policies affecting careers and guidance work (and unless your name is David Andrews you probably are!) then a good place to start to find out what is what is on the new IAG Workforce website. Written by my friend and colleague, Janet Donoghue, this site does a sterling job of trying to pull all the relevant policies together. Personally I find it extremely confusing and not very reassuring that we have so many different policies affecting this area of work - but hey, who am I to comment - I’m only a practitioner with a very pragmatic and practical approach to careers work. Clearly this wonderful, multi-layered, intertwined, rich, complex tapestry of policies is there for a good reason - it’s just that I am struggling to see what it is. Ooops - a wave of cynicism just washed over me!

Technorati Tags: IAG workforce, careers policies, guidance policies

I cannot express how thrilled I am to have, at last, got my new Personal Branding website up and running. I am so excited about Personal Branding and am now looking to spend some of my time running training for graduates in that area. I will still be writing for Highflyers of course - we portfolio workers always have more than one string to our bows - but devoting some of my time and energy to this new field of work. Been out doing training for a couple of Connexions/Careers/Local Authority - whatever they are now - companies and everyone keeps commenting on how well and happy I look so clearly this new line of work is invigorating me and it shows!!

Technorati Tags: personal branding, graduate careers advice

Yes, at long last I have passed my Personal Branding training course with the Reach Branding Club and I am now, officially, a Reach Certified Personal Brand Strategist. Sounds funky don’t you think? There are about 150 of us in the world I think and only about 15 in the UK so it’s a notable achievement. I did my first Personal Branding workshop at Staffordshire University last week and it was a huge success which makes me all the more determined to start doing more work in this area. My new website should be up and running soon showing what it is all about and what I am going to be doing so will announce that here as soon as it is ready. A full explanation of what personal branding is, will be on the new site so it will all become clear then. For now, I will just say that Personal Branding is THE new way to plan and manage your career. That sounds a bit marketing hype doesn’t it - but truthfully it is a really great way to tackle career planning with people who want a meaningful career. I am a complete convert and am using  the process to build my new personal branding business - so watch this space! Exciting times!!

Technorati Tags: personal branding, Reach Branding Club

I am currently doing some NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) training and what fun it is! The trainers are great - Nigel Pugh and Mark Harris (who is like Alexi Sayle on speed!) and I am learning how to reprogramme my brain to get me to do the things that I want to do. So changes so far, for me:

• Haven’t drunk alcohol for 3 weeks and don’t miss it at all.
• Haven’t watched TV for 3 weeks and don’t miss it at all.
• Eating less and more healthily
• Rejoined the gym and going at least 3 times a week
• Working on my new business idea and beginning to believe I will make a success of it
• Laughing more and smiling more (because of my braces I have stopped myself doing this for the past year- but note: The braces come off next Monday!!!!)

So feeling quite different in myself - better, more energized, more certain. This NLP stuff is weird and I don’t fully understand it but as they say on the course - most of us don’t know how electricity works but we still use it. Interesting. So having now done the Diploma I am going on to train as a Practitioner. Mike says I only want to do this so that I can zap people. He could be right, I can think of a few people I would like to zap at times, including him!

Technorati Tags: NLP, making change in your life

My daughter came across this on the web and sent it on to me. It made me hoot with laughter. Enjoy!

McDONALDS APPLICATION

This is an actual job application a 17-year-old boy submitted at a McDonald’s fast-food establishment in Florida – and they hired him because he was so honest and funny!

NAME: Greg Bulmash

SEX: Not yet. Still waiting for the right person.

DESIRED POSITION: Company’s President or Vice President. But seriously, whatever’s available. If I were in a position to be picky, I wouldn’t be applying here in the first place.

DESIRED SALARY: $185,000 a year plus stock options and a Michael Ovitz style severance package. If that’s not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

EDUCATION: Yes.

LAST POSITION HELD: Target for middle management hostility.

SALARY: Less than I’m worth.

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

REASON FOR LEAVING: It sucked.

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK: Any.

PREFERRED HOURS: 1:30-3:30 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?

Yes, but they’re better suited to a more intimate environment.

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER? If I had one, would I be here?

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 LBS? Of what?

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?

I think the more appropriate question here would be “Do you have a car that runs?”

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?

I may already be a winner of the Publishers Clearing house Sweepstakes.

DO YOU SMOKE?

On the job no, on my breaks yes.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?

Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy dumb sexy blonde super model who thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I’d like to be doing that now.

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?

Yes – Absolutely.

SIGN HERE: Aries.

Technorati Tags: job application forms

Came across a really good article on the web the other day entitled 13 things I wish I learned in college, college meaning university as it is an American article. It very succinctly highlights the disparity between skills learnt at university and skills needed in the graduate workplace. For example:

• Long essays versus short reports
• information loaded presentations versus message based presentations
• independent study versus teamwork
• CVs as life story versus CVs as targeted sales tool
• tutorials versus interviews
• partying versus networking
• it’s up to you to attend versus personal accountability
• get money, spend it versus earn money, manage it
• do what you’re told to do versus use your initiative
• focus on passing the course versus set yourself goals and achieve them
• wear what comes to hand versus dress for the part
• getting a degree versus getting a salary commensurate with your talents
• quitting jobs versus resigning and getting a good reference

It is worth a read. Many of our HE courses are still delivered in a passive ‘I’m the teacher, listen to me and then go off and work it out yourself’ way. Some argue this breeds the independent thinkers we need but I’m not so sure. I hear the comments from people like Tony Watts (who I respect enormously), warning against creeping vocationalism and I recognise that there is a role for education for education’s sake but this is not so much about what we teach our students, but how they are taught it. By not addressing some of the issues highlighted above aren’t we sending our graduates out into the labour market place with only half the tools they need in their employability toolkit?

Technorati Tags: graduate employability

I see the teenage brain is in the news again. According to an article in the Guardian yesterday, when teenagers are being sulky and petulant they just can’t help it.

Their petulant behaviour is all down to an unexpected chemical reaction in their developing brains. Scientists have found that the mechanism normally used by the brain to calm itself down in stressful situations seems to work in the opposite way in teenagers, making them even more anxious.

The article goes on to refer to some of the work previously done in this area (see my last post on this) and points out:

Scientists at University College London presented research last year showing that teenagers could not help being sulky because they were still developing social skills and did not have the full mental hardware to see the world from someone else’s point of view or predict the consequences of their actions.

No wonder careers education and guidance is such an uphill struggle with this client group. And we  thought it was us …

Technorati Tags: teenage brain

Came across this really good tip on using Powerpoint for presentations. It’s from Guy Kawasaki’s blog and makes real sense.

I am trying to evangelize the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points…Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting… You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion.

On the topic of giving presentations about a business idea, he goes on to says:

If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business. The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are:

1. Problem
2. Your solution
3. Business model
4. Underlying magic/technology
5. Marketing and sales
6. Competition
7. Team
8. Projections and milestones
9. Status and timeline
10. Summary and call to action

Having sat through countless presentations here at the university, staring at hundreds of slides crammed with too small text, full of details which are guaranteed to induce sleep and dying to interupt and say ‘What I want to know is …’ but not wanting to appear rude, I couldn’t agree more. I also love rules which can be remembered easily - so the 10/20/30 rule gets my vote.

Technorati Tags: giving presentations

Just came across this quiz. If you were a superhero what sort would you be? A bit of fun. It’s even more fun when real people who know you, rather than a computer, come up with some suggestions.

We used to play a game on residential courses I ran for staff in an organisation I worked for. After a long day of inputs, group work and plenary sessions we would adjourn to the bar, have a few drinks and then sit round and play the ‘If this person were a (handbag, meal, car, cocktail, outfit, etc, etc) what would they be?’ As everyone knew quite a few people in the company there was quite a big pool to pick from. It was hilarious and quite eerily accurate at times. So, what sort of shoes would your friends and colleagues think you were?

Technorati Tags: superheros, how others see you