Image by fdecomite via Flickr

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There’s a fair bit of recruitment activity being discussed in our house at the moment as my son looks for his first steps in a career. He’s keen to work in Cardiff and with a Marketing and Business Management degree is, I would hope, reasonably employable. He’s applied for a few jobs and is attending interviews this week. But the recruitment experience has astounded me.

One area he’s explored is Recruitment, and he is waiting for an interview for a recruitment company where he will focus on the Welsh-medium education sector.

Having been invited for an interview, he was given nearly a week’s notice. In a follow up call the same day that the meeting had been arranged, he was told that if he came “for an interview Tomorrow, he could start work next week“. This he refused to do as he was working for a marketing company and did not want to disrupt the completion of the project he was working on.

The recruiter’s advice was to “throw a sicky”, and then he could still start his job “next Monday”.  My son’s got some principles and refused. So an interview was re-arranged for this morning. He was there on time, scrubbed up nicely, and was ready to give it his best shot.

Sadly, the interviewer had gone out, even though the meeting had been confirmed last Friday afternoon and he is unlikely to be available until Wednesday. By which time of course my lad will be back with the marketing agency finishing the project.

All this made me wonder: I’ve used agencies in the past, and always wondered what I got for my 15-18%, but what I never imagined before was how much damage they could be doing to my brand.

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I’ve got 2 sons, both graduates. One is doing a PhD so is missing out on the challenges of getting a job, whilst the other, a graduate in Marketing in Management is on the trail for his first break. And it’s tough out there. Lots more competition than usual and for those will little practical experience getting that first break is what used to be called a significant challenge, but is now known as a “big ask”.

And it’s not helped when a company like BT announces that it is scrapping its Graduate schemes. The ripples from this statement will be great and could trigger others to do the same and the knock on effect could be that we seen the destruction of graduate schemes across the country.

At the personal level for my sons and many, many others this is serious. But for the economy in general it is possibly even more serious as graduate schemes do produce wonderful results.

Yes of course I know that Richard Branson and many other highly successful types did no go to or even finish university, but they are an exception. In the general scheme of things we need graduate trained minds to get into business and to be successful. They stand a better chance of doing this in a structured programme. Like the ones BT used to run!

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Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

I was reading an interesting result from a YouGov survey earlier that stated that 38% of SME owners planned to increase their marketing spend in this downturn.  In another poll the results indicated that 23% of SME owners would spend all of a £10k windfall on marketing.

Is this your plan? Do you plan to spend more on marketing and acquisition, or are you going to introduce a strategy of shrink to grow? It’s never worked before but you might make it a world first.

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My earlier post about universal broadband attracted more comments than anything I’ve written before, so that must make it a trending topic here!

Anyway: today’s Western Mail talks about how Wales is being left behind in the broadband roll out plan. But they let themselves down in their leader article when confusing the need for broadband with the need for business web presence.

Anyone in their right mind that wants or needs to host a web site will not host it themselves (unless of course they are VERY big like the BBC) but will outsource it to a web host. The web presence should not be linked to a company’s broadband connection at all.

Broadband is of course an aide to content management, but it is not the be all and end all. I can manage content on some sites via my mobile phone browser.

In the past I’ve downloaded from the web at 9.6 kbps and was glad to do so. Connection is the important feature: speed is the desirable element. But sadly the slowest speed we will accept is the fastest we’ve ever used.

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The question is simple: why is that we can deliver (almost) free TV pictures to every house in Wales, yet we are unable to deliver paid for Broadband even though nearly every house has a phone line?

To my mind the answer is simple: BT is excessively domineering in this market. They drive the broadband agenda in Wales and spin their story so well to make some people think that they are doing the world a favour by making broadband available at all.

Sadly, this seems to be “bought” by the Welsh Assembly Government. Money is ploughed into schemes to provide faster access in some parts of Wales whilst others go without completely.

OFCOM appear to be as effective as a chocolate fireguard in forcing progress. Their recent report can only be described as a statement of the bleeding obvious.

What we need to do is realise that broadband internet access can be delivered over a variety of media, not just BT phone lines. Outlying villages can be served by the same technology as TV, to a base station and then through local distribution wirelessly or via physical connection. Mobile networks can also deliver effective solutions.

The WAG needs to challenge the providers to do more, and cut funding if they don’t. If that happens we will see the true expansion of broadband to be a truly universal service to the betterment of Wales.

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I went shopping yesterday with my wife: she needed some new reading spectacles and was after some “off-the-shelf” ones from the chemist. And she struck lucky, found some she liked, looked good in and could see through. Probably all the right boxes were ticked.

But the crowning glory was that they were: “Readilite Aspheric Lenses”. Wow! That nailed it – just what we were looking for.

But what on earth does that mean? Why did someone in the marketing team of the glasses company think that adding a sticky label onto the glasses with that message would increase sales.

Similarly – some disposal razors I found at home yesterday were described on the packet as having extra grip. GRIP! Who needs grip on a razor, you’re shaving an overnight growth, not a deep pile carpet.

So why do they do it? Is it because they have to say something when in fact they’ve got nothing to say?

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I took my wife to the Hospital today for an MRI Scan and whilst she was in the machine (a bit like a big tumbler dryer) I read the paper in the waiting room and found an interesting fact whilst doing so:
Sales of chicken sandwiches increase in warm or hot weather whilst sales of beef sandwiches decline.
Now why is that? As usual I don’t know the answer, but what else changes in our world as we cycle through the seasons that we really could take advantage of knowing?
Any thoughts you can share on that?

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It’s a nice day, not as hot as yesterday and some would say it’s a bit muggy, but it’s “nice” nonetheless.
So nice in fact that I’ve just taken my laptop out on the patio to do some work in the garden.
And that set me thinking: I couldn’t have done this a couple of years ago, how times change.
There’s nothing special about working outside: the wireless internet connection reaches the garden and I’m wired with the world. Global reach courtesy of technology.
And then that set me thinking again: what else can I do differently to make a difference in my work and my life.
Social networking has taken the world by storm, but businesses are still slow to catch up even though a good proportion of business folks also use other social media sites. So what’s holding them back. Truth is: I don’t know, but I think it’s possibly because they’ve just not tried to do something different. The familiar is always easier.
Working indoors, in the office, is the way we’ve always done things, but it doesn’t need to be like that.
Believe me: the garden is cooler than my office most days and certainly today!
Pass the suntan cream

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