You’ve been spooked!

After recent reports surrounding MI6 some interesting facts have been released about how they recruit their agents…

The notoriously secretive agency recruits the brightest and best from top universities. But instead of the traditional tap on the shoulder from their Oxbridge tutor, MI6’s new spooks go through a disappointingly mundane recruitment process.

Roles are advertised in the paper, candidates are invited to attend an interview and, just like thousands of companies across the country it protects, MI6 asks potential spooks to complete a psychometric test. Read more

Could University Students Benefit from Psychometric Testing?

Psychometric tests are now commonplace as part of any recruitment process and career development in thousands of organisations throughout the UK. There are elements (ability testing and identifying aptitudes) that can support students as they graduate.

This has recently been discussed in an in-depth article in The Guardian which highlighted the struggles of students graduating from university in 2009.  Six students from University of Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan University discussed how they had gone about finding employment over a twelve month period. Read more

Investors in People & Training

TRAINING – appropriate deployment contributing to the bottom line.
TRAINING – appropriate deployment contributing to Investors in People (IiP)

… they are of course the same thing – BUT in that order. Read more

Creating a Jobs Market for the UK

We recently read a report from the CBI deputy director-general, John Cridland, who stated that the UK should now be embracing more flexible working. He also wants to block regulations that will ultimately cost jobs whilst focusing on changing the industrial legislation to help revive the economy.

The Private Sector has already weathered the worst of the recession across a significant number of sectors whilst the Public Sector is now in the grips of job losses that could result in over 600,000 jobs being lost.  There is no getting away from the fact that this is a large number of people who will be at risk. Read more