August 08 Newsletter

No referees?

Are you in the process of creating a resume and don’t have any referees? If you have been out of the workplace for a while or changed jobs a lot and lost contact with your employers, you may have trouble supplying recent referees. Although future employers don’t make judgements solely based on references, most employers will want to contact your referee’s, particularly if you are registering for temporary work with an agency.

Firstly it’s a good idea to locate your referees. If you had a good relationship with a previous employer, give them a phone call to see if they can assist you.

If you really have no past employers who can offer you a reference, yet you are required by a company to provide them, perhaps you can ask if they would accept an alternative referee. You should bring this up at the end of the interview when they're impressed with you and are keen to talk further.

Explain your dilemma and the work you have done to find your referees, so they do not think you are covering something up. Some employers may accept character references from a candidate's life such as teachers, lecturers, clients, customers, colleagues, suppliers and referees from voluntary work or sporting teams.

Another tactic might be to see what you can negotiate with the employer. You might be able to offer to do a longer probationary period to provide the employer with a comfort period in which you can prove yourself. You might want to consider offering to come on board on as a contractor for an agreed period instead of as a permanent employee. This demonstrates to the employer you are willing to back yourself.

If you're worried about a poor reference ruining your chances of finding a decent job, doing short term stints of temporary or casual work provides the opportunity to build up your bank of good references

You can ask your network of family and friends for casual or temporary jobs so you can create fresh, recent referees.

Slaves to the mail

There is a rising concern that employees are slaves to emails, making offices less efficient.
Since 1996, the use of email in offices has risen approximately 40 percent per year according to Email Management Solutions. The consulting firm claims that 14.5 hours a week of an employees time is spent sorting through emails.

Try following these 10 tips for managing your mail and communicating more effectively:

1. Be clear and concise.
2. Respond quickly, within four hours if possible.
3. Answer all questions to avoid multiple emails on a single topic.
4. Limit abbreviations and emoticons.
5. Do not contribute to corporate spam by using the cc field extensively.
6. Only use 'Reply to all' when the information is relevant to all.
7. Do not overuse 'urgent' and 'important' flags.
8. Do not request read of delivery receipts.
9. Never discuss confidential information by email.
10. Write subject headings that are relevant.
(Source: www.emailmanagement.com.au)

mat

Maternity leave a lure in returning to work

It seems it doesn’t matter whether they are paid or unpaid: women who have access to some kind of leave after the birth of a child are more likely to return to work than those who do not. A major study has found that most women are likely to return to work after 12 months from giving birth, while the vast majority of maternity schemes are only valid for 12 months.

Two thirds of the 3500 mothers surveyed had access to leave of some kind while 27% had no leave at all. The report found that of those with paid leave, 83% returned to work within 18 months, compared to 77% of women who took unpaid leave returning to work.

The study also found that the most popular age bracket for women to return to work is once their child had reached 18 months old, with 54% of women returning to work by this time.

The study also discovered women who took no leave of any kind had the lowest rates of return. Longer leave also lead to women not returning to the same job or work, mainly due to their confidence declining in their ability to find a job. august

What’s on in August

Beijing Olympics 08-08-08
Friday August 8, the Olympics start.

The Sun-Herald City 2 Surf
Sunday August 10 - entries still open for the 14km event.

Science in the City
Tuesday 5 - Thursday August 14 - hands on science experience school children should attend.

Live Green - Sunday August 17 - an event for your future