Learn to Impress the Robots?

I read on the BBC news a couple of days ago that The Chemistry Group has designed an on-line 'game' designed to analyse potential job candidates.

 The Chemistry Group describes itself as a 'talent consultancy' and its web site states that it is expert "at using predictive assessment to define what great people look like for your business and building highly accurate recruitment processes".

 The 'highly accurate recruitment process' is designed to save employers the trouble of reading through large numbers of CVs by subjecting job applicants to an on-line 'game' that (supposedly!) separates the wheat from the chaff. The Chemistry Group is not alone in producing this sort of software - and I suppose we should all have expected that somebody would - but I can't help wishing that nobody had.

 It is certainly true that eventually, at some point, any employer deciding to use this software would have to meet his 'wheat' face-to-face and come to a reasonable decision about which ear of it might fit his own particular sheaf, but it is equally true that the cleverest software is not as discriminating as an experienced human being.

Of course job hunters should make themselves aware of this technology and learn how to use it to their own best advantage - but employers should be aware that their own inbuilt software is (as yet!) a far superior product.

 Geoffrey

Get Hired Boot Camp Dot Com - Yet Again

I originally wrote about this very strange organisation as long ago as the 24th of August last year, and comments are still trickling in because - alas - Get Hired Boot Camp is still in business, still preying on the unwary, and still making money out of the misfortunes of other people.

Chinese people would call the times we are living in 'interesting'. Less philosophical people would call them 'hard'.

Having lived though a whole series of 'hard' times, I know that there will always be people who try to profit from them - and that there will always be people desperate enough to help them to do it.

If you are looking for work, do be careful about the on-line company you keep. Organisations like Get Hired Boot Camp Dot Com charge for the sort of advice you can get free, on-line, from hundreds of other honest, reliable sources who are truly interested in helping you, rather than helping themselves.

Geoffrey

Common Sense Utilities

Utilities in France are enormously expensive - and the French are enormously reluctant to spend money that could otherwise be socked away, or used for something essential. Like food.

The methods French people use to avoid paying huge utility bills might seem a bit OTT to us, but I think we could learn something from their cut-it-down or cut-it-out and pay-as-you-go philosophy.

We have a friend who has a small business. She lives in a newly refurbished rented house, does alternations, makes garments sometimes, makes toys, bags, belts and ties out of scrap fabric all the time. Her house is equipped with a new shower and bath, a new washing machine, and a new central heating system.

She doesn't use any of it - and she doesn't have a land line telephone - but that doesn't mean that she doesn't stay warm, doesn't bathe, doesn't wash her clothes, and never speaks to anyone.

• Heating is paraffin, which is cheap, pay as you go, and doesn't smell. The house is always warm.
• €32 buys her a power-shower 7 days a week for three months at the local leisure centre - and she can swim as well when the hours suit her. Cheaper than using water and electricity at home, and fitness is a bonus.
• 'Smalls' are washed by hand. Bigger things go to the Launderette once a fortnight - cost €2. A lot cheaper than using water and electricity at home.
• Telephone is a pay as you go mobile. Why support France Telecom?

The downside is that she needs to dust the shower.

OK - it's pay-as-you-go gone nuts, and it wouldn't suit everybody - but it's a regime that works for a lot of people, so it's worth thinking about how you might turn it around to suit yourself.

We haven't adopted the whole regime - but we haven't turned on the central heating this winter either. Even taking into account the cost of buying and using alternative sources of heating, our electricity bills have been reduced by €600 over the last two months alone - and the house is warm and so are we, and we don't miss central heating.

It really is worth a thought.

Emily