What Does It Take To Get A Good Job Nowadays?

In the news and on the BBC News Website this week I notice “Students should get work experience to boost their chances of getting jobs in the downturn, the head of the CBI says. Richard Lambert says students must get skills and first-hand experience of work while still at university. Launching a report with Universities UK on preparing graduates for work, Mr Lambert will say competition for jobs in 2009 will be particularly intense. Of the 581 recruiters surveyed for the report, 78% rated employability skills, such as team working, as essential.

And of the 80 higher education institutions which responded to the report’s survey, 91% thought it likely or highly likely their graduates would acquire five out of the seven desired employability skills while at university.

EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS INCLUDE:

• Self-management
• Team working
• Business and customer awareness
• Problem solving
• Communication and literacy
• Application of numeracy
• Application of information technology

The report, Preparing graduates for the world of work, gives examples of how businesses and universities are working together to offer students work placements during their studies and to incorporate employability into courses.  For example, at Surrey University 70% of undergraduates participate in “professional training” or workplace-based skills development, usually as the third year of a four-year course.  This training is open to students studying all subjects, even those not traditionally regarded as vocational”.

Read the rest of the article here >>

This article came to my attention in the same week as my best friend is telling me that her graphic design student daughter has made a five year plan, to offer herself in her summer holidays, as an unpaid intern to top level companies around the world, which will look great on her CV, give her essential and practical workplace skills, and enable her to make valuable post-graduate contacts in the very world she wants to work in.

Good girl!  Very pro-active and forward thinking – and what a refreshing change!  She doesn’t think she deserves a living, but is going to do everything in her power to make it happen.  She wants to work in high-end magazines as a creative director / graphic designer and places like Vogue & Tatler have long been filled with well-heeled youngsters working for nothing, in order to get that all-important name on their CV.

Similarly in the music industry, many of the creative staff at record labels, recording studios and management companies work for nothing to get experience, contacts and on the job knowledge.

We are currently looking for a Money Gym intern – a practice very common in the USA but not so much here in the UK – although Alan Sugar is all over the radio at the moment, promoting the Apprenticeship Programme – read some of the case studies and find out more here>>

The challenge with apprenticeship programmes is that they are highly regulated, with loads of paperwork involved.  This puts off lots of smaller businesses.

Internships are less formal, often sorted out between the “old boys” or “old girls” network and benefit both parties.  Wikipedia describes them thus:

“An intern or stagiaire is one who works in a temporary position with an emphasis on on-the-job training rather than merely employment, making it similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. Student internships provide opportunities for students to gain experience in their field, determine if they have an interest in a particular career, create a network of contacts, or gain school credit. Internships provide the employers with cheap or free labor for (typically) low-level tasks (stereotypically including fetching coffee for the office), and also the prospect of interns’ returning to the company after completing their education and requiring little or no training.

An internship may be either paid, unpaid or partially paid (in the form of a stipend). Paid internships are most common in the medical, architecture science, engineering, law, business (especially accounting and finance), technology and advertising fields. Internships in non-profit organization such as charities and think tanks are often unpaid, volunteer positions. Internships may be part-time or full-time; typically they are part-time during the university year and full-time in the summer, and they typically last 6-12 weeks, but can be shorter or longer. The act of job shadowing may also constitute as interning.

Internship positions are available from businesses, government departments, non-profit groups and organizations. Due to strict labor laws, European internships, though mostly unpaid, are popular among non-Europeans to gain international exposure on one’s resume and for foreign language improvement.

Types of internships

An intern type means doing internship in an organization or in specific subject of study. Internships exist in various industries and settings. Here are two primary types of internships that exist in the United States.

1. Work experience internship: Most often this will be in the second or third year of the school period. The placement can be from 2 months to sometimes even one full school year. During this period the student is supposed to use the things he/she has learned in school and put it in practice. This way the student gets work experience in their field of study. The gained experience will be helpful to finish up the last year of the study.

2. Research internship (graduation) or dissertation internship: This is mostly done by students who are in their last year. With this kind of internship a student does research for a particular company. The company can have something that they feel like they need to improve, or the student can choose a topic within the company themselves. The results of the research study will be put in a report and often will have to be presented.

The practice of a mid-career person taking an internship (see Returnship) is relatively new to the U.S. but becoming more common due to the current economic crisis”

Read more here >>>

At The Money Gym, we have decided to look for an intern rather than outsource to the cheaper countries.  Here’s the spec so far:

One energetic, bright, quick, action orientated, IT literate “Superstar” is to be offered the chance to work with Europe’s best wealth creation education company.

You give us your all for a year, and we teach you everything we can!  There is no pay so you need to be financially independent or living at home with an allowance.

You will then either go off to work for someone else (at a very high salary because you will be so valuable), you can start your own business or become a highly paid freelance consultant who can expect to command upwards of £1000 per day.

You are ideally UK based within easy reach of London, and have a keen interest in wealth creation – or open to the idea.

You are desperate to learn how the whole world of wealth creation, property investing, internet marketing, event organising works, and you are outgoing, friendly and unflappable.  You have a good computer at home and already use some of the Social Networking sites and are able to upload a short video to YouTube.

We are fast, fun, friendly and expect very high standards – we work hard and love what we do, and expect you to, too!  Some weekend work occasionally is required as we host workshops at weekends sometimes.

Your “can-do” attitude and positivity will be infectious and you will have already demonstrated some success in your life, be that at school, work or in helping others.

Attitude is more important than experience and you would by no means describe yourself as “fluffy”.

We will be inviting you to upload a video to YouTube to tell us why you want the gig, but first, we want to see if we have covered everything in order to be able to attract the right person.

What else do you need to know from us in order to be able to convince us you are the right person for this fantastic opportunity?

This is the deal, if you have any questions or comments, please use the comments box on the blog to ask them.

Delegate Don’t Abdicate

As the news on the TV and in the papers gets worse and worse, I keep hearing about cashflow crisis, and investments underperforming, and companies going bust, and jobs being lost.

Judith and I are increasingly feeling as if we have to alert you to what’s really going on out there and so I’ve written a series of three articles that cover everything we want you to know about looking after your money right now.  The titles might look like clichés but the content certainly isn’t.

Part 1: Time Waits For No Man

Part 2: Cashflow Is King

Part 3: Delegate Don’t Abdicate

More importantly, we feel we want to alert you to how you need to change the way you do things, to roll with the changes taking place out there in the financial world.

Part 3 – Abdicate Don’t Delegate (Responsibility For Your Money)

Michael Gerber talks about this very eloquently in his seminal book “E-Myth Revisted” where the pie shop lady takes on a book-keeper, pays him to do all the awful stuff she doesn’t want to do, didn’t have a system to do the books herself so had nothing to teach the man about how to do it!

She never encourages him to set up a system (which he could document and teach her or someone else), never checks in on how things are going, then wonders what happened when it all goes wrong.

And when he leaves, she has no idea what to do.

You can, and should, outsource, delegate, leverage your time by working with others, but you must not ever abdicate responsibility.

When I owned the hotel, I knew exactly how I did things, and how I wanted them done.  I kept meaning to make a “How We Do It Here” manual but never got around to it.

When my dad was going to take over for a year, I had to create the “How We Do It Here” manual and I started by mind-mapping the hourly tasks, the daily tasks, the weekly tasks, the monthly tasks, the quarterly tasks, the annual tasks.

Then I looked at each, and mind-mapped the details (red jam in blue bowls, BBC news on radio in dining room on weekdays, jazz and classical at weekends, stuff like that) and I added them as they occurred to me.

Read more..

Part 2: Cashflow Is King

As the news on the TV and in the papers gets worse and worse, I keep hearing about cashflow crisis, and investments underperforming, and companies going bust, and jobs being lost.

Judith and I are increasingly feeling as if we have to alert you to what’s really going on out there and so I’ve written a series of three articles that cover everything we want you to know about looking after your money right now.  The titles might look like clichés but the content certainly isn’t.

Part 1: Time Waits For No Man

Part 2: Cashflow Is King

Part 3: Delegate Don’t Abdicate

More importantly, we feel we want to alert you to how you need to change the way you do things, to roll with the changes taking place out there in the financial world.

Part 2:  Cashflow Is King.

We have to preface this section with the fact that “the times, they are highly unusual” and while we all knew trouble was coming via the stock market, thanks to Robert Kiyosaki’s “Prophecy” book, nobody foresaw the sub-prime crisis and subsequent credit crunch.

Who would ever imagine that banks and building societies, whose profits come from lending, would stop lending almost completely?

Who ever imagined that there would simply come a time where there was, allegedly, no money to lend?  No money in circulation at all?

There were billions sloshing around the world last year, being lent and repaid, being used and earning interest.  Where has it all gone?

As Andy Shaw said on his blog recently, has someone come along and nicked it all in the night out of the vaults?  Did someone make a bonfire out of all the cash?  Are there millions stashed somewhere, under someone’s bed?

Or is it more likely that the banks and building societies are not lending because they are protecting their future cashflow?

Are you running your business – and more importantly your cashflow – as if you are going to carry on attracting clients in the same numbers as last year?  Have you redone your personal cashflow projections to take into account the fact that your personal income might drop?

I know for a fact that you probably haven’t, because most people don’t project their cashflow at all.  Even business people, who project the cashflow for their business, don’t project their cashflow for their personal money.

Have you upped your marketing by 100%, 200%, 300% to take into account the fact that your existing clients might drop by 25%, 50%, 100% or that they might spend less with you?

Probably not, because the first place most business cut back is on their marketing.  Instead of looking for effective, low cost ways to increase their marketing.

What does this mean for you, if you are not a business owner?

Every time you pay someone for something, particularly if it’s a high ticket item, do you think to yourself, will this company be around to deliver this service or item in six months time?

This last thought popped into my head as I watched Theo Paphitis on Panorama, telling us how the credit crunch is affecting normal, ordinary, well run businesses who previously had relied on overdrafts and loans to keep their company going if clients dried up, and turnover and profits took a sudden temporary downturn.

Even big businesses, sound businesses, profitable businesses are finding that, if your customers stop buying AND the banks won’t lend you money to tide you over, you have a major league problem.

Previously, the business owner would refinance their own houses, to keep things going, but that option is not available either – no mortgages and lower property values as those who simply MUST sell, drop their prices to get a sale.

It’s a right old mess.

While feeling very bad for those worst affected, I feel this might be time at last for the ordinary person to make changes to their thinking – that a job is all you need in life to pay your bills and be secure.

No, you need a job and a small business on the side.  THEN when that’s up and running, you need multiple streams of income from your business once you get to the point of what Michael Masterson calls your “lead product” selling well and profitably.  Great book btw, “Ready Aim Fire!” and I’m on my second read through.

I also consoled myself this week that due to the difficulties with the hotel a few years ago, I’ve been unable to over-extend my personal or business finances.  And I’m glad about that.

I’m also very glad that Judith, having been through a couple of recessions and had very hard times herself, runs our cashflow with an eagle eye, always planning our cashflow so far in advance that, even if we attracted no more Gold clients, ever, or Membership Club Magic clients, ever, we can deliver what we’ve sold to date.

Worst case scenario, if I dropped dead, Steve and Judith and our coaches could deliver our coaching services sold, and if J went, we would cut back our live events drastically as that’s her baby, while trying to find another brilliant financial whiz.  If Steve went…..hmmmm, that would be a challenge as he’s taken on so much of the techie and design stuff which he really excels at, but we COULD put all new projects on hold, till we found someone.

Horrible thoughts but we all need to “stare the bugger down”, in the cleaned up words of Tommy Murphy, in Murphy’s Law.

Part 1 | Time Waits For No Man

As the news on the TV and in the papers gets worse and worse, I keep hearing about cashflow crisis, and investments underperforming, and companies going bust, and jobs being lost.

Judith and I are increasingly feeling as if we have to alert you to what’s really going on out there and so I’ve written a series of three articles that cover everything we want you to know about looking after your money right now.  The titles might look like clichés but the content certainly isn’t.

Part 1: Time Waits For No Man

Part 2: Cashflow Is King

Part 3: Delegate Don’t Abdicate

More importantly, we feel we want to alert you to how you need to change the way you do things, to roll with the changes taking place out there in the financial world.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Part 1:  Time Waits For No Man

Yet, still, even as the storm clouds are firmly overhead, having gathered over the last year or so, it still seems to me that people are letting others dictate their success (or otherwise) and are sitting waiting politely, twiddling their thumbs, not taking control, taking action, grasping the nettle, picking up the phone.

Or is it just that I am a “9″ on the “action taking” part of the Kolbe Index and I’m very, very impatient.

Well, even if that’s true, I want you to get a sense of urgency too!

As well as doom and gloom, there are SO MANY wealth creation opportunities out there right now, but unless you get off your assets and realise that you need to take action, you will struggle along with the rest.

Just think, if you can make something work, or even take off, how well you will be placed when things recover…….because they will, they always do.  But you have to seize the day!

When I was in the Music Industry, I managed bands for a while.  The usual action of most novice managers, when trying to catch the attention of an A&R man (they were mostly young men, and they pretended they signed the bands to the labels, but think of them as glorified talent scouts) was to send a tape in.

If you called the office, and spoke to the supercilious secretary, that was always the answer “send a tape in”.  Then you would wait, and wait and wait, for the A&R man to listen to your tape, discover your talent, and phone you excitedly with a multi-million pound offer.

All experienced managers knew that the tapes went straight in a box under the secretary’s desk.  If you were very pro-active perhaps, you would follow up with a phone call but you never got through to the A&R teenager.  Two calls?  No way, if they don’t call you they ain’t interested, was the way they thought.

Total rubbish of course, but many a manager felt like they were busy, busy on behalf of their artists; making, sending and following up tapes that would never be listened to.  The manager’s life and career was on hold, slipping away, day by day, and that of the band most certainly was!!

Maybe you feel like you don’t know WHAT to do, how to take action?

Rich Schefren taught me the concept of making a list of reasons why you haven’t made it where you want to go yet, also known as obstacles, and then turning them on their head to make a plan and I absolutely loved it!

You give me any reason why you are not rich and successful, and together we can turn it into an obstacle, then a solution, then a plan to succeed.  You might not LIKE what you need to do, to move forward, but if you want to blast through the obstacle you will often have to push your comfort envelope.  Hey, do you think that’s why folks don’t do stuff?  They secretly know they will have to do something uncomfortable to move things forward.

How powerful is that thought though?  Turning obstacles right into a plan….

I’d love you to challenge me on that right here on our blog – use the comments section on this article

to tell me your insurmountable obstacles, your reasons for not moving forward, your challenges…and I’ll help you blast through them, under them, over them, round them.

It’s almost always in your mind, and I should know, I hallucinate with the best of them, as Judith and Steve will testify.  That’s where friends, business partners and a coach comes in.  They pick you up on your limiting beliefs and negative or just plain wrong assumptions.

When we get on a Money Gym Gold call, my first question is always “what’s your challenge, where are you stuck?” and there is nothing I like better than rolliing my virtual sleeves up and helping clients move forward.

Interestingly there is often a silence where they rack their brains to come up with something to say, and that’s fascinating because if there was NO obstacle or challenge, they would already be where they wanted to be, surely!

Guys, if you just spent one or two minutes thinking about what ONE THING you think is holding you back this week, we would have such a powerful  call.  Perhaps I’m not asking the right questions, or you feel a bit “put on the spot” but I’m going to send out an email next week saying “come to the call with your one biggest challenge this week, where do you feel stuck?”.  That would be such the best use of our hour together!

Without seeming to castigate anyone, because I know how it feels to be wading through treacle myself, just this week I’ve come across examples of a new business not being set up because someone is waiting for an email reply, someone else accepting what their web designer tells them, who is on a retainer naturally, with absolutely no evidence to back it up (which is that they are working very hard on the  site, loads of traffic coming through, only a matter of time before it works, etc etc).

In the first example the company has a 24 hour telephone helpline.

In the second, there is no evidence for the traffic, and the signup box on the site doesn’t work, so that explains no subscribers or income.

There’s no blame culture here, everyone does their best in the absence of a good system.  You just need to ask the right questions – where are we stuck right now?  What can we do about that?

Why would the web designers rock the status quo, after all, they are being paid for doing nothing.  It’s not down to them to be pro-active, it’s up to the person concerned to drive this baby forward.  After all, it’s the business owner’s business, not the web designer’s.

Nobody cares about your business like you do, either.

On the other hand, I’m working with another client who is collecting content and blogging like a madwoman, while waiting for her logo and theme, where most people would be feeling stuck, unable to add content till it looks great.  The search engines don’t care what theme you use!!  They just care that you are adding relevent content.

One of the big obstacles, that people are facing more and more, is asking for what they are worth, for fear of not getting the gig.  They are worried about pricing themselves out of the market.

Or the problem of collecting money due to you.  Business are delaying payment for 90 days where they paid on 30 days before.  They are delaying paying to 120 days where before it was 60.

(How I personally get around, over, through, or under that particular obstacle to my moving forward financially, is that I generally set things up so I get paid in advance. I try and ensure that, whenever possible, I’m never in the position of chasing my money after I’ve done the work.

Is it a British thing I wonder?  I know I often feel very embarrassed having to email or call and ask for money, money I’ve actually earned, or that I’m owed.  It somehow feels personal.  And I know I’m not the only one.

Madness and Hallucinations!  It’s your money, get it out of their pocket and into yours.

Pockets being marginally safer than banks nowadays!