Improving prospects

Although intended as a benchmark for those already in work, the Pay survey in the January 2010 issue of HSW at should be essential reading for all those looking for work.

The comments reflected what I had noticed in the job adverts - that salaries offered appear to have gone down, whilst qualifications required had gone up. Before I booked my NEBOSH certificate in the summer of 2008 there seemed to be plenty of mid-range jobs asking for this as the minimum requirement; by the start of 2009, when I received my results, most jobs were asking for Diplomas. That salaries rise disproportionately for those with an MSc made me feel rather wistful, as I had looked into doing an IOSH approved MSc earlier this year, but bottled out, convinced that one of the applications I had in at the time would materialise into a job. It didn’t and I now wish I had applied.

However, I don’t know if more qualifications are really the answer. Another interesting comment from one of the highest paid health and safety managers in the survey was that “safety professionals need to considerably increase their commercial and leadership skills”. I gained a distinction in a management diploma some years ago, which included finance and leadership, but no one has commented on it at any interviews. Ultimately, employers I think want some recent practical demonstration of these skills, and the catch 22 of job hunting without a “real” job is that this is difficult to provide.

Video oblivion

Now, I wouldn’t want you to think I’m the sort of person who wastes time browsing inane video clips on the Internet, but whilst using You Tube for legitimate research recently I came across this video of a job interview. It rang such a chord I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It so summed up my last interview - feeling that there was some clue I hadn’t understood, some answer that was expected of me, but I had no idea what it was.

If you watch it, you’ll see the punchline is that the job had already been given to someone else. This had a real ring of truth about it – or is that just sour grapes?

I was led to a much more cheering video via the HSE website. Apparently Judith Hackitt had allowed someone to set fire to her hands to show science teachers that its ok to do exciting experiments in school chemistry, providing of course that the experiments are risk assessed. Unfortunately the video from the IChemE (select No. 2) doesn’t show Ms Hackitt with her hands on fire, but demonstrates the same experiment with unnamed participants. There are another 9 experiments illustrated and my two children plus one grown-up "child" watched them all. There proceeded a discussion as to whether, since we had no Bunsen burner, the same effect could safely be achieved with butane from the camping gas stove or propane from the gas barbeque...