Stanford Engineering graduate Debbie Sterling is the inventor of a new construction toy that’s designed to inspire more girls to become engineers. “Goldie Blox”, the funding for which was raised on Kickstarter, has certainly created a lot of discussion – but can giving such toys to children really alter their future careers?

“Research shows that the earlier kids get interested in math and science, the more likely they are to go into those fields as adults,” according to Goldie Blox publicity. “Unfortunately, girls are losing interest in math and science as young as age 8. Take a walk through a toy store and you can begin to see why; the ‘blue aisle’; is filled with construction toys and chemistry sets, while the ‘pink aisle’ is filled with princesses and dolls.”

While Goldie Blox has definitely been designed to fit into the “pink aisle” (risking the kind of controversy that greeted Lego Friends – the ‘pink Lego’ of 2012 that attempted to win girls over), it also takes its cue from scientific perspectives on childhood play. Goldie Blox taps into girls’ developmental strengths – their verbal skills, particularly – to help get them more interested in building and design.

For this, Goldie Blox has garnered a flurry of positive press but its real test will come decades from now. Today, women make up just 8.7% of engineers in the UK, and 10% in the US – can a toy really help change this?

The Lego effect

The Lego Group, like many toy companies, likes to make a point of its product’s developmental benefits. In 1999, for instance, it polled 235 UK architects and came up with the statistic that “99% of architects played with LEGO® bricks”. From a contemporary poll of 2000 British people, Lego drew yet more parallels between childhood toys and adult careers – finding that nurses favoured dolls, for instance, while IT workers reached for computer games.

That’s not to suggest that handing a child a Lego or Goldie Blox set will instantly steer them onto a path toward architecture or engineering – but it seems that certain toys may help children to learn and develop in particular ways.

“The toys that children gravitate towards help promote the skills they may draw on in their future careers,” says Dr Nicola Pitchford, a developmental psychologist at the University of Nottingham, who is quoted by Lego. “Architects use a very clear set of logical skills which can be linked to the cognitive skills children learn and develop when playing with construction or building toys”.

Toys come with a message, too

Skill development may not be the only way in which toys influence career, however. As Rebecca J Rosen writes for the Atlantic: “Children have toys not because they have purchased them but because they have received them as gifts from their parents or other adults. That transaction sends important signals to young girls and boys about who their parents want them to be.” Rosen goes on to quote sociologist Barry Schwartz, writing in 1967: “By the giving of different types of ‘masculine’ gifts, for example, the mother and father express their image of the child as ‘a little soldier’ or ‘a little chemist or engineer.’”

Parents who set aside their assumptions about which toys interest boys and which interest girls could be broadening their child’s developmental potential. Jeffrey Trawick-Smith, whose research ranks toys by how well they influence children’s thinking, social interaction and creativity, has uncovered some surprising gender differences. For instance, he says, “toys that have traditionally been viewed as male oriented – construction toys and toy vehicles, for example – elicited the highest quality play among girls.”

Which toys create the most potential?

Trawick-Smith is cautious about making specific recommendations about which toys stimulate the greatest development. But as a general rule of thumb, he says: “Basic is better. The highest-scoring toys so far have been quite simple: hardwood blocks, a set of wooden vehicles and road signs, and classic wooden construction toys. These toys are relatively open-ended, so children can use them in multiple ways.”

So while it’s far too early to tell whether Goldie Blox can transform the male-dominated world of engineering, one thing seems clear: child’s play is anything but.

“People may not automatically think of a football pitch as a workplace, however Luis Suarez’ recent violent conduct against an opposition Chelsea player in a Premier league game was “workplace violence” at its worse. Suarez received a 10 match ban for his conduct, the equivalent of a workplace suspension.

Whilst this is an extreme example of what many will have experienced as an employee, it is important to note that violence does not only amount to physical assault. There are other behaviours in the workplace such as bullying and harassment, which are still considered to be violence against a person, namely:

• Threatening a person with demotion or the sack if they do not hit a certain target in their role – when they have no realistic chance of achieving them
• Insisting that a person carries out an action which is against company regulations
• Threatening to get rid of an employee if they officially voice a complaint
• Comments of a sexual nature made towards a person or about a person to other colleagues
• Subjecting the person to unwanted touching
• Pressuring a person to go out on a date
• Sexual/indecent assault
• Being constantly criticised, having duties and responsibility taken away without good reason
• Someone continually checking your work when it is unnecessary to do so
• Being set unmanageable workload or unobtainable targets and deadlines.

It is important to note that you cannot bring a claim of “bullying” alone to an employment tribunal as there is no legal claim that falls into this definition. If you think you are being bullied at work, you should, however, raise a grievance with your manager.

You do need to check your employment contract and handbook to see if there is a company policy that you need to follow in order to lodge a grievance and see how it will be handled. Your employer should conduct a full investigation into your grievance and follow a fair procedure. If it is your manager who is causing the bullying, then you will need to lodge the grievance further up the hierarchy.

If you would rather not lodge a grievance, another way to tackle bullying is to simply try and talk to the person concerned. You could start by having a quiet word with the person who is bullying you. He or she may not be aware that their conduct is having such an adverse affect on you. However, this approach would largely depend on the personalities involved and will clearly not be appropriate in all circumstances.

If the bullying still continues, you have the right to resign and claim constructive dismissal – this being a breach of the implied duty of trust and confidence by your employer making it untenable for you to continue being employed. In some cases, where the matter is so serious, and you simply cannot confront the bully under the grievance procedure or otherwise, then you may have to resign and claim constructive dismissal without having first lodged a grievance – although professional advice should always be taken before doing so.

Often, rather than bullying, a claim could be based on harassment and/or discrimination as a result of a protected characteristic that you have (race, religion and belief, gender reassignment, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity or age). These are characteristics which are protected by the Equality Act 2010 and you would need to establish that your harassment and/or discrimination is because of one or more of these characteristics to enable you to bring a claim.

You would also have a potential claim for harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (The “Act”). The Act does not define harassment, so a wider number of claims could be made than under the anti-discrimination legislation, but these cases can be difficult to prove. You would need to show that you have received unfair treatment following a series of acts from your employer – not just one, and the threshold for what constitutes oppressive treatment is high. You would also need to consider costs implications as such cases are brought in the County Courts, not the employment tribunal where costs orders are rare.

There have been a number of surveys undertaken showing that workplace bullying is on the rise. The most important point to remember is that you shouldn’t suffer unfair treatment without being able to do something about it. Such treatment won’t always be as obvious as a bite from a colleague on a football pitch, but that doesn’t mean you should suffer in silence either.”

Jobsite have partnered with specialist employment law solicitor Philip Landau, to bring you expert advice on your rights in all key areas of your working life. As a Jobsite user you are also entitled to receive a free initial consultation on all employment law issues from Philip. Philip can help with a number of legal problems; perhaps you feel your employer isn’t following their legal responsibilities, you believe you have been dismissed unfairly or you are unsure about clauses in your contract. Once he knows your specific situation he can let you know what your rights are and what action you can take. To get in touch with Philip, click the link below and he will contact you to discuss your situation in more detail. Philip Landau is a solicitor and partner, specialising in employment law, in the London legal firm Landau Zeffertt Weir.

Click here to here to contact Philip

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“Google+ has been the slowest of all the social networks to be adopted by job seekers. Personally, I’m a late adopter as it took me a while to be convinced of its value. However, I no longer think you should ignore it. In fact, I think it’s time you embrace it.

Why?

• It’s more flexible than LinkedIn so you can inject your personality and connect easily.
• Recruiters are starting to use it to find candidates because they can email you directly!
• As an early adopter you can create influence in Communities.

Like most social networks it’s easy to get set up – click the link and follow the steps.  If you’re creating a new email account for it, it would be wise to keep it professional so make a great impression.

3 ideas to show off your talents

1. Use a great cover shot & profile picture

Because my friend Charlie Duff uses Google+ for work and play, she’s a great person to use as an example.

What do you think of her cover shot? I love it! Immediately you know that Charlie is fit & active and her profile picture is welcoming and professional. It’s a great balance.

I’d call her about a job, would you?

2. Add detail to your profile

• Be creative with your Tagline & Introduction – remember Google+ isn’t seen as a professional networking site so it’s ok to inject some personality (within reason). Here Charlie is giving great and light-hearted insight into her character.

• Add your work history and skills so recruiters can find you.

• If you’re active on other networking sites and these give more insight into your expertise, and you’re happy to be seen at them, add Links to your Google+ profile. (You’ll see I left Facebook off mine as I’d prefer to keep it separate from my work life)

3. Share great articles and insights.

In the same way that you do on LinkedIn or Twitter, sharing great content can highlight your talents. Be it sharing one of your own blogs or a piece of industry news, being active on the network will draw attention.

Receiving or giving a +1 is like receiving or giving a like on Facebook or Twitter.

Google explain it as, “Each time you click +1, you’re adding to the batch of cool, helpful, or just plain ridiculous things you’ve found across the web. You’ll find your full list of +1′s in a special tab on your public Google profile. You can show or hide it. Either way, it’s the place you’ll go to personally manage the ever-expanding record of things you love around the web.”

If you’re going to use your +1s to showcase your personality & talents, pop into your settings and ensure that the 1+ Tab will show, then visitors to your profile can see what you like and share.

Here are some of mine; it’s pretty clear that my interests are social media and job search.

You can share content with the people in your Circles or join one of the great Communities and share content there. It’s easy to search for a Community, use the search box at the top and when the results appear, change the dropdown menu to Communities.

Communities are similar to LinkedIn groups and, as previously mentioned, give you the opportunity to stand out by getting involved early.

As Charlie is the Social Media Relations Manager at Ernst & Young, who better to get a final thought from, “Google+ is still quite niche so you have an opportunity to differentiate yourself. If I was hiring someone in Social Media or some areas of Technology, and they didn’t have a Google+ profile I’d question how serious they were about social.”

What do you think, do you think it’s a ghost town or are you an avid user?”

Katrina Collier, of Winning Impression is a Speaker & Trainer on using Social Media for Recruitment & Job Search. Companies are trained on the use of multiple social media sites to recruit the best talent, time and cost-effectively, whilst job seekers become empowered in their job search through one-to-one training or her Social Job Search meetup events.

• Can you do the job (Skills)
• Will you like the job (Motivation)
• Can they work with you (Fit)

Watch our latest career advice video to find out more about how to answer them…

You may also want to check out some of the new type of questions that you may be asked and also how to get inside the mind of your interviewer

Lately, however, there have been curious shifts in the figures, and in Europe we are also seeing some strategic moves to bring IT jobs back on shore. Here, we look at the latest outsourcing insights and news, and ask what they may mean for Europe in the long term.

A surprise decline

Despite predictions, outsourcing spending has recently bucked the established trend by dipping dramatically in the first quarter of 2013. Figures from the ISG Outsourcing Index show that the value of IT outsourcing contracts globally dropped by 35% compared to the same quarter in 2012 and by 28% compared to the last quarter of 2012. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), spending declined 20% year-on-year and 30% quarter-on-quarter.

Could this be the start of a prolonged downward trend? ISG, the technical insights firm responsible for the figures, is sceptical. “On the surface, the numbers are less than encouraging, but a different picture emerges when we dig a little deeper and put this quarter into the broader context,” says ISG’s John Keppel. “We expect a more bullish performance in the second half of 2013.”

There are, however, some other forces at work that could change the future of outsourcing in Europe.

The new ‘nearshoring’

Outsourcing may continue to grow in Europe, but there are indications that spending may increasingly be retained within the region. The Financial Times recently shone a light on the trend for western European companies to ‘nearshore’ business processes in central and eastern Europe (CEE), and in Poland particularly, where the outsourcing sector is predicted to grow by about 20% in 2013.

“Research about the industry by consultancies such as Everest Group reveals that Poland rivals India and China as one of the top outsourcing destinations in the world,” writes Jan Cienski for the Financial Times. “While labour rates remain significantly lower in India, China and the Philippines, CEE countries share the same culture and timezone as western European businesses, so make good candidates for higher-value ‘nearshoring’ investments.”

Brussels steps up

With 26 million people unemployed across Europe, it’s no surprise that the European Commission is now asking IT firms, governments and educators to find ways to fill Europe’s IT job vacancies from within Europe. “If, together, we can turn the tide and fill the growing number of ICT vacancies, we will see a much wider impact across the whole economy,” said Commission President José Manuel Barroso, on launching the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs this March.

If Barroso’s hopes are fulfilled, the benefit for Europe would be indisputable. However, it remains to be seen whether Europe can satisfy its IT sector’s voracious demand for workers. The 6.7 million people working in IT within Europe represents just 3.1% of the region’s overall workforce. And yet, according to Empirica figures quoted by the European Commission, as many as 864,000 new digital jobs could be created by 2015.

The Coalition is playing a long game – it is collecting pledges on new jobs, internships, training places, start-up funding and subsidised university places – but if the strategy works it could eventually create new IT jobs in Europe, and bring about a long-term shift in the practice of offshoring.

For the sake of a competitive Europe, let’s hope this new move does have some impact. As the European Commission vice-president Neelie Kroes says: “The digital skills gap is growing, like our unemployment queues.”

With more job seeking advice focusing on the importance of networking, and building the widest network of contacts, it can often seem daunting to those who aren’t sure how to get started. In this blog, career consultant Simon North tells you how to go about it, a step at a time…

“Sometimes it’s useful to understand molecular chemistry! This isn’t some sort of test; it’s just about the concept of understanding how individual atoms attach to one other and build out into a stronger structure. Every molecular structure starts somewhere and when it comes to networking in order to build your own support structure, you are the starting point. Get a blank sheet of paper and put your own name in the middle it.  Think about how you’re going to build out your structure without any sort of pressure on you to network in the traditional sense.

Following the steps below will help you on your way…

1. Add the names of the people that you know to the sheet of paper. Start with those who are closest to your world—not closest to your work world but closest to you personally. Networking without networking is about natural interaction and flow, which is what you have in personal relationships, relationships where there is unconditional love, trust and liking.
2. If you wish, you can put down on the same sheet of paper the name of a person or employer that you’re targeting in order to further your career. Plan how you’re going to work your way from the personal contacts on the sheet of paper to that person, or indeed those people if you choose to have more than one target.
3. Turn your focus to the other people you’ve come to know throughout your life. Our social identity as human beings is deeply connected to people that we like and who like us. Sometimes we’ll use a generic or collective term such as ‘family’ to describe that system of connections of which we’re a part, but there are other connected systems that we will have operated within. These include the schools, college or university you attended, where you will have gotten to know the people on the course you studied and the fellow members of the clubs and societies you were a part of. Other ecosystems you were a part of may include sports clubs, community groups, church-related communities and so on.
4. As you think about this, you’ll begin to feel that there are a huge number of people you have a connection with in the present or past. Focus on engaging with these people. Doing so is not difficult as the connection is already established.
5. Harness the power of eye contact. In one of the UK’s leading business schools, there is a new professor of networking and what she has to say about the core skill of networking is very interesting. She believes that it is eye contact, in the face to face encounters, that is right at heart of networking.
6. Strike up a conversation that actually means something to the other person. Networking is very much about you being interested in the person that you’re speaking to. It’s not about asking so who are you, how come you’ve come to this place, to this event etc. The question you ask is ‘how are you’? It makes for a very different conversation when you ask them how they are. You get a response that’s coming from feelings. Take an interest in whether the person is feeling up and energetic or low and exhausted. That combination of asking the right question and taking an interest in the answer is at the heart of all personal, human conversation.

It’s about conversation; it’s not about networking – except that it is and therein lays the magic of networking!

The best networker will never even know that that’s what they are doing. Their relationship with people includes their natural interest in them. It is the same level of interest that they’ll have when they’re with their family. The other people are just an extension of their natural social circles.”

Simon North is the Founder of Position Ignition, one of the UK’s leading career consultancy companies which created the Career Ignition Club, a leading-edge online careers support and learning platform.

No doubt the ups and downs, triumphs and disasters, arguments and unlikely alliances will be keeping us hooked and providing a lot of office chatter in the weeks ahead.

This year you don’t need to choose a Ricky Martin from a Stuart Baggs – we’ve provided you with this sweepstake kit to print out, so that your friends and co-workers can join in the fun, ready for the first time we hear the words “You’re Fired!!”

Watch this video to find out about four ways in which this could happen…

 
You may also want to read about some of the new interview questions that you could be asked, and take the opportunity to get some interview advice from Lord Sugar!

1. Leech collector – Until the late 19th century, leeches were in high demand for medicinal bloodletting – the withdrawal of very small amounts of blood from a patient as therapy. Despite the demand, leech-gatherers were poorly paid. Worse still, they often collected the leeches by letting them latch on to their own legs – a practice through which they could lose dangerous amounts of blood.

2. Snake milker – While we’re on dangerous jobs, here’s one that still exists today. Snakes have long been milked for their venom, which is then used to create antivenin to treat snake bites. One renowned milker, Bill Haast, survived 172 venomous snake bites during his long career and lived to 100.

3. Whipping boy – How does the role of ‘companion to a Renaissance prince’ strike your fancy? That may sound like a cushy number, but the prince’s playmate was also his whipping boy – the stand-in who’d take the physical punishment meted out whenever the prince was naughty.

4. Fuller – Fulling, a manufacturing process to cleanse and thicken woollen cloth, was a job so bad that it was left to slaves in Roman times. That’s because it involved wading in urine – a powerful cleaning fluid, thanks to its high levels of ammonia. The fuller’s lot was much improved in the Middle Ages when fuller’s earth replaced urine as the cleanser of choice.

5. Resurrectionist – This rather fancy name for ‘body snatcher’ did nothing to redeem the job. In order to supply corpses to medical schools, resurrectionists dragged them from the grave – and some even turned to murder to keep up with demand.

6. Tosher – In Victorian London, there was no shortage of bad jobs. The city’s toshers, for instance, stank of the sewers, because that’s where they spent their days scavenging for tradable treasures.

7. Mudlark – Another tribe of 19th-century scavengers, the mudlarks would pick over the debris on the banks of the Thames at low tide – back in the day when the river was foul with raw sewage, not to mention the odd dead body.

8. Chimney sweep – Children were still being sent up chimneys to clear out ash and dust in the late 1870s. They risked injury, accidental death and ‘Chimney Sweep’s Cancer’, too.

9. Sin eater – Through a contemporary lens, this bygone job doesn’t sound too bad: the sin-eater helped cleanse dying people’s souls by taking on their sins in rituals involving eating and drinking at their bedsides. Surely there’s high job satisfaction there, with a little ale and bread thrown in. But, in his day, the sin-eater was “abhorred by the superstitious villagers as a thing unclean”.

10. Gong farmer – The neighbours weren’t so keen on the gong farmer in Tudor times, either. These night-workers, who did the essential job of clearing human excrement from England’s cesspits and privies, were restricted to living in certain areas. The fumes were a known job hazard, too.

Tempted?

The fact that it’s hard to imagine many people would choose to pursue these careers, highlights an important difference between the job market in the past and today. Until very recently, limitations in information, travel and education meant that masses of people were forced into careers – some of which would be insecure, poorly rewarded and even dangerous – because they had no other choice.

As we frequently discuss in our posts, there are still many outside forces that influence our choice of jobs today. But we do have far greater power to shape our own career destinies, as compared with the majority of people throughout history.

So next time a colleague rubs you up the wrong way, your commute seems to take forever, or you’re being driven mad with deadline stress, spare a thought for the poor souls who’ve had to perform difficult or unpleasant jobs, often through no choice of their own, and without the possibility of change.

The top reason for the lack of trust was the opportunity to exaggerate experience and skills, whilst the three most important parts of the LinkedIn profile were:

• Experience
• References
• Education

Whatever roles you’re applying for, it’s important to keep your LinkedIn profile as accurate, complete and updated as possible. This infographic tells you more about what potential employers look for, whilst you should also check out our blog Are You Maximising Your LinkedIn Profile?…