Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen! Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin… My good friend, and colleague in the employment world, Cathy, in her own inimitable way asked me recently to pen a...
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Recent Love Island convert, and our MD, Cathy Bates shares her thoughts on how behaviours on the show mirror behaviours in the workplace. I’ve never watched Love Island before this year but I’m gripped….
Promotions at work aren’t given simply because you’re having an annual review, although it’s a common time for promotions to occur. Promotions are a reward for your commitment and value to the organisation and you…
Are you in the wrong job? Perhaps completely the wrong career? Maybe you feel like you waste a lot of time on the wrong things? Then you’re probably working outside of where you’re most happy…
70% of British workers are open to a new job according to some recent research, even though only a quarter of the workforce is actively looking for new positions. A well placed advert or a…
Doing temporary work has a bad reputation. There are definitely companies that abuse the system, such as taking workers on for 12 weeks, then letting them go once they would be entitled to additional pay…
What is that helps you and your colleagues get the working day? A love of your job? Being in sync with your company’s aims and values? Or perhaps it is simply a steady supply of…
Last year the town of Gothenburg in Sweden garnered a lot of attention in the world of HR and Recruitment. The town was home to a trial scheme where instead of a standard 8 hour…
We get asked this question a lot. Many of our candidates aspire to work for a large company, attracted by what they consider to be the best way to climb the career ladder. In the…
More and more companies are swapping suits and shirts for jeans and t-shirts. In our office building in Stockport, it’s pretty rare we’ll share the lift with anyone in a tie, or other formal business…
One of the viral news stories of last week was of Angela Laws who came out of retirement, aged 70, to work as a social media manager for a digital start-up. In an interview…
There’s been a lot of negativity about the economy in the media following our EU referendum. The pound has dropped in value, the stock market has taken a hit, but for the vast majority of…
Recruitment is one of the few industries left where there aren’t any entry requirements. You don’t need to do a degree in recruitment, or have a diploma in CVs. A lot of the job is…
Humans not designed to keep working on one task for a long period of time and block out their surroundings – we wouldn’t still be here if sabre-toothed cats and the like were able to…
It’s being dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution: the explosion of robots, machines, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is coming. There’s been a lot of recent speculation about how robotics and automation will…
Sometimes it can feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the working day to do all the things you need to. Extra work always seems to get piled on to your load and you’re…
With Pancake Day now behind us, have you locked your treat cupboard? Are the biscuits banished, the sweets swept away and the chocolates behind bars? An unhealthy diet can affect your concentration in the workplace…
You’ve hit the jackpot and been offered two jobs. They’re at similar companies doing similar things, but here’s the rub: one is offering a bigger pay packet but is considerably further away. Which one do…
At Essential Personnel, we like to use our blog to share great advice with job seekers in Stockport and the North West so they can go on to find great jobs. We also of course…
It’s the first full week of January, have you managed to stick to any of your New Year’s Resolutions so far? At this time of year, after the excesses of the festive period, we all…
There’s an endemic lack of trust in businesses in the UK. And it could be doing real damage, especially to small businesses. Perhaps a lack of trust makes you reluctant to give new responsibilities to…
When you come in to register with us and speak to one of our recruitment consultants, they ask a lot of questions. It’s not because they haven’t read through your CV or looked at your…
Why you leave one job for another can sometimes be a mystery to your employer. And sometimes, it can be as much of a mystery as to why they aren’t getting the right response to…
Working on the phone has a bad reputation. But the reality is very different! For many of those who give it a try, call centres are great places to work and offer great opportunities. So…
Across the UK, the time taken for people to travel to work has been steadily increasing over the last 10 years. The average journey time has gone from just over 25 minutes, in 2005 to…