Going Beyond the Glossy

As someone who has spoken at a number of UK Universities during the last eight years and worked with numerous new forensic graduates, I was interested to see Eric Huber's thoughts about academic courses in the forensic area.

In his blog, Eric Huber uses the classic John Lydon line from January 1978, 'ever feel you've been cheated' to open his piece about the variable quality of Forensic academic courses.  Rather worryingly, Eric states that in his experience many Forensic students - even with masters degrees -  are:

"unfit for purpose for entry level positions much less for positions that require a senior skill level."

As a recruiter in this field, I have to agree with Eric.  In fact, there are some Employers I know who won't even consider interviewing students from certain Universities due to the perceived poor quality of the course.

Eric continues that the blame rarely lies with the students but with the people running the courses:

"It’s almost universal that programs who have professors who do not have a digital forensics background are turning out students who don’t understand digital forensics. This seems like an obvious and intuitive statement, but given how many digital forensics programs there are who are being lead and taught by unqualified people, it apparently isn’t obvious enough."

In the final paragraph of his blog, Eric concludes with some great advice:

"We are in a time where there are many fine academic programs available to aspiring digital forensics people who wish to learn digital forensics and launch successful careers. Unfortunately, there are more bad programs than good ones. It’s vital if you are going to spend the time and money getting an education that you don’t get cheated. It’s your life and your responsibility to look beyond the glossy promotional material and make sure you are trusting the right people to get you where you want to go."

Don't sweat the small stuff? But then again.....

Last week Angus Marshall posted a very good blog aimed at students looking for work placements and pointing out the basic errors made by students.  As a specialist recruiter, I would say that most of the points pointed out by Angus also apply to jobseekers - and surprisingly, not just jobseekers looking for their first position.

Although it seems trivial, the primary issue for me is not addressing your email to the correct person.  I rarely bother to read an email which doesn't come to my direct email address and certainly won't take the time to open a CV attachment when the effort hasn't been made to find out my direct address.  Why rule yourself out of contention for a position for the sake of a tiny bit of research?

Some jobseekers go to amazing lengths effectively utilising social media and other rich sources and yet this is often a complete waste of time if you don't get the basics right.  Surely if you were searching for a placement/new position, you would never fall down on the simple stuff, would you?

Good to be back!!!

After well over a year away from the world of recruitment working on, ahem, 'other projects' I have decided to return.  So many people have pleaded for a recruitment blog filled with wisdom, wit and insight - if you would like a link to that blog just ask me - that my blog is back.  It will be filled with the usual random thoughts about the reality of jobseeking, along with snippets of my outside life including, of course, the uninspiring plight of the Mighty Leeds United. 

Hello again to all those people I haven't spoken to for such a long time and I look forward to speaking soon.