Australian magazine Human Resources Leader warns companies not planning to replace staff sacked during the recent economic downturn are likely to see a “decrease in the quality and sustainability of knowledge workers’ performance”. It quotes research showing knowledge workers are “buckling under” the extra pressure.

This is pretty basic stuff, but it shows HR professionals are at least aware of the problems created when businesses cut too many staff.

My view is many large companies who cut staff in the downturn will struggle to recover from the loss of skills and expertise. What’s more, many savvy knowledge workers will avoid these employers in future.

Knowledge workers doing the work of three people

In 2001, Chris Woodhead, England’s chief inspector of schools caused a storm when he accused British universities of devaluing higher education by offering ‘vacuous degrees’.

At the time, London’s The Sunday Times carried a surprisingly candid interview with Woodhead. Among other things he questioned whether many vocational courses deliver on their claims.

Woodhead says many courses don’t prepare students for the real world. He argues some vocational degrees do little to help a student’s employment prospects and do even less for their employers. Britain’s Institute of Directors backed these comments, so did a number of individual employers.

Daft courses are here too

The criticisms could equally apply to courses currently on offer in Australia and New Zealand – not to mention some of the less prestigious American universities, which have a long tradition of offering worthless qualifications and dubious courses.

Woodhead grabbed the headlines by decrying certain ‘quasi-academic’ degrees on offer in the UK including: Golf course management, pig enterprise management, knitwear and beauty therapy courses.

And then there is ‘Madonna Studies’ – just in case you’re wondering we are talking about the popular singer here rather than theological investigation concerning the mother of Christ. Thankfully this nonsense is no longer on offer.

Sure, these daft-sounding degrees are easy targets, but Woodhead has a point. How many employers need workers who can deconstruct the lyrics of ‘Material Girl’?

How many employers need workers who can deconstruct the lyrics of ‘Material Girl?

You can read more about Woodhead’s comments and various responses at the BBC news web site. Just to prove what a straight shooter he is when getting stuck into the value of various university courses, you can also read Woodhead’s comments on media studies – which he describes as a one-way ticket to the dole queue.

Is there value in media studies?

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether there is any real value in media studies or the more offbeat subjects mentioned.

It’s interesting and disappointing, but predictable that most of the angry defensive response from academics to Woodhead’s comments focused on his trashing of seemingly silly courses rather than his more important points regarding vocational education in general.

Clearly British academics are as insecure as antipodeans when it comes to handling constructive criticism.

Woodhead’s important point was the balance between vocational training and coherent academic learning is now completely out of kilter. The issue is not whether our society needs people trained at public expense in the subtle art of looking after golf courses, tending pigs or even reading newspapers, but whether such a course is on an academic par with an honours degree in Astrophysics.

Bigger picture

Woodhead rightly points out the danger in less obviously worthy courses of devaluing all higher education. It’s a very real danger. I’ve personally known employers in knowledge industries who are suspicious of all graduates – they think universities fill people’s heads with stupid ideas. Many of those who get beyond that level of thinking have doubts about anything other than a straightforward vocational degree.

I always found this attitude prejudiced and hard to understand until I interviewed a seriously strange person with a media studies degree for a newspaper job.

Common sense tells me one or two crazy examples are not enough evidence to deduce a trend and I like to keep an open mind but I have to say few of the media studies graduates I’ve interviewed are cut out to work in the media. It’s hard to image who might employ them. On the other hand people used to say the same thing about sociology, which has since become quite respectable.

It doesn’t make sense for education to stand still in a world where everything careens about at a frantic pace. However, there does need to be some kind of benchmark for higher education.

Lively debate about vocation versus academic learning

There’s always been a lively debate over the value of degree level vocational training and more academic learning. Both have their place in higher education and ideally, most people entering the knowledge workforce will have the opportunity to experience both kinds of learning at some point. Modern economies need people trained in sophisticated skills as well as people trained how to think.

Yet there is a lot of real doubt about the worth of some courses. This isn’t new. Back in the late 1970s an acquaintance of mine was accepted to study computer science at an American university. He sent me a copy of his first semester timetable. Of about 30 timetabled hours, only four hours could be loosely described as studying computers.

Of course, there’s a lot to be said for getting a liberal education, but this bloke spent six hours a week on the university golf course as part of his computer science degree. In year one he was expected to reduce his handicap to six in order to pass – a handicap of four represented a high distinction.

Playing golf would ultimately account for 15 percent of his degree. Those of us studying in, then still rigorously academic, British universities were shocked by this revelation. On the other hand, from a vocational training point of view it’s not such a dumb idea. A career in the computer industry, particularly in commercial sales, might well be helped along by an ability to knock a small white ball into 18 holes.

Ultimately the only way for knowledge workers and would be knowledge workers to steer through the higher education maze is to spend time researching the options. It’s obviously worth checking the academic reputation of courses, subjects within courses and institutions before signing up.

Less obvious and more difficult is checking with potential employers about the relative merits of these things. You’ll need to be extra canny about this – people often just pass on their own prejudices rather than provide valuable insight. But education is too valuable to waste. You don’t want to spend three years getting a Mickey Mouse degree – even if you plan to work for Disney.

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You got the secretive phone call. You met the head-hunter in a discreet pub or café. You jumped through the hoops, passed the tests and sailed through the interviews.

Now there’s only one step before you make the jump: negotiating the right deal.

Because you’ve been headhunted, the negotiation is slightly different from when you answer an advertisement or otherwise find your way to a new job.

People asked you to come and work for them. They paid an expensive head-hunter to find you, woo you and tempt you into taking their approach seriously.

Face it, they aren’t going to go to all that trouble and then lose out on winning your skills because of a few dollars here and there.

Negotiating a deal

If negotiating a deal is like a game of poker – and there are similarities – then you’ve been dealt a decent hand. But as any card player will tell you, the cards you are holding are only part of the game. You still need to keep your wits about you.

Most people understandably reduce an employer’s entire offer to its cash equivalent when evaluating salary offers. This makes a lot of sense and I’m not going to disagree with the general principal.

However, it is worth paying close attention to working conditions while in negotiation.

For example, if you don’t like overseas travel – maybe you have a young family – make sure there’s written agreement on the amount of required overseas travel.

Likewise this is a good moment to ensure you have adequate support staff, the right working environment, a budget that covers your expected expenses and so on.

Hours and leave

This is the best time to talk about working hours and annual leave entitlement. Once you sign it’s too late.

It’s usual for today’s employers to talk rather vaguely about you technically being paid for a working week of so many hours, but being prepared to actually work as many hours as it takes to complete the various tasks that are assigned to you. This is fine up to a point, but if your employer is effectively asking you to commit to unlimited hours, it is not unreasonable to put some qualifications. For example you might ask that you never have to work on Sunday because you’re an active member of your local church.

Annual leave is a sticky issue. You’re entitled to a certain amount of leave by law. In practice the amount of leave your employer will permit you to take will probably be considerably less than your legal entitlement and will almost certainly be less than the amount nominated in your contract. These days most people get a handsome payout for unclaimed holiday pay when they leave a job. The money can be nice, but time to unwind can be better.

A long time ago I worked with someone who quickly climbed through the ranks of a sizable organisation. Each time he was promoted he negotiated a deal that increased his annual leave – in many cases he traded leave entitlement for pay.

The result was he reached a level where he was entitled to 10 weeks leave a year. This might not be possible today, but the principal is good. For most of us cash-rich, time-poor knowledge workers annual leave is a luxury.

In my opinion it is a good idea to actually specify some leave dates when negotiating initial terms and conditions before joining a new company. Try and get them written into an agreement. If you’ve been headhunted the employer will almost certainly agree to this as it seems a cheap way to complete a deal. Even if you haven’t been headhunted, the salary negotiation is your best opportunity to fix this.

Get professional tax advice

It might pay to get some professional advice about the salary component of any deal. The big trap people fall into when head-hunted, is to overlook the tax considerations of any extra salary. Unless you’ve been hired by a US company to work in the states, you will almost certainly already be on the highest rate of income tax.

This means that looks like a 20 percent pay rise on paper might actually be as little as a 10 percent increase in take home pay. In many cases it is possible to negotiate terms that minimise the tax impact.

Finally, there’s a little twist to negotiating salary when you are headhunted. In many cases the head-hunting recruitment process is one long whirl and very flattering. It’s possible to have your head turned by the process – you may laugh, but many headhunted executives end up with poor deals because they have been charmed or otherwise wooed into accepting far less than their new employer is prepared to play.

It doesn’t help that these processes tend to proceed at a breakneck pace. The usual rule of salary negotiation is to do plenty of homework and benchmark your salary against industry norms – if the employer is in a hurry there may not be time to do this properly.

If possible try to slow the process down. Don’t make it look as if you are dragging your feet, but buy yourself some time to do the research. A few days shouldn’t make any difference to your new employer, but they can make a big difference to you.

Some American business schools promote MBA programmes by talking about a ROI or return on investment. This is a straightforward financial calculation that allows you to calculate how quickly you’ll pay back your costs in time and money when you sign up for a course.

The assumption is that your earning power will increase dramatically once you’ve graduated. Typically United States MBA graduates are financially ahead after three or so years.

You can’t always estimate of the value of taking work-related courses so directly. And anyway, learning extra skills isn’t just about money; you’ll gain extra understanding of your work, improve your confidence and find it easier to complete various tasks.

You might even enjoy life more.

Any extra skills you get will have some benefit in the workplace – even when the connection isn’t obvious. If you continue your education, you will be a better employee.

Think of it this way, you go for a job and there are two candidates. One has taken a string of courses in evenings and weekends, the other has done nothing. Who do you think is going to get the job?

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By Bill Bennett

You aren’t likely to get head-hunted unless you are already near the top of the career tree. In Australia, real head-hunters don’t tend to look for people to fill positions paying much less than $150k because there’s scant reward for the effort involved.

Some work on a commission basis, taking a percentage of the recruit’s first year’s salary. Others get a fixed fee. Either way head-hunters are expensive from an employer’s point of view and can only be justified for senior appointments. Of course, the salary threshold will differ in other countries.

There are exceptions to the salary rule. Head-hunters are occasionally asked to fill particularly hard to-fill-vacancies in specialised niches and occasionally an organisation hires a professional head-hunter to woo a specific person – possibly from a rival company.

How head-hunters work

A head-hunter’s operating style makes a huge difference to the way you should deal with them. As a rule fixed fee head-hunters receive a payment whether the candidates they find are hired or not. Typically these head-hunters are only interested in recruiting for the very top jobs.

Once they have a curriculum vitae they are unlikely to punt it around the industry if they fail to fill the original vacancy. While they may keep it on file and use it later if a similar position comes up later, they probably won’t do this without first getting permission.

It’s not always true, but the head-hunters operating on a commission basis tend to work for a number of clients at the same time. Typically they’ll operate at a slightly lower level. The often build databases of potential candidates: be warned once you are ‘in play’ they might hound you until they find you a new job.

If people understand a head-hunter earns commission they often fall into the trap of assuming this means the head-hunter has a vested interest in negotiating a high salary. In practice they can maximise their income by turning over more business than by squeezing an employer for a few thousand dollars here or there.

So, while they are happy to see you get more dollars, don’t push your luck in negotiations. If anything they are keener to close the deal than win more money.

Interview coaching

Some commission head-hunters will coach you before an interview. They’ll do whatever they can to help you secure the job. At times you may feel like you are being pushed – maybe because you are being pushed.

It’s not unusual for rival commission head-hunters – even from within the same recruitment organisation – to have candidates in line for a single job. While you’ll get a lot of push from these guys, you probably won’t get a huge amount of attention, that’s because they have so many irons in the fire. And, although it might look like you have a job in the bag, you might be only one of many candidates.

Fixed fee head-hunters will spend a lot of time with you. They probably won’t coach you, but they will help with negotiations and finding information. You can expect to get lots of feedback about how the process is progressing. By the time you are in front of a company, you’ll be one of only two or three short-listed candidates – the job isn’t yours yet, but you will almost certainly be a good fit for the job, much of the remaining work is determining if you are the best fit for that employer.

Negotiating position

Another dangerous assumption is that a call from a head-hunter puts you in a strong negotiating position. After all, in theory it’s easier to extract better salary, terms and conditions when someone else is doing the asking.

To some extent this is true, but don’t get carried away, head hunters spend their working lives recruiting people, you only change jobs once in a blue moon. You certainly have some negotiating leverage, but remember you’re up against professionals and they will have seen all this before. What’s more, their clients are the employers, not the candidates.

If they have done their homework properly the prospective employer will already have a very definite idea of your worth to their business. They are prepared to negotiate and may even go past their expected limits, however, you should remind yourself that they probably have other candidates in the pipeline too.

Despite this, a call from a head-hunter is an excellent way to boost your salary or job. After all, if they want to tempt you away from your current position, they are going to need to offer something attractive.

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Writing in Computerworld Australia Kathryn Edwards reports; “The Australian IT job market fell 15 percent in March, crashing to the level of 2005 and down by 53 percent on the same time last year.”

Edwards story was based on numbers from the Olivier Job Index.

It said Internet job ads also fell 12.5 percent in March leaving fewer vacancies advertised on the than at the beginning of the year.

Olivier Group director Robert Olivier, suggests the job market is only going to get worse.

In New Zealand the Hudson Report shows IT employers have radically changed their hiring intentions. A year ago a net 36 percent of employers expected to hire IT specialists, that number has dropped to just 7.8 percent. The sector compares with the general job market where 24 percent of employers expect to reduce staff numbers in the next three months.

IT job ads, vacancies down in March: Survey – Computerworld

In How to quit your job—and stay friends we looked at how to resign without harming your future career prospects. Some resignations are messy, particularly if your existing employer decides to make a counter offer when you quit.

While these offers can be tempting, nine times out of ten you shouldn’t even consider the counter-proposal. You’ve made a decision to quit. Just go.

Despite this, there are some circumstances when you should consider a counter offer. For example:

1. The Leapfrog
   When your career is still at an early stage and you quit to take a higher-level job elsewhere, it can be worth staying put if a counter offer involves a promotion that sees you leapfrog the external position. Although many of the negatives—see below—about staying put probably still apply, career advancement is often more important at this stage.
2. Changed Circumstances
   You quit because the terms of employment change making it impossible for you to stay, but the terms change again. For example, your employer plans to relocate your function to a distant city. If, after you resign, your employer cancels the relocation, then staying makes sense.

Of course there are other special cases. However, as a rule, an offer that simply involves more money or a promise to correct behaviour or some other problem is not a good enough reason to stay. Here are six reasons why you’ll be better off moving:

• The Closing Door
  Failing to go through with a move could mean you won’t get another chance for some time. At least not from the spurned employer. And remember, employers talk to each other—your actions might have wider repercussions.

• Motivation
  Something moved you to quit. Whatever it was, it must have been important. A counter offer might address all the things that bug you about your current job—possible but unlikely.

• Boss Panic
  If you’re a key employee, your manager probably went into crises mode when your resignation arrived. While the panic persists he or she would be willing to make promises that may not be deliverable. Consciously or not, that person will say whatever it takes to keep you. The backtracking will almost certainly start within days of your agreeing to stay.

• Funny Money
  Any promised salary increases made as a counter offer are likely to be at the expense of your next scheduled increase. Employers lift employee salaries at these moments only to bypass that employee in the next salary review. When the review comes they’ll remind you of that big hike—but sidestep the reasons for giving it to you.

• Leverage
  Agreeing to stay weakens your future negotiating position. Your employer knows you blinked first last time. He or she knows they’ve got you where they want you and how to keep you under control.

• Self-esteem
  A financial counter offer is an insult. If you were only worth $x a year yesterday, how come you’re suddenly worth $x+y today? Obviously these guys have been underpaying you in the past. What’s to say they won’t do so again? If you stay, they’ll figure you lack self-respect and treat you accordingly.