chinwagjobs

Got some data chops? Job hunting in 2014? Looks like it's going to be a good year for you according to recent data from OMI. Across the industry, marketers said that the biggest skills gap in their organisation was analytics with mobile marketing in second place.

In agency-land the talent gap for those with mobile skills was even starker with a 43% talent gap with analytics coming in at 30%. For recruiters and HR professionals this tells a story that's already familiar with organisations hard-pressed to find these skills.

You want the role, the interview is going well. You've dealt with the inevitable questions about your faults, where you see yourself in five years' time and, if you had to describe yourself as a fruit, which one would you choose, and why?

There's a pregnant pause and the interview catches your eye and asks "Do you have any questions?". Here's seven cracking interview questions to seal the deal...

The importance of work experience was underlined at Chinwag's recent Careers Day (see our round-up blog for some top CV tips). There's plenty of competition for the choicest work experience or intern positions, because they provide such a powerful point of differentiation for candidates, not to mention heaps of useful job-hunting contacts.

So, with London's biggest collaborative event, Social Media Week returning to London in September (24-28), what better time to offer a lucky few the chance to get their teeth stuck into one of the largest digital events to hit London? Find out more about what's involved and how to apply below.

We held our first Careers Day as part of Digital Shoreditch on Wednesday 23rd May, supported by Vitamin T, and are extremely proud to say it was a brilliant success.

We've had some wonderful feedback from companies recruiting, mentors and job hunters alike and we're so glad that everyone found the day useful and productive.

Our CV Surgeries were particularly popular, with lines waiting outside the Little Top! If you missed out on a CV Surgery or couldn't make the day, the fantastic mentors have very kindly shared some of their advice below.

Finally, proof that social media marketing isn't just a case of cranking out a few Tweets, checking Facebook walls and Pinning pictures of shoes.

A post on Business Insider, reveals an infographic - and you know how we like a pretty picture - from Buddy Media's recent product launch, showing just some of the complexity of the current social media landscape.

Matt Alder, founder of MetaShift and one of the leading brains in the social recruitment world, recently back from a tour of Silicon Valley, quizzed Morgan Missen, FourSquare's Head of Talent on their approach to finding new talent.

Turns out Silicon Valley has even more acute problems in finding talented staff, particularly engineers, than many of the companies in the UK. As Missen points out, every person they offer a job, has competing offers from the other Silicon Valley giants. Watch the full video

As this year's Social Media Week London kicks off next week (13-17th Feb), I asked Lauren to scan the 150+ events that make up the schedule with an eagle-eye for events focusing on recruitment, careers, skills and social media.

She found some corkers, which are listed below, the majority of which are free to attend. The full schedule has an enormous variety of events covering subjects from Freedom of Tweet: Censorship, Government, Marketers and the Law (Tues 14th Feb, 1 - 5pm @ Design Coucil) to Collaborating on Cancer (Weds 15th Feb, 2 - 3.30pm @ City Hall).

It's that time of the year again, mince pies are coming out of your ears, that log fire smell is in the air, silly xmas decorations are up in the office, all in all there is alot of Christmas cheer about the place and to make it even better, we have another 'xmas drinks' to add to your list. 

Chinwag have teamed up with Kathryn McMann Consultancy and Put It Out and have organised a very informal xmas get together next Thursday,15th December in central London for some drinks, networking and chatter. We also have a magician for all your entertainment needs.

Our love-in with infographics continues with this doozy from mindflash with a step-by-step Linkedin Bootcamp giving some steps to get the most out of the B2B social network.

Handy and practical whether you're on the hunt for a new gig, working a business development angle or just buiding your professional profile, it's a handy check-list. Check the full list below and click-through for the big version.

If Zuck gets his way, every breathing moment will be automatically captured in a Facebook timeline. OK, so a slight exaggeration but ever more information is aggregated on social networks.

According to a recent survey from Reppler, whose service helps candidates manage their online reputation, 91% of employers are using social media to screen candidates with 67% making a decision based on the info they find, whether it's their personal triumphs to sordid bloopers.

It's that time of year - graduates are coming to the end of their university lives and school leavers are completing their final exams.  It's the perfect time to hire a fantastic intern - and we've noticed that many companies are already on the hunt.

We're big fans of intern programmes at Chinwag and have had a few successful candidates pass through Chinwag Towers.  We've recently seen such a strong interest, we've decided to gather the information together and summarise in a blog post, or something more industrial, if necessary.

The world of work, or rather the search for work, is under-going a revolution at the hands of social media. A recent study, Kelly Global Workforce Index, shows one in 5 of US respondents are using social media for their job hunt (see below for infographic).

The recruitment landscape is still dominated by online jobs boards, with word of mouth mouth, recruitment agencies and direct approaches proving the most widely used methods.

Whilst only 1% of the survey respondents found their jobs through social media (the survey ran Oct '10 to Jan '11), this looks set to change, with 24% of respondents searching for jobs using social media.

Facebook and students: A happy marriage, or a receipe for disaster?

As you'd expect, the answer isn't so simple. A study and rather lovely infographic (see below) produced by OnlineEducation.net ponders this question from several different viewpoints.

As those tied to email all day can testify distractions hurt productivity, and the same is true when studying. Unsurprisingly, flicking between Facebook and studying results in 20% lower grades. Sound obvious? Turns out 79% of students don't believe it.

They're also less likely to be paying their way whilst studying, with Facebook user's working less than 5 hours per week, whilst their social-media-phobic counterparts clocking in an impressive 16 hours per week. Still, that's what student loans are for, right?

When it comes to telephone interviews you'd think that something as simple as talking on the phone would be easy but with a lack of visual signals and having to rely just on auditory feedback it's difficult to stay focussed. They can be tricky things.

We've put together a few pointers to get you in the right frame of mind before taking that career-changing call:

1. First off it would be helpful to record a mock interview so you can detect any little niggling things that could work against you. You'll be able to hear any "ums", "uhs" "ehs" that you might not realise you're doing.