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It’s February 2020. We’ve had New Year and we’ve had Chinese New Year. Most people have had their annual bonuses and it’s likely many of you have changed jobs recently. Starting in a new firm can feel daunting when you’re at the beginning of the bedding-in process, so here are our top five helpful tips to get you integrating quickly and starting...

A happy 2020 to you all and we hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas and (Gregorian) New Year. And while it seems like the Christmas break was only yesterday, we are now already into CNY season! As you’ll no doubt be aware, CNY 2020 marks the start of the year of the Metal Rat under the Chinese Zodiac. So, it seems fitting that for thi...

Here we are at the end of another year. The Christmas break is upon us, with the New Year celebrations just around the corner. Time to take stock of the ups and downs of the past year, celebrate successes and look forward to the future. This year is particularly interesting as it is the end of the Twenty-Tens and the start of the Twenty-Twenties...

Today we continue our two-part series on NGOs, to celebrate our appointment by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to be their exclusive recruitment partner for the next year, working on a variety of roles within their Global Shared Services centre in Malaysia. In the last post we look at what an NGO is, what it’s like to work for an...

If you’ve been following us on social media, you’ll know that we’ve recently been appointed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to be their exclusive recruitment partner for the next year, working on a variety of roles within their Global Shared Services centre in Malaysia. About the UNDP The UNDP is an NGO funded entirely by volu...

In our previous post, we looked the best ways to secure legitimate credit for your work. But most of us, at one point or another, will have been in that tricky situation where someone has taken all the credit for a project without recognising your contribution, or has simply taken the credit that you deserve. Naturally, prevention is better than...

For most offices, the mantra repeated in meetings and adorning the walls on posters is that teamwork is the key to success. And we understand this to be true. But it is also important to understand the role you, as an individual, have played in that success because, when it comes to regular appraisals and reviews, credit for being the motivation...

Hari Raya Aidilfitri is here and the end-of-Ramadan celebrations are underway. But while the festivities and feasting are in full flow, it’s worth remembering that the Ramadan period of fasting, self-reflection and almsgiving holds lessons for us all regarding frugality, self-awareness and altruism. For today’s post, we’re taking this idea and l...

Most of us have been there. You’ve been working in your role for some time; business has picked up, you’ve been performing well and your reviews have all been very positive. It certainly feels like the value of your contribution has increased - it’s about time you had a pay increase, right? And yet there are no signs of this happening. Have they...

As we spend so much of our lives in the workplace, there will inevitably come a time when one or more people start to rub each other up the wrong way. Unfortunately, due to the lack of understanding or skills to deal with the situation, all too often these acute flare-ups are ignored, meaning they fester and deepen, leading to a more chronic, lo...

During our careers, many of us have spent time working in environments that we felt we just didn’t fit into. Maybe you’re the jeans and t-shirt type who likes very flexible hours and a very loud, playful office atmosphere. Or maybe you prefer a total separation of work and personal life and prefer a smartly dressed office with more of a nine-to-...

You’ll see it all around you – on job descriptions, websites, and you’ll hear about it in feedback from interviews. It is now perceived as one of the most essential job interview assessment criteria and yet it is the hardest, if not most seemingly impossible aspect of the hiring process to prepare for. We’re talking about ‘cultural fit’, that om...

Welcome back again to our series on constructing CVs. In our previous posts, we gave you some pointers on the overall impression that your CV should make and we gave you a general guide to structure and and content. In this final post, we’ll be looking at some of the finer detail that goes into your content. Look at me! When an internal recruite...

Welcome back to our series on constructing CVs. In our first instalment, we gave you a top-5 list of pointers on the overall impression that your CV should make when it lands in an inbox and is clicked on for the first time. In this post, we’ll take a broad look at the structure and content for the CV. Structure/Content - The Three Main Challeng...

Christmas is fast approaching, and we now enter the period of the year which for businesses is dominated by two activities – end of year accounts/budgeting for 2019 on the one hand, and organising the Christmas and end of year parties and festivities on the other hand. However, before getting out the mince pies and Santa hats, it’s definitely wo...

When we interview candidates, we are often asked for suggestions on how to improve their CV. CV writing is an art, and there’s certainly more to it than can be covered in a single blog post. So, we’ll attempt to cover the important points in three instead – with our how-to series, ‘Construct A Top-Class CV’. Horses for Courses What is important ...

Welcome to the finale in our series of posts under the heading of ‘Top-5 ice breaker questions and how to handle them’. We’ve been looking at those simple-sounding, yet tricky to answer interview opener questions. And in this final episode, we look at the superficially simple, yet pivotal question; “Why do you want to work here?” This is, above ...

Welcome back to our on-going series on those simple-sounding, yet tricky to answer interview opener questions; ‘Top-5 ice breaker questions and how to handle them’. In this week’s episode, we tackle the topic of speaking on behalf of other people about yourself. Yes, it’s time for: “What would your boss say about you?” In a similar fashion to so...

Welcome back to our on-going series on those simple-sounding, yet tricky to answer interview opener questions; ‘Top-5 ice breaker questions and how to handle them’. For this instalment, we’re looking at the all-time classic: “What is your greatest weakness?” Again, this is a question with a large amount of website and blog real estate dedicated ...

This week we return to our series on those simple-sounding, yet tricky to answer interview opener questions; ‘Top-5 ice breaker questions and how to handle them’. And for this post we’re diving straight into: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” This is actually such a common question that there are many blog posts and online articles dedi...