Guests this week
Friend of the pod David Winter - a careers consultant with C2, which is part of The Careers Group, and lead author of our favourite Careers - in Theory blog - joins us to talk about the impact of career choices and the long-term disadvantages of graduating in a recession as identified by the gloomy but super-useful-to-know study The Short- and Long-Term Career Effects of Graduating in a Recession.
Our resident graduate is Sara Barnard who graduated last July with a first class degree in American Literature with Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and has ambitions to become a professional writer. She's yet to find a paid role in the literary world but is set to start a call centre job this week.
To provide Sara, and the other budding writers among you, with some advice, we also asked editor, published author and ghost writer Kirsty Crawford to share her career secrets.
News review:
Following a recent Princeton University study that pinpointed the power of storytelling and it's ability to 'synch brains', we share some tips on how to apply these learnings to improve your job seeking and interview technique. Plus, plenty of grad headlines this week. We discuss the findings that almost half of graduates feel 'ill-equipped for world of work' and ask, can SMEs save a generation of graduates from unemployment?
Dear Julian
Julian Linley is away this week. So fulfilling a life-long ambition to be an agony aunt, Harriet Minter, the pod's resident wise woman, becomes Dear Harriet for one week only and helps one candidate way up the pros and cons of two job opportunities.
Jobs top 10
Intelligence officers at MI5 and a media relations volunteer for UNICEF are among this week's top roles.
To apply or to find more, go to jobs.guardian.co.uk.
Q&As coming up this week
Monday 7 February: How to get your career back on track after taking time out
Tuesday 8 February: Apprenticeships - are they good for your career?
Wednesday 9 February: Do you feel ready for the world of work?
Thursday 10 February: What does 2011 hold for retail professionals?
If you'd like to be our resident graduate and join us in the pod to talk about your job seeking and career goals — email careers@guardian.co.uk
