The Truth, the whole Truth and ...

Be honest! Held up to the light, would you see holes in your cv?

Watching Stuart "The Brand" Baggs sink deeper into the lavish coat of varnish applied to what was a demonstrably modest achievement brought joy to millions in the closing phase of BBC TV's The Apprentice.

For some, perhaps who have encountered a particularly searching job interview, it must have been a heart-warming example of schadenfreude.

While modesty is not a feature one would apply or expect to find in the average resume, to stray far from the truth when it comes to putting yourself on the line in the expectation of persuading a potential boss you're best prospect since bread was sliced, verges on recklessness.

Apart from possibly the best value of this year's crop of pushy TV candidates and comparing Baron Sugar's careful one-liners with those blundering gags Bruce Forsyth has made his own on Strictly, young Mr Baggs was the reason many of us watched fascinated, waiting for his inevitable come-uppance.  His welcome appearances among the losers' last threes in Sugar Towers' boardroom amounted to a lesson in how not to go into interview. Inappropriate familiarity with the interviewer merited its icy response; a dodgy achievement in his application set in motion the slow-motion car-crash for his prospects - to the quiet satisfaction of all but the ambitious lad's nearest and dearest.

TV is an entertainment medium, not a manual on how-to-do-it - that's best left to experts like those of Focus for Change www.focus4change.co.uk. Entertainment-value was without doubt the reason young Stuart's sojourn was extended beyond most expectations, encouraging countless followers to indulge weekly in a searching love-hate relationship.  We enjoyed his outrageous claims, watching the basilisk reaction of the pitiless peer as the would-be serial entrepreneur dug himself, Inspector Clouseau-like into a series of yawning lion-traps. Few candidates offer gold-plated deals in return for the £100k salary up for grabs with such panache. His script might have been filched stright from M Hulot or Mr Bean

So Stuart packed his bags for that last lonely taxi-ride into showbiz oblivion.  And we'll miss him.  But he will not have perished from our screens in vain  Recorded for posterity is a case-study in how-not-to-do-an-interview.  He may not have been able to add winning The Apprentice to his cv - but he does undeniably have the starring role in this training exercise.

Allow me to use my Yule Blog to wish the compliments of the season to all my readers.





 

Say what you Mean

Don't put it around but - strictly between you and me - have you noticed that this WikiLeaks thing is coming out with stuff we've been saying for years?  Apart, of course, from the later sensitive disclosures that must surely be dangerous in the public arena.

But of the thousand items of gossip, overheard or hacked into between diplomats, there have been many that accord with what most of the people I know have always instinctively believed.  The attitude of our American cousins to the rest of the world; the opinions of our political masters of each other's weaknesses and the passing thoughts of royalty comes as a breath of fresh air to a climate of secrecy and deference.

Anyone who has knocked about the world to any degree would not have been amazed to discover some of the regimes with whom Great Britain plc trades require incentives to broker a deal; that what national leaders say on their twin lecterns about each other is nor necessarily what they share among advisers afterwards.

Free speech, with the important provisos to safeguard security and those whose personal safety in the national service requires secrecy, is not only the cornerstone of our liberty but a healthy escape valve against frustration and anger at inept leadership and pettifogging regulation.

There is much to be said for plain speaking so long as it is responsible.  And what applies to diplomacy applies equally to our day-to-day dealings.

WickiLeaks provides a timely warning about email communication.  Confidentiality just one  watchword of the one-day interactive communication workshops we at Focus for Change conduct in the battle to preserve clarity in the workplace where the laid-back familiarity of texting can all too easily lead to misunderstandings.

Clear speaking is important throughout the recruiting stage and beyond. An ill-spelt, ungrammatical communication of any kind is a turn-off for a prospective employer - when did you last really look at your cv? Emails are becoming dangerously infected with text-speak not much short of insulting.

Say what you mean and mean what you say is clearly the basis of all relationships.

As my old aunt used to say, if you can't speak well of somebody, don't speak at all!