Author: Kurt Wagner

As pupils return to their classrooms this month, and universities are looking to head back soon, education and how Covid has affected this, is an important topic to discuss in terms of how technology has allowed us to perform.

Without typical education, not only would students be occupying worse grades, leading them towards potentially poorer earning careers, but also, their social skills would be lacking. This is one of the main reasons why it has been very important to send schools back as soon as possible.

At the start of each school year, studies show that the most important skills to learn are all social based. This includes confidence, self-control, independence, empathy, cooperation and communication. This just goes to show the significance of conventional schooling and how even the most sophisticated tech could not replace the social side of learning for children.

Throughout lockdown, we saw a huge rise in technology platforms and apps being created and used by millions of people all over the world. These included the increase in video call software, such as Zoom, messaging software, such as Microsoft Teams, and even quiz and game apps. Obviously talking to friends, family and colleagues via a screen is not the ideal, but these apps definitely provided some escapism from our households during the current worst of the pandemic.

As a university student hoping to be able to return for my final year, it has been great to see that my school, and the university as a whole, has been putting in measures to make sure that some face-to-face teaching will resume this year. All the lectures will be online, however, for a course that is very practical, such as my own – Film, Photography and Media – there does need to be a balance between resources online and in-person teaching.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been that easy for everyone during lockdown.

Lots of pupils have been disadvantaged due to factors such as lack of technology, lack of suitable environment to work and concentrate in, and lack of motivation to do the set work. Hopefully with schools returning, there will be an increase in productivity, as it is already clear that everyone is thrilled to have that piece of normality back.

Other ways technology has helped during the pandemic includes contactless payments, online shopping and even robot deliveries in certain countries, AI programmes for medical use, the track and trace system, 3D printing of medical devices, new apps to help with ordering in restaurants and bars, and livestreaming services for entertainment and fitness purposes.

If we didn’t have these technological luxuries, we would be living a very different story right now.

For many years, the rise of tech throughout the world has been looked at as potentially harmful for younger generations due to ease of accessibility to unsafe material, tech taking over jobs, and even for mental and physical health reasons, such as technology addiction, insomnia, relationships and sociability, obesity, and eating disorders.

The popular social media channel, Instagram, is debating making influencers say when their posts are photoshopped or edited, as this is very harmful for the mental health of its younger users. Instagram posts are all incredibly idealised, and often show much less of the truth than we realise. The spreading of fake news on other social applications has also been damaging to users over the past few years, however, measures are being taken to try and filter news to solve this issue.

Even though there are negatives of modern technology, these issues are in the process of being resolved, and we should be grateful for everything that tech has helped us to achieve in the middle of a pandemic. Of course, it has been hard, but it would have been much worse had it not been for how quickly technological resources have evolved over the last few years, and more specifically, in 2020.

Written by Madeleine Goddard

The ‘new normal’ is a phrase we hear multiple times a day now. The pandemic has changed the way we socialise, work and altogether live. One of the more noticeable changes with this ‘new normal’, has been how companies complete internal talent acquisition.

Before the outbreak, it would be rare to not have candidates come into the office for a final stage interview. Now, the hiring process is being completed via video call software, such as Skype and Zoom. As companies have started to send their employees back into offices recently, an important question to ask is: Are face-to-face interviews still necessary, or even safe?

For companies very focused on employing the exact right people, value and personality-wise, I would assume that they would find video recruitment much more difficult than face-to-face interviews. How do you know you’ve found the right person for the role and the company environment just from a video call? And how does the employee know they’ve accepted the right job for them when they haven’t met their colleagues in person?

Apart from the main negative of interviewing over video being the uncertainty of the company’s environment and workplace culture, unfortunately there are aspects such as bad Wi-Fi connection, absence of technology, and background distractions that can negatively affect your video interview.

However, there are actually quite a few pros to this hiring method.

No one ever wants to be late to an interview, especially as this could be harmful to the employers first impression of you. If you are doing the interview from your home – punctuality is not a problem at all. The lack of travel arrangements needed also makes for a much cheaper way to interview, for both the interviewee, and the company, if they pay expenses. This will also mean a less stressful and nerve-wracking experience for the candidate, giving them the potential to perform better in the interview.

Another positive about interviewing online is that you can add multiple people to the call from any location, meaning more people from the company get the opportunity to see if you’re a right fit, leading to a less biased final decision.

During 2020, the statistics for video call interviews have definitely risen from previous years, as it has been almost impossible to not hire using virtual tools. 86% of companies perform employee interviews over video call and 78% of corporate companies use some type of video calling software.

From personal experience, it is definitely easier to show your personality in a face-to-face interview, as well as body language, which is obviously very hard to read during video calls. However, interviews via video call have been perfectly acceptable during Covid times and are sometimes definitely more of a reasonable expectation – especially for long distance candidates.

Do you think there will be a continuing rise in video call talent acquisition even after company safety measures are relaxed? Or will face-to-face interviews still be the necessity to most companies? Let us know what you think will happen.

Written by Madeleine Goddard

People often have the word ‘perfectionist’ written somewhere on their CV or may even use the term for the “What are your weaknesses?” question in an interview “I’m a perfectionist so when something isn’t executed in the way that I intended it to then this affects me immensely” – I myself am a culprit of this. But does being a perfectionist make you more employable or does it create more problems? People view being a perfectionist as a positive that increases the chances of success however the reality is it makes it harder to achieve goals which can then cause stress and anxiety.

The meaning of perfect in the dictionary is ‘as good as it is possible to be’ – but is that realistic? Surely this is insinuating that there’s no space to grow and evolve? Of course, being a perfectionist isn’t a completely negative attribute to have in your persona because it motivates over achievers to pursue high standards and new visions as there is no margin for error. There is a lot of talk about why being a perfectionist is good however there’s little talk about the damage of working with a control freak. Setting standards that are too high devalues the work because it may not meet the impossible standards that have been set. There are said to be three types of perfectionism self-oriented perfectionism is when individuals impose it on themselves, socially prescribed perfectionism is where individuals feel others expect them to be perfect and other oriented is when individuals impose impossible standards on others.. dance moms come to mind!

Signs of being a perfectionist

• Not able to perform tasks if you are not certain they can be executed ‘perfectly’.
• Focus on the end product rather than the process of learning and developing their skills.
• Don’t see a task as completed until the end result is up to their own standards.
• Procrastination – perfectionists may not want to begin a project until they know they can execute it ‘perfectly’.
• Takes an excessive amount of time to complete a task that typically doesn’t take others as much time to complete.

Admittedly prior to researching around the deeper meaning as to why people are perfectionists, I assumed it was an attribute you aspire to have however from a psychologist’s point of view these are the real reasons as to why people want to be ‘perfect’:

• Frequent fear of disapproval from others or an insecurity of being inadequate.
• Mental health issues like anxiety or OCD. Whilst a correlation between OCD and perfectionism has been found, not all people with perfectionism will have OCD, and not all people with OCD are perfectionists.
• Having a parent who have ‘perfectionist tendencies’ or expresses disapproval when their children’s efforts do not result in perfection. Some parents may encourage their child to succeed in every area or push perfection on them to an extent that can be considered abusive.
• People who had a troubled attachment with parents when they were young may have trouble with self-soothing as adults. They may have trouble accepting a good outcome if it’s not ‘perfect’.

Setting yourself high standards can be great for challenging yourself however putting too much pressure on yourself to meet those standards can be detrimental. Learn from your mistakes and allow them to help you grow and develop into a resilient human being.

Written By Sophia Ghahramani

As a millennial living through a pandemic aside from all the bad it has caused, one positive we can take away from these unprecedented times is that if not aware already – we are now better educated around politics, history, society and not to mention the media.

Shapes values but harms health

What better way to learn and educate ourselves around society and politics than witnessing how our government, parents, cities, employers and schools act during a worldwide crisis. Associate professor at USC states “Millennials and gen Z’ers are not usually mired in deep questions about religion, but now they are grappling with questions of meaning, morality and mortality in ways they never did before”. A recent survey published by Deloitte found despite the individual challenges and personal reasons for anxiety that millennials and Gen Z’s face, they’ve remained focused on larger societal issues, both pre and post pandemic. If anything, the pandemic has reinforced their desire to help drive positive change in their communities and around the world. Now, as millennials we continue to push for a world in which businesses and governments portray that same dedication to society, putting people ahead of profits and prioritizing environmental sustainability.

 

The world post pandemic

Undoubtebly, the world that follows will surely be different and likely more aligned with the prospects that millennials and Gen Z’s have expressed in this survey. As Millennials we’ve seen how quickly the earth can heal, how rapidly businesses can adapt, and how cooperative people can be. We know that a post-pandemic society can be better than the one that preceded it, and millennials are motivated enough to make this a reality.

An out of date education system

For me personally, prior to the pandemic I didn’t know a great deal around politics and the history of the UK which I’ve always been ashamed of. Now, after living through this pandemic it’s made me realise that the way we’re educated in school has a massive influence on the stereotype that the younger generations don’t know enough to for example vote.

For me, Maths was not one of my strongest subjects, however I can name a handful of times I’ve had to use algebra after leaving school, whilst it is useful – why is it compulsory? History is optional to take at GCSE level which arguably can be used more as a means of general knowledge and applying lessons we’ve learnt in the past to the present day. After students recently being let down by the education system, the people of the UK are owed an education system makeover.

I am by no means an expert in politics therefore I am not taking either left or right wings side, but what I am sure of is that an education system that is meant to set students up for the real world needs to be updated to fit with the ever changing times – just like people all around the world have during this pandemic. Nearly three-fourths in the Deloitte survey said the pandemic has made them more sympathetic toward others’ needs and that they intend to take actions to have a positive impact on their communities – are you creating the next political party to make a change for the better?

Written by Sophia Ghahramani

Even though many restrictions have been lifted since the beginning of the strict lockdown that hit the UK in March, interviews through systems such as Zoom and Microsoft teams are now the new normal, but just like not being prepped for a pandemic – we also haven’t been taught how to interview online. Here are 8 tips on how to ace your online interview:

1. Standard rules apply

Ever been told to wear your shirt with no trousers in your interview? Or even on national television? (see picture below) Yeah me neither. Just like a normal interview dress to impress by being smart and professional. It may seem strange wearing your shoes in an interview where they can’t see your feet but the psychological affect this will have on you during your interview will help get you into the mindset you would in a face to face interview.

1. Camera contact

Pre corona terms for this would be eye contact but in this case focusing on the camera rather than the screen is the closest you can get to giving the employer a taste of your personality. According to UCLA researcher Albert Mehrabian, 55% of messages processed by the brain are based on a persons body language which means your facial and eye movements are being judged perhaps even more than the skills that are written down on your CV.

2. Make a cheat sheet

Taking notes into a real- life interview would seem un natural and forced, but there is also a tone of un naturalness that comes with online interviews – so take advantage of the employer not being able to see what’s not on camera. You may be a recent graduate applying to be a PA in finance but have no idea what private equity is or a salesman that is nervous because he’s been ‘out of the game’-  be kind to yourself and stick some post it notes or sheets next to you on your desk.

3. Get in the mood to talk

Remember the first time you conversed with people outside of your household after lockdown? You may have found it difficult to be your energetic, bubbly self because you’ve been cooped up indoors for so long. Going into an interview can be nerve wrecking in normal circumstances but I found at my interview for this  job even a conversation with the woman in reception calmed my nerves. Energy and enthusiasm are what employers will look for even more so in a virtual interview so do what gets you ready to show the best version of yourself – this may be doing a home workout or doing a group face time with family members.

4. Practice makes perfect

Applications like Zoom allow you to record meetings, obviously you can’t predict what will be asked but usually a question comes up around describing yourself and your professional career so far which for me personally is arguably the most difficult question to answer, however according research conducted by interviewgenie.com this is the most popular question to be asked.

5. Master your lighting

Getting the right lighting at home can be difficult but ideally you need to aim for as much light as possible. Try and get as much daylight as possible but if your house isn’t as light as it needs to be then maybe position two lights diagonally in front of you and if you have a white wall background – use it. Minimal distractions in the background are key because after all you are the star of the show.

6. Ask for a suitable time

I’ve experienced first-hand through screening candidates with kids how distractions and noise can’t be helped whilst working from home. The interviewer understands that interruptions may occur due to the circumstances however it’s okay to pick a specific time where you know there will be minimal noise in the background.

7. Show how you’ve adapted to the new normal

A question that’s likely to pop up is how you’ve spent your time in lockdown as the employer wants to see how you’ve been proactive. These aren’t questions that you’d usually prepare for so it’s essential you really take some thought into this. Just like a lot of interview questions, apply your answer to what they need and in response ask them how the organisation has dealt with the pandemic to get a picture of the remote working lifestyle.

8. Lastly, but definitely the most important – be yourself because there is no-one in the world like you.

The CEO inspired by tech

Abilott is a cyber security company which enables businesses to determine their security posture. They do this in a multitude of different ways, stemming from third party vendor risk management, penetration testing, ISO27001 certification (which is a certification that mandatory for industries such as banking, gambling, and companies that offer a service to local councils and government officials). In the last 7 months, they’ve managed to secure a partnership with a global cyber security leader called Palo Alto Networks giving Abilott access to next generation Firewalls and cyber security counter measures. We interviewed the CEO Mark Adams around the journey so far and his years of experience in building and selling technology start-up’s. 

 Tell us about yourself

I started in business at the age of 20 in a marketplace that would be the IT industry of today.

“Since then I have built businesses and ofcourse sold businesses whilst embracing new opportunities such as Abilott.”

What are the main benefits of using Abilott’s services? Who are you targeting? What type of businesses would benefit the most?

Abilott are part of Airnow PLC which is a leader in the mobile application eco-centre, Airnow are due to float on the LSE in mid September .

“Our services range from consultancy, testing, training and countermeasures. We have some incredible emerging technologies that are at the forefront of cyber security.”

What made you decide to start your own business?

I’ve only had one job and I learned early that I could do it better, much better if I worked for myself.

What lead you to the concept of Abilott?

Abilott was an established business for ten years when I was asked to take over. It had primarily been a service business though being very good at what it did – when I took charge I wanted to add a new dimension to that.

Tell us about the journey so far with Abilott.

So far, we have increased our footprint in the UK having been successful in the banking and finance sector. We have also expanded to Melbourne, Australia and won some key accounts working with Palo Alto.

According to ‘Inmind.com’ there are 1.35 million tech start-ups worldwide. With so many tech start-up’s in the competitive landscape – how have you found it competing?

It’s a huge sector, not all will succeed but experience and vision will always rise to the top.

What advise would you give to other tech start up founders that are starting out?

Definitely seek out experience of others, research the market well and prepare for tough times before the good ones.

As an entrepreneur – what motives and drives you?

Creating success of course, I also love the ever-changing fast pace of the industry.

What does the future look like for Abilott?

Many exciting things, a wider global footprint, being a leader in Vendor Risk Management and securing mobile applications.

 

 

Whilst women are massively under-represented in the technology market there is still a pressing issue of gender bias in various industries of the workforce – with the level of seniority also being predominantly taken up by males. Having worked in a sales environment funnily enough I was the only female working there and I also the only person who didn’t ‘sell’. Why? It’s been made apparent to me that stereotypes play a key role in creating bias in the workplace, in the context of technology the Bill Gates/Mark Zuckerberg stereotype has contributed to the concept of a role in the sector not seeming applicable for females. What image pops into your head when you think of sales? An ego driven man in a pin striped suit, you know your typical car salesMAN? But why?

Should there be a ban on the term salesman?

We live in a country where gender equality is at the top of the agenda, according to LinkedIn just 39% of sales positions in the UK are taken up by women which has had only a small increase of 3% in the last 10 years. Through my own research this is some of the suggestions as to why there isn’t gender equality in sales roles:

• Lack of stability in a sales job is ‘less desirable’ when a woman wants to start a family.
• The reputation of sales jobs still having that ‘car salesman’ mentality.
• Intimidating, manly and potentially embarrassing sales floor atmospheres.
• Having to use up a lot of time to travel would mean less time with the family.
• The emotional position of women meaning they take rejection to heart.

To be completely honest these suggestions infuriated me to say the least, if a ‘manly atmosphere is intimidating’ surely this insinuates that men have more dominance and power than women? And what exactly is a ‘manly atmosphere’ because if there is one what does a female atmosphere look like? And of course, women are only made for birthing children? Because we obviously only care about the stability for our children that may even exist and perhaps never will? Furthermore, if women do have children who says they can’t enjoy a fast-paced professional structure and are also motivated by adapting to new environments and being challenged. There are many causes to the underrepresentation of women in the workforce however it seems that having to ‘fit’ into the characteristics of a female, male and other genders is resulting in people conforming to what the stereotype tells them.

It starts with education

I have always had a keen interest in gender stereotypes and the root of the cause as our childhood development has a crucial role in determining our future life choices. A report published on the 2^nd conference of the council of Europe National around Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017 concluded that the curricula and knowledge that’s transmitted to pupils as ‘universal knowledge’ is for the most part experiences from men. Male issues are always present in the curricular and female’s remain the outsiders – for example the experiences of women in historical events have been absent. Males seem to be educated for public and economic life while girls are educated to care for others. Gender mainstreaming has not yet been put down to the education structure as policies have not extended down to practices in schools. Of course, this is a long-term fix for the generations to come, so how can we make a difference in the meantime? Putting a stop to placing someone’s actions, characteristics and life choices down to someone’s gender to be able to categorise them into their box would be a start.

If you’re a good salesperson, you’re a good salesperson and your gender won’t affect this. Stereotypes are only making us conform to uninformed, old-fashioned views and perspectives, we are the leaders of our own success so take charge of what YOU want to do not what stereotypes tell us to do.

 

Written by Sophia Ghahramani

Being able to portray your best qualities to an employer through a sheet of paper can be difficult, right? Jobxai uses machine learning to produce cover letters from scratch and assist in making sure your CV is up to scratch to land you your dream role. Welcome to tech tales, this is a new column dedicated to showcasing the stories behind technology start up’s. To kick start Tech Tales we’ve spoken to the Bei Mi Chen, Danny Blaker and Lane McDonald the founders of Jobxai. Let’s see what they had to say about how they got to say about all things tech…

The Founders

Bei Mi Chen

“I’ve always been a geek who loved technology. I was actually a musician before I became a software developer.”

 Danny Blaker

“I’ve always had a keen interest in technology from a young age and honed my skills whilst developing websites for clients. I’m passionate about building products that can have a great influence on people’s lives.”

Lane McDonald

“I worked as a chemist for a while before doing a phd in materials engineering, but I still did translation work and software projects on the side and eventually got into machine learning.”

What are the main benefits to a job seeker using your platform?

 Using Jobxai you can create Jobxai applications within minutes! Jobxai uses machine learning to produce cover letters from scratch and help tweak your resume, giving you the best possible chance of getting an interview!

 “Jobxai can be used by all professionals applying for jobs. It’s also particularly useful for young professionals who have just graduated university, and foreign workers who don’t have the linguistic and industry knowledge advantage.”

What made you decide to start your own business?

 Once we had fleshed out the concept of Jobxai, it was clear there was a lot of potential to provide value for people. As developers, we thoroughly enjoy the technical aspect of building software and the process of growing a technology business.

What lead you to the concept of Jobxai?

 When you’re new and trying to show your best, it can be hard due to the lack of knowledge and experience around writing great resumes. The time needed for job applications is also often daunting. We wanted something to take the pain out of writing job applications, and make the process easy and effective.

“The thought of applying for new jobs always bought me headaches, and for the few jobs I applied for, I’ve always had trouble optimizing my resumes”

Tell us about the journey so far with Jobxai

 Jobxai is approaching its final stages of development and we’re about to test with universities. Jobxai is tackling a rather complex problem and this is why we’ve been extremely focussed on the product – we’ve learnt so much in the process. We’ve had a seed round of angel investment and garnered the support of Amazon through their AWS Activate program. Now, we’re excited to release Jobxai to the public!

 According to ‘Inmind.com’ there are 1.35 million tech start-ups worldwide. With so many tech start-up’s in the competitive landscape – how have you found it competing?

We wanted to focus on building a solution that makes the process of applying for jobs simple, effortless and even enjoyable! We also feel there’s a lot of opportunity to apply Machine Learning and AI to this space. We believe focusing on the customer’s needs is the most important aspect of running any business, especially in a competitive landscape.

“There’s plenty of resume generators out there, but most only provide generic templates and advice. At Jobxai, we aim to take this experience to a whole new level with AI.”

What advise would you give to other entrepreneurs that are starting out in the tech industry?

Build the simplest version of what your product might be and try to get feedback as soon as you can. Not all products fall under this category but lots do.

As an entrepreneur – what motives and drives you?

It’s the journey and pleasure of working on something that matters to you and others.

What’s next for Jobxai?

We’ll be looking to build Jobxai’s userbase and getting as much as feedback as we can over the next year so we can improve it. We hope Jobxai will help millions of people land an interview for their dream job!

Check out their website to create your own personalised job application! https://www.jobxai.com/#

Whether the aim was to help reduce the spread of the virus or help people exercise from home during lock down – the usage of apps has undoubtedly risen. Apps like house party rose to fame over lock down even though the social app was actually launched in 2016, their total downloads in March ie. the beginning of lock down for many countries was estimated to be 17.2 million showing social apps really are the sweet spot during a global pandemic. Prior to writing this article, out of curiosity I googled how many women app developers have developed apps however most of the articles were around the subject of women’s online dating experiences during lock down – is this all that’s worthy of getting highly ranked on google?

Women in Tech during a pandemic

Unlike industries such as hospitality, technology is one the only industries that hasn’t taken a hit due to corona virus as many tech employees are able to work from home and companies have taken a quick shift to remote working. That being said there is still forms of discrimination towards women in tech during this unfortunate pandemic, this is evident in a trust radius survey which revealed that women in tech are 1.6x more likely than men to be laid off than men as 8% of women were laid off as oppose to 5% of men – according to the Harvard business review this is due to women generally having less seniority than men therefore making them more vulnerable to being laid off. Lock down has been very mentally challenging for many and with extra pressure from work this can be made even worse. Women are reportedly more likely to feel an increased pressure to be productive than men 40% of the female TrustRadius survey respondents said they feel more pressure compared to only 31% of male respondents.

The answer for women in AI

The idea of relying on computers and robotics was a concept that scared most of us as technology advances the more we can be ‘tracked’ – however countries including the UK are relying on AI technology in the hopes of reducing the spread of the virus. However, recently the Guardian reported only 17% of people in tech specialist roles were women – in order to show you a career in tech is in closer reach for women and reason to not discouraged or intimidated let’s look at women in AI that walk the walk.

Women who walk the walk

  Alice Piterova, Managing Director at AI for Good UK

Her main words of advise to women trying to excel in tech is trying to not just fit into the ‘job description’ and trying new things and also being okay with not being okay in the current global pandemic.

 

 

 

Marisa Tschopp, Switzerland Ambassador and researcher of Women in AI

The most important factor to success Marisa suggests is to do your ‘homework’ ie. what homework about yourself. What’s important to you? What are your values? Your Purpose? Talents? And what legacy you want to leave behind for your children. Being clear of what you want is the most important factor of getting what you want.

 

 

Inna Berkovich, Chief Information Officer at Emerging Technologies

Her main piece of advise that she gives to women trying to make it in the industry is to “learn from people that you dislike” this seems like strange advise but her meaning behind it is to listen to them, observe them, understand where they’re coming from, learn what not to do whether you like them or not.

 

Written By Sophia Ghahramani