1. Prepare thoroughly for the interview. Gather extensive information about the company. Don’t give the impression of having just got off a flying saucer or that don’t care about being invited! To be well-prepared requires that you also plan your travel to arrive on time, dress appropriately, etc. Think carefully about how to present your assets and prepare your own questions.

2. Your state of mind: you have an opportunity for an interesting conversation with a person who needs to feel of interest too. Be happy and positive. It is a worthwhile experience. You will meet someone, learn about a company and get to know more about the job; in addition you will  refine your sales skills through marketing yourself.

3. Talk in a decided tone, greet with a smile and
shake hands neither too soft nor too strong. A few words
kind, some light conversation. Being natural always
gives the best impression. Being natural does not mean being rude!
It is worth training to introduce yourself to others.

4. Concentrate on the first few minutes. There is evidence that it is during
the first four minutes that’s one creates an impression, either of sympathy or antipathy.

5. Be careful of what you are saying. Watch your flow words and complete sentences to give the impression of having everything under control. Look your interviewer in the eyes, even if thick glasses make them difficult to find.

6. Do not interrupt.

7. Even if the job description bores you to tears, show your interest by asking questions if you nevertheless need a job.

8. Do not monopolize the conversation. Observe your interviewer, and if you note some impatience, shorten your questions.

9. Do not show humble or arrogance, don’t be  too stiff or too confident, you should behave as if you were talking to a trading partner.
You did not come to beg and you have something to offer.

10. Do not forget the essential goal of the interview: do not just
answer questions, take the opportunity to “sell” your skills and achievements.
Add concrete examples.

Be honest and remember that lying requires an excellent memory and is tricky as people can check what you are saying…
Of course, it helps when you can convince yourself before convincing others…

To turn those 10 rules into a golden job, do not forget that:
- It is quite possible that the personal assistant is watching you. Many leaders attach great importance
 to the intuition of their secretary… Needless to say that you should arrive on time for the interview (about 10 minutes in advance to concentrate)
- Reserve and discretion: never criticize a former employer. Bad mouthing your former employers or superiors will create the negative impression that you will be equally disloyal to your next company.
- Don’t offer your interviewer a breath mint, unless you need some for yourself…

Mais votre travail vous ennuie — vous êtes bloqué, tout est devenu routinier, il n’y a plus de challenge, et vous cherchez ailleurs.

Comment partir, “sans casse” pour vous comme pour l’entreprise, comment faire en sorte de rester en bons termes tout en assurant le passage de relais ?

Tout d’abord, prévenez votre entreprise le plus vite possible. Une fois que vous avez l’autre proposition en main, prévenez votre DRH.

Le premier faux pas qui ferait des dégâts serait qu’ils apprennent votre départ par un tiers. Vous seriez alors en mauvaise position pour négocier votre départ. Faites-le oralement puis confirmez-le par une lettre de démission que vous adresserez en courrier recommandé avec accusé de réception.

Votre lettre devra contenir un certain nombre d’informations afin d’éviter par la suite toute contestation : votre état civil, une phrase indiquant clairement votre souhait de démissionner et la date de votre départ, compte tenu de la période de préavis, enfin une phrase indiquant quel poste vous occupiez, et éventuellement depuis quelle date. Vous n’avez pas besoin de motiver votre démission dans votre courrier.

Il n’y a pas de règles pour rédiger une telle communication, mais il est élégant d’expliquer clairement les raisons de votre départ, sans parler en mal ou en étant trop critique envers l’entreprise que vous quittez.

Une démission peut parfois être perçue comme une trahison. Une bonne lettre, efficace et courtoise, sera sans doute mieux vécue de part et d’autre et démontrera à quel point cette opportunité est importante pour la suite de votre carrière et pour l’accomplissement de vos projets professionnels.

Une technique rhétorique souvent employée et de suggérer à votre responsable ou à vos collègues de se mettre à votre place en leur posant la question « qu’auriez-vous fait à ma place ? ».

Dans le cas ou votre employeur vous a mis au placard ces dernières années, vous pouvez lui écrire que vous démissionneriez en échange d’une formation ou d’une indemnité.

Autrement dit, dans bien des cas, un départ se négocie.

Encore une fois : soyez calme et poli. Ne déversez vos récriminations sur les collègues de manière désobligeante et gardez pour vous vos commentaires sur l’incompétence du haut management car cela ne sert à rien et en dit plus sur vous que sur l’entreprise.

Une vie professionnelle est longue et il est forte probable que vous allez recroisez vos anciens collègues ailleurs dans l’avenir. Peut-être vont-ils retravailler avec vous en tant que fournisseurs, clients, ou partenaires.

Il n’est pas exclu que dans quelques années vous reviendrez chez votre employeur pour une nouvelle opportunité…

Le profesionnel supérieur sait garder toutes ses portes ouvertes. Il est muni non seulement des compétences techniques mais d’un savoir-faire relationnel.

Rendez-vous disponible pour la passation de pouvoir. Formez votre remplaçant, quitte à travailler en binôme pendant un moment. La direction de l’entreprise que vous quittez et le collègue ou les collègues qui vous remplacent vont apprecier votre sérieux et votre fiabilité, traits qui sont prisés dans le monde des affaires.

Bien que la durée de votre préavis soit fixée par convention, elle reste toutefois négociable. En plus de l’entachement à votre réputation, le refus d’effectuer votre préavis pourrait se solder par le versement de votre part d’une indemnité à votre employeur. En conservant de bonnes relations avec votre responsable et votre ancien entreprise, vous êtes en position avantageuse pour partir dans les meilleures conditions.

Si vous souhaitez quitter votre entreprise mais n’êtes pas certain de retrouver un poste immédiatement, négociez une rupture conventionnelle avec votre employeur. Ce cas de figures n’est pas le même que celle du licenciement ou de la démission.

En plus, il donne droit au versement d’une indemnité de rupture et à l’indemnisation par les Assedic.

Cette strategie convient plutôt aux cas difficiles. Son principe est celui ci : vous convenez avec votre employeur des conditions de la rupture du contrat de travail, qui donne lieu à la signature d’une convention. La convention doit mentionner le montant de l’indemnité spécifique de rupture conventionnelle, et celle ci ne peut être inférieure à celle de l’indemnité légale de licenciement. Ces deux indemnités doivent être supérieures à 1/5 de salaire par année d’ancienneté, montant auquel s’ajoutent 2/15e de mois par année après 10 ans d’ancienneté.

Dans le cas ou vous êtes enceinte, vous êtes dispensée d’effectuer le préavis, de même au terme de votre congé maternité, à condition d’informer votre employeur de votre démission par lettre recommandée avec accusé réception au moins 15 jours avant la date prévue pour votre retour dans l’entreprise.

Il est impossible par contre de démissionner d’un contrat à durée déterminée (CDD). Seuls l’accord à l’amiable, la faute grave, la force majeure ou encore l’embauche sous contrat à durée indéterminée de l’intéressé, sont admis pour rompre un tel contrat.

Management is art and it is science:

It is the art of making people more effective than they would have been without you.
The science is in how you manage to do that.

There are basic pillars:

• Goal to achieve: define the target and figure out the best way to get there.
• Analyse : What are your resources ? What can you get? Compare strengths and weaknesses of individuals. Look at all the probable scenarios and evaluate your different plans and develop what seems to be the best option. Don’t forget to ask the people doing the work for their input and also think of the worse case scenario.
• Plan: Good management starts with good prior planning and the track record of accomplishments are part of your success.
• Organize: Do the legwork to make sure everything needed to execute the plan is ready to go, or will be when required. Check back to make sure that everyone understands their role and the importance of their contribution to the overall success. Conveying motivation is the key of your future success.
• Direct: Tell people what they need to do and coordinate the actions.
• Monitor: You have to keep an eye on your staff, checking that everything is going according to the plan; you might have to step in to adjust the plan whenever necessary.
• Don’t relax your attention: Problems will come up: someone will get sick or be dismissed; an element won’t be delivered on time; our accounting department won’t have paid an invoice on time, etc. That is why you need to have a contingency plan developed in the first place. You, as the manager, have to be always aware of what’s going on so you can make the adjustments required.

Management is an iterative process:

When something is out of sync, you need to fix it, organize the resources to make it work, direct the people who will make it happen, and continue to monitor the effect of the change.

Managing is necessary:

Managing people is not easy but can be a very rewarding experience.
Like any other skill, management is something that you can improve with study and practice.

Are managers linchpins?

“Management 101″ says any organization other than a small, family-run business should have as corporate policy to ensure there are no linchpins in the organization… Well, I would say that good managers are linchpins while bad managers are flat tires which can lead to accidents!

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Les bonnes résolutions sont une coutume de la civilisation occidentale qui consiste, à l’occasion du passage à la nouvelle année le 1er janvier, à prendre un ou plusieurs engagements envers soi-même pour améliorer son comportement, une habitude ou son mode de vie durant l’année à venir.

Le site officiel du gouvernement américain propose même une liste des bonnes résolutions les plus populaires dans le cas où vous n’auriez pas d’inspiration…

Arrêter de fumer, perdre du poids, prendre du temps pour soi, apprendre une nouvelle langue, changer de travail… Vous venez sans doute de prendre vous aussi vos bonnes résolutions…

Mais comment parvenir à les concrétiser ?

Restez humble et réaliste
Ne multipliez pas les objectifs car c’est la meilleure manière de ne rien changer du tout au final.
Fixez-vous un but précis, imaginez comment le mettre en pratique et préparez-vous mentalement à tous les efforts que cela implique.

Admettez les difficultés
Il y a des objectifs plus ou moins difficiles à atteindre ou à maintenir. Parmi ceux-là: trouver un nouveau travail qui vous plaise et où vous êtes reconnu.

Soyez entreprenant
Etablissez un plan d’action concret, en y allant étape par étape: plutôt que de dire cette année, je trouverai un nouvel emploi, dites je vais écrire au minimum trois lettres de candidature par mois et réanimer mon réseau social.

Faites le point régulièrement
Il est bon de faire régulièrement un état des lieux par rapport aux difficultés rencontrées: quelles sont ses forces et ses faiblesses. Au besoin, n’hésitez pas à redéfinir vos objectifs.

Et si vous n’y arrivez pas
En cas d’échec, n’en faites pas une défaite personnelle. Tentez plutôt de trouver pourquoi vous n’avez pas réussi. Ce n’est sans doute que partie remise. De toute manière, rappelez-vous que seule résolution sur dix est encore d’actualité douze mois plus tard, selon une étude du professeur Richard Wiseman.

Testez votre probabilité de réussite en remplissant son questionnaire.

La clé du succès semble résider dans des objectifs réalistes qui nous tiennent à cœur, une évolution progressive et la communication de nos souhaits auprès de ceux qui nous entourent.

Since January 2009, the unemployment rate in Switzerland has continued to rise. Though it has remained considerably lower than other European countries, the rising jobless rate in Switzerland is nonetheless symptomatic of economic transition. The process of finding a job in Switzerland has evolved considerably, with internet taking a central role in the job search.

To find a suitable job on one of the numerous internet job portals, one has to begin by identifying the sort of environment one wants to work in and the type of job one is seeking. Starting off the job hunting process by considering how one’s profile fits into the above can help the candidate identify a maximum of relevant offers and avoid wasting time on a multitude of job boards.

After choosing a few job boards, its best to configure one or more profiles as completely as possible, and stick with those portals, setting up web alerts to be informed of relevant jobs as they are published.

For managers and top experts and specialists, sites such as topjobs, qual, and experteer tend to be the preferred portals, though sites such as the latter actually charge job seekers and carry the additional annoyance of obliging job seekers to jump through the hoop of their registration process to respond to or even just to look at their job vacanciess. Both Topjobs and Qual allow the candidate to browse jobs anonymously, which also provides maximum value to the publishers of job vacancies.

There is an increasing tendency among job portals toward smaller focus, either on a particular occupational sector, professional level, or geographical area. There are more job sites now focusing on single cities, on specifically student internships, on only managerial roles, or on solely the medical profession.

A further recent development in the recruitment process is the increasing use of social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, et. al. to disseminate job opportunities and recruit ‘informally.’

Using social networks to hook up with an interesting job opportunity can be a delicate maneuver for the candidate if he does not plan well in advance. It is best to keep entirely separate those networks on which one socializes and those which one uses to ‘advertise’ one’s professional skill set.

The fortunes of the luxury watch making sector in Switzerland have continued to plummet with the number of workers joining the unemployed increasing 13.2% in one month.

The official rate of unemployment in Switzerland across all sectors is now 3.4% — although, as in all countries these official statistics are vigorously massaged and include only those currently receiving unemployment benefits.

At the end of March there were 135,000 unemployed enrolled at regional placement offices (ORPs), about 2500 more than in February, according to the federal government’s SECO. Compared to March 2008, the number of unemployed increased about 30%.

According to the statistics, unemployment affects foreigners more than Swiss with the respective rates 6.9% and 2.4%.

The number of long term unemployed – those who have been looking for more than a year– remains so far relatively stable: there were roughly 16,000 in March 2008 and there are roughly 16,000 now.

The SECO is planning for an unemployment rate of 3.8% for 2009 and 5.2% for 2010.

At the moment, the sectors hemorrhaging the most jobs are banking/finance and luxury industries. However other industries heavily export-oriented have also been affected, like machine tools. In the luxury watch industry, the number of jobs lost over the past few months has been striking.

Unemployment is also becoming a serious problem among youth, with the number of unemployed among 16-24 year olds rising to 4% from 2.9% last year.

Reductions in working hours – so called ‘partial unemployment’ – in which workers work fewer hours and are paid proportionally less, has continued to progress as well. For many months the banks have been letting go employees each month in drips of 10 or 20 at a time. The luxury watch sector is the most recent casualty of the global downturn, in terms of its impact on the local economy.

Sectors such as pharmaceuticals and agroalimentary industries are doing very well, despite the terrible economy, with Nestle recently announcing its intention to hire several hundred new employees over the next 12 months.

The institute for Healthy Work and the EPFZ are co-organizing a specialty diploma in the Workplace Medicine, Workplace Hygiene and ergonomics.

This new postgraduate degree — part of the Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in workplace health—is proposed jointly by the IST (part of the University of Lausanne) and the Ecole Polytechnic of Zurich.

The new curriculum which trains workplace medical staff, hygienists and ergonomics experts is the first of its kind in Switzerland (probably for good reason). The specialists are trained in the prevention and management of workplace accidents, occupational illnesses, and the insuring workplace security, thereby reducing costs related to absenteeism.

In essence, the workplace doctor is responsible for preventing and identifying occupational illnesses, as well as health problems related to employment conditions.
The hygienist is often a scientific profile, and is responsible for protecting employees at the workplace and dealing with occupational risks – chemical, pollution-related, environmental, noise, etc. – from the company’s activities. The domain of the ergonomics expert is the physical workplace environment and its tools, as well as the organization of the work such as to minimize psychological or social troubles.

The specialized curriculum is addressed mainly to professionals with jobs in the field of occupational health or who seek to find employment in work environment health, whether they be doctors, chemists, scientists, engineers, or even psychologists or social scientists.

The proposed curriculum is divided in four parts. Ten modules treat the basics of the profession (health, workplace psychology, physiology, toxicology, law, and workplace risk factors). A further eight modules are devoted to management (project management, executive management, etc.). Then a further ten modules of specialization in three domains of occupational health.

Registration is open until 30 April 2009 at the EPFZ, with coursework beginning in September 2009. Complete information is available at http://www.zoa.ethz.ch/education/continuing/masag

The Geneva University Hospital system (HUG) is opening a school for robotic abdominal surgery in a bid to become a center of excellence for new medical and operating table techniques.

Robots are used in micro-invasive surgery, which does not require large sutures. This type of mini surgery means patients are not cut wide open, with their organ(s) exposed, like in Emergency Room.

The Da Vinci robot, built by the private company American Intuitive Surgical, is used in abdominal and urological surgery. The first training courses at the specialized center took place under the direction of Prof. Philippe Morel of the visceral surgery group at the HUG.

The Geneva University Hospital is seeking to train roughly 80 surgeons per year with the new technique. To this end,

they’ve bought another robot and will be teaching the procedure using two cadavers.

Some critics of the university hospital system are saying the cadavers are actually ex-patients from previously unsuccessful operations.

Robotic surgical procedures allow via a doctor to prepare his operation in fine detail using a simulation program in the robot.

From the patient’s perspective, the technique reduces the possibility of errors or complications and reduces the overall cost of the procedure (as well as reducing the number of days spent in hospital), pleasing both the Insurance companies who get lower bills, and patients who have less anxiety over inebriated surgeons.

Geneva has larger ambitions with the program, hoping to become a sort of hi-tech center for robotic surgical techniques. Serge Serro, the president of Federation des Nouvelles Technologies, points out that Romandy has specific competencies in micro technologies and which he believes can be leveraged, along with fruitful associations with other university hospitals.

The HUG has invested several million francs in the new robotic equipment, which has high-resolution 3-dimensional vision and provides highly detailed medical imaging, most of which was financed by gifts from patients to the HUG.