Take Jack’s advice
Jack Welch, the former chief of General Electric, and Suzy Welch, his journalist wife, offer advice to staff from Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers this week. Writing in Business Week (September 29), they tell former Merrill employees to stop sulking and get on with it. “Your new owner has limited patience for pouters. They know M&A resisters slow work down and that their cynicism poisons the waters.” They advise those made redundant by Lehman to consider fresh options outside banking and/or in new locations. “To move forward, Lehman employees will need to think expansively and creatively about starting anew,” they write.

Go on a gap year
Undergraduates are taking an alternative approach to the credit crunch. A survey of 514 final-year students by TMP Worldwide and TargetJobs found that 54 per cent were considering taking a gap year after university. One in ten said that this was a deliberate ploy to escape the credit crunch. A quarter of male students said they thought that the economy would be in better shape in 2010 and 52 per cent said they believed that a gap year would improve their employability. Females were less sure, with only 13 per cent expecting the economy to be better after time off and 34 per cent saying time out would enhance their CV.

Train to be uptitled
For those who keep their jobs, Edge (September) has sobering news. Bosses are spending their money on training rather than pay rises. A poll of 1,200 business leaders found that almost half had cut back on pay, but two thirds had retained or increased their training spend. More than half plan to offer flexible working instead of pay rises. The magazine also focuses on the growth of uptitling, “the practice of changing an employee’s job title to something that sounds more impressive [and often ridiculous] in place of a promotion and pay rise”.

Think diagonally
There is more to making it big in the advertising sector than trendy media glasses. Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, has launched a self-assessment tool to assess whether people have what it takes to succeed. The 16-question test evaluates candidates’ ability to think diagonally. Apparently, the most successful individuals working in adland are both linear and lateral thinkers – they think diagonally. Test yourself at www.diagonalthinking.co.uk.

Marvel at the sales mentality
A survey of sales professionals published in Fortune (October 6) gives an insight into the mind of a salesperson. Tactics used to land meetings with clients include dancing for the secretary and inviting the client’s grandmother to dinner. Sales have been lost for some weird reasons, too: “I was taller than the client and they didn’t like it;” and “Customer said my accent was not real.”

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