Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Free Online MIT Courses

Find a Job - Job Opportunities - Free Online Courses

If you are keen to find a job then study courses can often help. Apparently you can study the MIT "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" courses online for free. You won't get a diploma, but the information has got to be useful too without the diploma ? At least you would hope so.

Would it be worth your while ?

Well, just in case you don't know who or what the MIT is, it is ranked No. 2 overall in the world as far as universities go, by the Times Higher Educational Supplement, - I guess Harvard is No. 1. MIT is No. 1 in technology and engineering, and No. 2 in science. So I suspect the answer to my question is - 'yes' (it would be worthwhile) and you can always put it in your CV that you studied the course.

There are a whole load of other rankings over at Wikipedia that show just how good MIT is, so putting courses online for free is quite amazing. I might even have a go at learning something myself ! Although I am a bit of an old dog, so new tricks may come hard.

Courses range from Aeronautics and Architecture through Biology and Chemistry to Mathematics, Women's Studies and Writing, plus a whole load more - you can check it out here MIT FREE COURSES

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Signs That People Are Lying

Find a Job - How to Spot a Fake at a Job Interview

When trying to find a job, candidates will obviously stress their strengths and gloss over their weaknesses, but it’s useful to be able to tell the difference between an exaggeration and a lie, for both the interviewer and the intervieweee. After all employers sometimes tell porky pies too.

So how do you spot a liar? The following tips may help.

According to behavioural psychologists and body language experts, liars tend to limit their arm and hand movements and the movements that they do make will be toward themselves. They also avoid making eye contact. Any expressions and gestures will not correspond to what they say — for example saying "I am a good team player" while frowning would indicate a lie.

They will also change the subject as quickly as possible if they are not comfortable with what they are saying and limit their facial expressions to just mouth movements when they are trying to fake emotions.

According to eye movement experts Brandler and Grinder, if you want to know whether a person is telling the truth, follow their eyes. There is a difference between creating an image in the mind and remembering an image. From your viewpoint a 'normally organised' right-handed person looks up and to the left in the first case and to the right and up in the second case. They will glance left when ‘creating a sound’, and glance right when remembering an actual audio. So when asked if he/she is a team player, if the interviewee says "I am a good team player" while looking to left this would indicate that the answer was made up, as their eyes show that they are constructing an image or sound. If they look right this would indicate they are telling the truth as they are 'remembering' a voice or an image.

It is worth remembering that these techniques can be used by both parties, as it is not unknown for recruiters to make all sorts of promises they have no intention of fulfilling . So remember you are interviewing them at the same time as they are interviewing you and you may wish to scrutinize them closely.