A sad day for comedy: Its sayonara to one of big businesses loose cannons, Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo, who is stepping down at big boss. He’s been entertainingly under fire from his staff and board after cocking-up a sale to Microsoft earlier this year and then waving goodbye to Google in a proposed internet advertising tie-up. He wrote to employees to say he would find another buyer, and never did. Yahoo is surprisingly popular outside of the UK, where Google is king, and a new boss might just be the shot in the arm the company needs, so definitely put them on your “possible employer” list. Yang’s e-mail to employees ended with the words: “All of you know that I have always and will always bleed purple” - in reference to the predominant colour on the company’s logo. Er…which is red.

Tags: Graduate careers at Microsoft, graduate jobs at Yahoo, IT, Marketing, Online

The glass ceiling debate has garnered an extraordinary new piece of evidence. Research in the Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy has dug deep to find why women continue to earn less money than men, even in similar jobs. The see-saw debate: It’s either gender discrimination or simply that women slow down their career in favour of a family. The recent research suggests discrimination. Researchers found that women who were established in jobs and who then underwent sex changes to become men actually increased their earnings slightly, but that men who had the snip to become women lost about one-third of their earning power. Ouch (in every sense!)

Tags: Careers for women, graduate job interview talking piont, women earn less than men

Ryanair has got to be an employer of choice right now; when they aren’t misleading customers with false claims in advertising; or crash landing in Rome, they’re asking their staff to take their clothes off and fellate the top-up tube of a life jacket. It’s okay though; its all for charidee. The firm is once-again selling a children’s charity calendar on flights that shows real Ryanair staff in bikinis posing in various locations around an airport and on-board their planes. The Girls of Ryanair Calendar 2008 will be available on board all flights from Saturday November 17, with money going to Angels Quest, which provides respite care for special needs children. Nice.

Tags: graduate careers with Ryanair, Planes, Trains and Automobiles

“Britain’s bosses are bastards.” So would read my headline to encapsulate the findings of a survey by recruitment consultants Endaba, who interviewed over 5,000 workers. 50% think their CEOs don’t care about staff, and 40% believe bosses don’t say what they mean (er…lie). Lynette Deutsch, boss of Endaba, said: “Lack of trust can lead to lack of confidence. In an unstable market, this can have a devastating effect on organisations and their share prices - as we are witnessing on a daily basis during the current economic crisis.” But the chances are she’s lying.

Tags: Graduate interview talking point, recruitment consultants

You got to stand back and think to do well when times are hard and there’s some predictable business that struggle. Dry cleaners for example all go out of business, and so do restaurants. What’s interesting this time round is that with people working round the clock to keep their business afloat, the ordering of takeaways to the workplace has increased 236% in the last six months! As staff fear getting the elbow a survey of over 1000 employees showed 42% have worked late in the past month on more than five occasions. Pizza is the most popular takeaway choice, with 83% of sales attributed to it. “I may be stressed, but at least I’m fat!” Nice one Britain.

Tags: Flexible working, Graduate job interview talking point, working late