What Your Body Language Tells The Interviewer

 

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The Interview begins before you even say your first word. They’ll be sizing you up as you walk across the room to shake hands. Be conscious of how you look and what you’re doing, and try not to overlook the verbal and non-verbal signals you’re sending out in the rush to parade your carefully prepared answers before them.

Pace yourself

Speak deliberately more slowly than you would normally. There’s a trick here. You’ll be revved up as you go in, so you will naturally speak more quickly than normal. If you concentrate on pronouncing your words individually, you’ll actually be speaking at a normal speed.

Think of good speakers you’ve experienced throughout your education or working life. You’ll remember the ones who were more focused and engaging. That’s not to say they were the funniest, loudest or most entertaining, but they were almost certainly the most animated. Focus, you’re not there to entertain – so leave the jokes at the door – but you are there to look like you want the job. Concentrate on that and let your commitment and energy shine through.
Non-verbal signals

A firm but not crushing handshake is the one to go for. The ‘wet fish’ technique is a guaranteed turn off.
Don’t slouch in your chair, whether in reception or the interview room. Slouching says “I don’t care” and should be reserved for lazy Sundays on the sofa. Walk and sit up straight.
Always look the interviewer in the eye. Be confident, and don’t stare past your questioner or at the floor. Avoid glancing nervously around the room as this is the classic sign of someone with something to hide. If there is more than one interviewer, make sure you look at each of them when answering questions and keep your eyes on their face.
To find out what to do with your hands, watch yourself in a mirror or the office window when you’re on the phone – you’ll use some of the same gestures when you’re talking. It’s fine to gesture with your hands, but don’t overdo it.
Don’t fidget and don’t play around with your hair, pen, nails, chair, jiggle your knees, tap your leg or anything else. It drives people crazy and will distract them from what you’re saying.
Be aware of how you are sitting, moving and the general impression you’re giving out. So smile occasionally; it will make you all feel better.

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£3.8bn To Be Spent On Road Improvements

Highways England chiefs are meeting contractors and suppliers to detail a wave of new projects worth over £3.8bn in the Midlands and East of England over the next five years

Roadworks Sign

The event held yesterday and today form part of an ongoing regional roadshow to drive home Highways England’s national plan for 112 major road improvements, including 15 smart motorway projects in its first five years of operation.

Roads minister Andrew Jones said the Government spending plan was to triple levels of spending on England’s roads by the end of the decade.

“As part of our long-term economic plan, we are making the biggest investment in roads in a generation.”

He underlined the Government’s commitment to spend £3.8bn in both regions, ahead of the Chancellor’s spending review on 25 November, which many industry watchers fear could take a slice out of planned transport investment.

Midlands (£1.8bn): schemes to start by 2021

• Improvements planned for M42 junction 6
• New smart motorway around the M42/M40 interchange
• Development of a new link road connecting M54, M6 and the M6 Toll
• New, bigger M6 Junction 10
• Plans to replace roundabouts at A50 Uttoxeter
• Widening of the A500 at Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent
• New smart motorway between M6 junctions 13 and 15
• Improvements planned for A46 junctions
• A new smart motorway between junction 2 and 4 of the M6
• Improvement for the A38 Derby junctions
• Widening of the A5 Dodwells to Longshoot
• A new smart motorway between junction 23a and 25 of the M1

Across the West Midlands, Highways England will also spend around £600m on maintenance, including £160m to resurface more than 900 miles of carriageway; £225m for repairing and renewing structures like bridges and viaducts; and £60m to improve vehicle barriers.

East of England (£2bn): schemes to start by 2019/20

• A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon major improvements in Cambridgeshire
• Upgrading six sections of the A47/A12 corridor in Norfolk across a 115 mile section of the A47 between Peterborough and Great Yarmouth.
• Increasing capacity on the A1(M) providing an additional 14 lane miles to relieve congestion in Hertfordshire, including Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City
• Upgrading technology at junctions on the M11 across Essex and Cambridgeshire, from Stansted Airport to Cambridge
• Providing technology along the A12 in Essex and Suffolk from the M25 to Ipswich and widening the stretch between Chelmsford and the A120 to 3 lanes
• Providing a new 13 mile stretch of dual carriageway on the A428 between western Cambridgeshire and the north east of Bedfordshire
• Building 17 new cycle paths including along parts of the A12, A47, A120 and A5.

This story is by constructionenquirer.com

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Are Bouygues Up For The Test?

Bouygues UK has staged another major contract coup by securing the £100m headquarters development for Cambridge University’s Exam Board

The French contracting giant’s UK arm has beaten shortlisted rival Balfour Beatty to build a five-storey complex, known as the Triangle, covering an area the size of three-and-a-half football pitches.

Earlier this month Bouygues also beat Balfour to secure the UK’s biggest building contract for phase three of the vast Battersea Power Station development.

A spokesman for the client said that John F Hunt had just completed demolition works and Bouygues had now just taken possession of the site to start foundation works.

The Triangle site in Cambridge will provide a new headquarters for Cambridge Assessment and its 3,000 staff.

Triangle Cambridge

The 450,000 sq ft complex of linked buildings will also include a courtyard entrance and extensive green and outdoor spaces as well as a 39.1 m tower that will be a landmark when approaching Cambridge from the south of the city.

This story is by constructionenquirer.com

 

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Clugston Awarded Service And Logistics Facility

Siemens has awarded Clugston the contract to build a 12,300 sq m service and logistics facility at Hull’s Alexandra Dock which will support a wind turbine blade factory already under construction at the site

Siemens wind turbine plant

The building will house facilities for the service and maintenance of wind turbines as well as the storage of parts and equipment required in pre-assembly and operational phases.

It will also be the logistics hub for Siemens’ UK onshore and offshore service business.

The Enquirer understands the deal is worth around £11m and construction will begin in November and is due to be completed in early autumn 2016.

Shaun Cray, Siemens’ General Manager, Real Estate and Construction, for the Hull project, said: “Clugston supplied the most competitive bid, in terms of programme and price, as well as proposing an innovative engineering solution to deliver enhanced value to Siemens, in order to secure this contract against significant competition from other high-quality regional and national construction companies.

“We are very pleased to be able to award a major contract to a company with a long history in the Humber region and, once again, deliver on our commitment to support local procurement wherever possible.”

Construction information specialist Glenigan said other bidders included Graham, Henry Boot, Lindum, VINCI and Hobson & Porter.

Steve Radcliffe, Managing Director of Clugston Construction, said: “As a local business whose involvement in the Humber area stretches back almost 80 years, we are excited to be playing a part in building this facility which will play such an important role in the growth of the offshore wind industry and establishing the region as the centre of renewable energy in the UK.

“In delivering this scheme we will draw upon our local construction skills and supply chain which will create further economic benefits for the region.

“As members of UK Build, the trade body formed to represent main contractors and specialist subcontractors, we support the drive to promote the economic advantages of using local construction skills and resources.

“This is based on evidence that every £1 spent on construction output generates £2.84 of total economic activity, with much of that retained locally due to the structure of the construction industry.

“To achieve this, we will draw on existing relationships, established over many years, with regional suppliers and host a ‘meet the buyer’ event to create additional local opportunities.”

VolkerFitzpatrick is currently building the main Hull blade factory and VolkerFitzpatrick has awarded a major subcontract for electrical and mechanical services to Hull-based Neville Tucker Heating Limited.

This story is by constructionenquirer.com

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Labour Plan To Build A Stagering 100,000 New Homes A Year

Labour party set out its plans for housing and infrastructure

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At its annual conference in Brighton, the Labour party has added detail to its plans to reinvigorate social house building, take more state control of infrastructure projects and offer employees additional rights.

Newly-appointed shadow housing minister John Healey launched a paper outlining Labour’s alternative proposals for increasing output in this Parliament, 2015-20. It believes that output from the social sector – although including units for sale – can be scaled up to reach up to 100,000 extra units a year by 2020.

The report proposes five measures:

  • Giving councils the freedom to borrow against their assets, creating up to 60,000 additional homes over five years.
  • Tightening the obligations of commercial developers to fund more new social homes through the planning system, restoring the number of homes delivered through this method to enable 16,000 new homes a year.
  • Reform of Right to Buy to actually deliver one-for-one replacements, bringing in 6,000 additional replacement homes per year compared to the status quo.
  • Using the power of the government balance sheet to bring down the cost of finance for housing associations by extending the guarantee scheme, creating an additional 2,000 homes per year.
  • Funding a significant HCA grant programme to allow councils and housing associations to build at scale, and lever in private finance. Calculating the grant needed at £60,000 per unit, the same level offered in 2008-11, would enable an average of 30,000 additional units per year.

Healey’s report also proposes looking at ideas from France, “where the introduction of popular tax-free savings accounts now provides the source for a good deal of the country’s social housing finance”, and Denmark, “where there is a national mechanism for pooling and recycling housing association surpluses”.

The speech by John McDonnell, the new shadow chancellor, was billed as a “rejection of austerity politics”. He set out a plan to transform the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, creating “a powerful economic development department, in charge of public investment, infrastructure planning and setting new standards at work for all employees”.

This would also involve creating “an effectively resourced and empowered national investment bank”.

McDonnell announced that Sir Bob Kerslake, formerly head of the civil service in 2012-14 under the coalition, chairman of the Peabody Trust and also a former chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency, has been appointed to conduct a review of the Treasury as part of a wider look at the role of the state in economic life.

Meanwhile, Angela Eagle, shadow first secretary of state and shadow secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, described a “race to the top” driven by more R&D investment and innovation, and supported by government-backed industrial strategies.

She referred to a “skills emergency” in construction, manufacturing, science, engineering and technology.

The conference also passed a motion calling for a “new deal” for workers that would include a new Ministry of Labour, extending employment rights to the first day of employment, and a “genuine” Living Wage.

Brian Rye, acting general secretary of UCATT, who seconded the motion, said: “For the majority of private sector construction workers, employment tends to be nasty, brutish and short. Most workers do not have a permanent employer. Most large construction companies barely employ a single construction worker.”

This story is from construction-manager.co.uk

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5 Tips For An Interview

5 Tips to help you with an interview

interview-in-progress-sign

1. Do your research
Fail to plan, and you plan to fail. You are certain to be asked specific questions about the company, so make sure you’ve done your homework on things like their last year’s profits and the latest company news. Also take a look at the latest developments in the industry so you can converse with confidence.

 
2. Practice your answers
Although there is no set format that every job interview will follow, there are some questions that you can almost guarantee will crop up. You should prepare answers to some of the most common interview questions about your personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as being able to explain why you would be the best person for the job.

 
3. Look the part
Appearances shouldn’t matter, but the plain fact is that you are often judged before you’ve even uttered a word. Make sure you are dressed to impress.

 
4. Stay calm
Good preparation is the key to staying in control. Plan your route, allowing extra time for any unexpected delays and get everything you need to take with you ready the night before. Remember to speak clearly, smile and remember that your interviewers are just normal people.

 
5. Ask questions
You should always have some questions for your interviewer to demonstrate your interest in the position. Prepare a minimum of five questions, some which will give you more information about the job and some which delve deeper into the culture and goals of the company.

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VolkerStevin Bags Super Sewer Enabling Works

VolkerStevin has been appointed by Thames Water to carry out enabling works in advance construction of the massive Thames Tideway Tunnel 

Thames Super Sewer

The £23m project will involve preparing the way for numerous marine construction projects along the Thames.

It follows the appointment of J Murphy and Sons earlier this year to undertake utility protection and diversion works for the project.

Rob Coupe, managing director at VolkerStevin, said: “This is an exciting project and one we are proud to be a part of.

“After a successful early contractor phase, we are delighted to continue working on this important scheme, which will benefit Londoner’s for years to come.”

The work is all part of the larger Thames Tideway Tunnel project  which will help the capital cope with growing demands on its sewerage system and improve the water quality of the river using combined sewer overflow interceptor structures.

Mark Sneesby, chief operating officer for Tideway, said: “VolkerStevin will deliver this important preparatory work in advance of the main tunnelling project next year.

“It’s great to see work actually beginning on what will be an exciting construction project.”

This article is from constructionenquirer.co.uk

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