Eideard

Think you could be the next Technical Assistant? Graduate Assistant to Stephen Hawking

The salary is expected to be in the region of £25K; the exact value will be confirmed in the near future.

Disclaimer: This is not an official job applications page, however similar it may look! The official applications process will be started when the post has been properly advertised, probably in mid-January. We will not be able to offer the post to anyone on the strength of this unofficial submission alone; we can only direct people to apply through the official channel. However, if you fit our requirements, we would like to hear from you.

The post is more accurately described by the title “Technical Assistant to Stephen Hawking.” It is not a PhD or Post-Doc position for academics looking to study physics, but a purely technical post to allow Prof. Hawking to function within the physics community and as a public speaker.

…The job…now includes:

Managing national and international travel for Prof. Hawking and his care team. Expect to spend around 3 months per year abroad!
Development and maintenance of Professor Hawking’s communication and speech systems
Procurement and maintenance of his wheelchairs and accessible van
Preparation of lecture graphics and public speaking
Dealing with the media and press
Answering inquiries from the public and maintaining the website
The post requires a wide range of skills, most importantly:
Ability to work under pressure
Maintenance of “black box” systems with no instruction manual or technical support
Computer literacy
Electronics knowledge
Ability to speak to a large audience
Ability to show others how to use complex systems

The role of ‘Graduate Assistant to Professor Hawking’ is funded as a research post at the University of Cambridge. Normally it has been under a 12 month contract, although recent graduate assistants have stayed on for several years.

For the application form, click here. I wish I was about 30 years younger.

Thanks, Ursarodinia

A Metro Detroit automotive firm is hiring 100 new automotive engineers this year, thanks to a $10 million investment by a Chinese parts and accessory company.

Summitech Engineering Inc. plans to double its engineering work force by September as part of a partnership with China Auto Parts & Accessories Corp., or CAPAC, a Chinese government-owned enterprise, company officials said Friday at a Detroit Economic Club luncheon in Birmingham.

The Canton Township-based engineering firm is itself a subsidiary of a Chinese auto supplier, Tempo International Group. Summitech designs, engineers and develops chassis systems, modules and components.

The two Chinese companies are investing in facilities here in hopes of tapping the technical expertise of the U.S. auto industry and bringing it to China, where the car industry is expanding at a pace faster than its less-experienced suppliers can match.

“For the Chinese automotive industry growth, we definitely need the talent, experience and collaboration of the U.S.,” said Tianbao Zhou, chairman of Tempo International, speaking through a translator.

The Chinese auto market hit record sales last year of 18 million vehicles, and industry experts anticipate that sales will continue to climb this year, with new wealth and a growing population in China fueling demand for new vehicles…

Of course, we still get to deal with Cold Warriors in Congress who are afraid some foreign country will surpass us in producing 1979 Oldsmobiles or computers running DOS.

In a globalized economy, I’m proud of the fact that we still have expertise and talent to offer to the market.

CEO confidence is up even amidst talk of a double dip recession, according to the Vistage CEO Confidence Index 2nd quarter results. While CEOs of small to medium sized businesses have lowered their expectations for the pace of growth in the overall economy, they remain confident that, over the next twelve months, they will increase revenues and profits, as well as hire new employees.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, CEO confidence indexed at 48.7 – an all-time low since the survey began in 2003. According to University of Michigan’s Dr. Richard Curtin, who has directed the survey since its inception, CEO confidence rose to 94.4 this quarter, marking the sixth consecutive quarterly increase.

According to Vistage International Chairman and CEO Rafael Pastor, the Q2 results are particularly significant, “CEOs of small to medium size companies have adjusted to the lean economy, are doing more with less, and have positioned their companies for success. Their continued confidence sends a strong message that small and medium sized businesses will be among those who will lead our overall economic recovery.”

Other highlights of the survey of more than 1,600 CEOs of small to medium sized businesses, all of whom are members of Vistage International include:

Planned declines in employment fell to just 9% in the 2nd quarter of 2010, the lowest level in three years. Plans to expand their workforce were reported by 44% of all CEO’s in the 2nd quarter survey, unchanged from the prior quarter…

Small Business in China. Nearly 25% of the CEOs surveyed say they are or will be doing business in China, a remarkable percentage of SMBs.

Small to medium businesses are generally considered to drive about 75% of the U.S. economy. I happened to see Rafael Pastor on TV, this afternoon, answering questions about this survey. It got pretty funny – since the Wall Street analyst doing the interviewing was obviously trying to get dour analysis from a guy who was pretty stoked about the optimism reflected in the quarterly study.

Barry J. Sykes gets job interviews – when Barry Jabbar Sykes doesn’t!

Johnny R. Williams, 30, would appear to be an unlikely person to have to fret about the impact of race on his job search, with companies like JPMorgan Chase and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago on his résumé.

But after graduating from business school last year and not having much success garnering interviews, he decided to retool his résumé, scrubbing it of any details that might tip off his skin color. His membership, for instance, in the African-American business students association? Deleted.

“If they’re going to X me,” Mr. Williams said, “I’d like to at least get in the door first…”

That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama’s election.

But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.

College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent…

RTFA. I hope you’re not surprised or shocked. Bigotry is as American as apple pie.

Advances in law don’t guarantee improvement in ethics. Most of the people making excuses for racism don’t consider themselves bigots.

Migrant workers arrive in Beijing for training as domestic help
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Chinese employment service providers said domestic firms have started a fresh round of hiring, especially for management level position, as part of the efforts to cash in on the economic recovery, but most of these firms are still finding it hard to get the right candidates.

Three industries — real estate, hi-tech and retailing — are at the forefront of the current round of hiring, according to China Daily.

DoWelljoin Hunter…sees clients back for new hires last month. Its business has grown by 40 percent last month compared with the previous months. The growth rate was even higher than a year earlier.

However, companies in China are still finding it difficult to get the right candidates for the wanted positions, said a survey by Manpower.

According to the survey, 15 percent of the employers are struggling to fill up positions. The top three jobs that they are having difficulties to fill up this year are technicians, management or executives and sales representatives.

We’ll have to loan them some Republicans who can stand around say, “there is no recovery, there is no recovery. No. no. no!”

Sell lots of apples – not just one at a time on a street corner

Everyone knows the grim news — unemployment in the United States has jumped to 8.5 percent, a 25-year high, and is racing toward double digits. Since November, the nation has lost more than three million jobs. But not everyone knows the brighter side to the equation: deep in the maw of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, millions are still being hired.

So, while 4.8 million workers were laid off or chose to leave their jobs in February, employers across the country hired 4.3 million workers that month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The best thing you can say about these numbers is it speaks to the dynamism of the U.S. economy, and the net negative number that we all traffic in masks that,” said Robert J. Barbera, chief economist at ITG, a research and trading firm. “Ninety out of 100 people who know the number — 650,000 were lost in February — think that means no one was hired and 650,000 were fired.”

Who is hiring? Hospitals, colleges, discount stores, restaurants and municipal public works departments. I.B.M. is hiring more than 700 people for its new technical services center in Dubuque, Iowa, while the Cleveland Clinic has 500 job openings, not just for nurses but also for pharmacy aides and physical therapists. And after President Obama’s stimulus package kicks into gear, state, local governments and road-building contractors are expected to hire more.

RTFA. Positive, useful information – especially if you’re unemployed or looking for a career change.

In an effort to crack down on illegal labor, the Department of Homeland Security intends to step up enforcement efforts against employers who knowingly hire such workers.

Under guidelines to be issued to Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices, agents will be instructed to take aim at employers and supervisors for prosecution “through the use of carefully planned criminal investigations.”

Senior officials of the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday that illegal workers would continue to be detained in raids on workplaces. But the officials said they hoped to mark an abrupt departure from past practices by making those arrests as part of an effort to build criminal and civil cases against employers.

Under the Bush administration, the officials said, most raids were conducted largely on the basis of tips that an employer was hiring illegal workers, rather than on information gleaned from audits of employer records or undercover investigations. As a result, agents rounded up thousands of illegal immigrants but rarely developed the evidence necessary to show whether businesses were knowingly using illegal labor…

“Enforcement efforts focused on employers better target the root causes of illegal immigration,” say the guidelines, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “ICE must prioritize the criminal prosecution of actual employers who knowingly hire illegal workers because such employers are not sufficiently punished or deterred by the arrest of their illegal work force.”

Overdue.

Megasite for Volkswagen Factory
Daylife/AP Photo

Amid a sluggish national economy and angst in the American auto industry, Volkswagen is ramping up construction of its $1 billion assembly plant in Chattanooga.

Just days away from pouring the project’s first concrete, about 50 VW, Hamilton County and state officials stood on a gravel pad Wednesday at what will become the plant’s body shop, eyeing the Enterprise South site.

“Everything’s perfect,” said VW Plant Manager Frank Fischer.

While an official groundbreaking ceremony won’t take place until January, Mr. Fischer said the paint shop will be the first building to be constructed, and it will be larger than planned.

“We’re building it for 1,000 cars per day,” he said, adding the work is “coming along very well. We’re very happy about it.”

Despite a slowing American auto market, Mr. Fischer said VW’s board is dedicated to the Chattanooga project, which is to start vehicle production by 2011 and employ 2,000 people.

I know I bore you all when I say this – but, I wish they’d build me a mid-sized diesel pickup truck.

This award won’t do ‘em any harm either.

According to ACSBlog, the Justice Department has released a memo providing legal cover for faith-based programs who receive federal funding but use religious affiliation as a basis for hiring. The memo, which is available here, reinterprets the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to categorically exempt any religious organization that receives federal funding from any anti-discrimination policies, even if the programs through which these groups receive their funding specifically require inclusive hiring practices.

The blog post references a New York Times article, which delves deeper into the hiring practices of World Vision, a faith-based group that receives federal money to pay for its anti-gang programs, but only hires Christians. According to ACS, World Vision defines itself as “an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice, and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God.”

Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said “The Bush administration has been trying to allow religious recipients of tax dollars to discriminate in hiring. No Congress intended that. The Constitution does not permit it. And this memo is just one more example of this administration subverting Congressional and constitutional intent in pursuit of a forbidden goal: discrimination in hiring.”

I wonder if McCain would have the integrity to consider halting practices like this?

A once-proud politicians who used to stand a little bit apart from the Congressional mob has now made the decisions to represent the worst of the least – in his attempt to take the ultimate seat in American power. He’s already fallen.