With so much uncertainty regarding in the employment market, employers are reluctant to hire new employees on a permanent basis and are leaning more towards hiring staff on a casual or temporary basis to fill those roles that previously might have been considered a permanent post. Employers are more comfortable taking short-term risks under the current situation.

Gillian Meier, CEO of Jobs.co.za says: “In recent discussions with a number of recruitment agencies we have discovered that many employment agencies who previously only placed permanent staff are now forced into having to do temporary placements to ensure that they continue to drive revenue in their businesses, while maintaining an existing relationship with their clients by being flexible towards their current needs, whether that be to fill permanent or temporary posts”.

The term ‘flexible staffing’ therefore holds true to recruiters, employers and Job Seekers in that everyone has to become more flexible under the current times.

For those who might be new to the world of Temporary Employment, here are some basic guidelines to Temporary Employment in South Africa:

The Skills Development Act stipulates that temporary employment agencies must be registered with the Department of Labour. Basic Guide to Private Employment Agencies.

Workers whose services are provided to a client by an employment agency are employed by the agency. The agency is the employer of the worker. The employee is then under a Temporary Contract of Employment with the employment agency (who is the temporary employer) and the Client, who is a third party, will typically enter into a ‘Contract of Work’ with the agency.

The employment agency hires out the services of the temporary employee to the client. The client pays the employment agency and the agency is therefore responsible for paying the temporary employee the agreed upon salary. The employment agency charges a far higher rate (salary) to the client than hat it has to pay the temporary employee, this being how the employment agency makes its money.

Upon completion of the assignment the Temporary Contract of Employment is automatically terminated and the Employment agency and Temporary employee then enter into a new Temporary Contract of Employment for each new assignment.

Although there is no direct employment relationship between the employee and the client, except for the ‘implied’ contract of work, both the employment agency and client (Company) are jointly responsible to stick to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.

Occasionally a temporary employee may be employed directly by the Company thereby bypassing an employment agency entirely.

Whether employed through an employment agency (or labour broker) or by the Company directly, under the Basic Conditions of Employment Act a temporary employee must receive annual paid leave, sick leave and so on and is entitled to family responsibility leave, sick leave and overtime as with any other employee.  Furthermore, temporary employees are also entitled to be paid for public holidays that arise during the tenure of employment.

The termination of a Temporary Contract of Employment does not necessarily specify a terminate date, it usually details the termination of the contract being upon the occurrence of a particular event. For instance, the contract will terminate when the employee who is being filled in for returns from maternity leave, or sick leave etc. Or the contract is terminated upon completion of a particular task.

A worker who is an independent contractor is not an employee of a temporary employment service.  Visit the South African Labour Guide for more information on the understanding the differences between a contractor and a temporary employee in regards to the Employee’s Status.

Related Links

The department of labour provides specific Temporary Employment conditions in the following areas:

• Basic Guide to Temporary Employment Services (Wholesale and Retail);
• Basic Guide to Temporary Employment Services (Domestic Workers)
• Basic Guide to Temporary Employment Services (Farm Workers)

A survey was recently conducted on a sample of 750 small, medium & large organisations in South Africa for the first quarter of this year. The results indicated that 69% of companies said that they had no intention of altering their headcount in the next three months. Only 7% suggested that they anticipated staff reductions in the next three months, while 21% surprisingly forecasted growth in their staffing levels.

If you are breathing a sigh of relief at the figure of 7% and feel that you possibly do not fall into that percentage, then you just might need to take a step back and ask yourself if you are really that indispensable to your company. Are you truly adding value to the critical functions of the business?

If you are already unemployed and find yourself struggling to find a permanent job under these tough economical times then you might want to consider boosting your CV with a few more skills or by taking on temporary jobs in the interim. When searching through the job boards such as Jobs.co.za, don’t be too selective when filtering out jobs that might not be offering you the desired salary that you have in mind. You might find a great opportunity paying less than you had hoped for, but if you are prepared to sacrifice a little on the salary to get the offer, you can certainly prove your worth once you start your new job with the company. Once the economical situation improves, your employer will most likely be happy to entertain a salary increase to commensurate with the value that you have contributed to the company during the trying times.

Make sure that your CV is always up to date. You can create a professional CV on Jobs.co.za or upload an existing CV that is stored online and is available to you 24/7 from anywhere in the world. As long as your CV is complete and updated, you can access it quickly once an opportunity presents itself to you.

Whether employed or not if you can afford to, then now is the time to acquire a new skill. Those employees who have rare skills and qualifications will become increasingly in demand over the next few months.
If you are currently employed, hold on to your job and think twice before resigning. Now is not the time to resign unless you have already secured alternative employment. And never resign unless you have another firm signed offer in your hand from an alternative stable and credible company.

I hope you are all well and having a great week so far.

While to some, this may be old news but I wanted to chat to you about the budget speech that Trevor Manual, South Africa’s Finance Minister delivered last week during what seemed to be a melancholy address of the nation regarding finances for the upcoming financial year.

Understandably so, aside from the global economy scraping along the underbelly of the recession pool, our countries economy is taking its fair amount of strain along with the upcoming political challenges that we will be faced with in April.

Not to say the upcoming elections are a bad thing, but these do always tend to create a little bit of a dip in foreign investment while under way. Needless to say, Mr Manual delivered a beautifully articulated speech, as to be expected and the one thing that I’m absolutely stoked beyond my prayer beads about is the announcement of reduced personal income tax. While there is a very sound and smart strategy behind this, in my eyes it’s still completely terrific that we will all be paying marginally less tax each month which will ultimately mean we clear just a little bit of extra cash after each pay day. With the intention of injecting more wealth into our own economy ahead of the 2010 world cup as well as to clear the domestic debauchery of dept that most of us are battling to cover, bring on the tax relief! Trevor for President!

In fact I’m so excited about this reduction in personal income tax I have included a handy tax calculator link to help you to work out how much of a saving you will be making with this financial years reduction. The attached tax calculator is compliments iafrica.com and not only shows you what you can expect to pay in personal income tax this year but how this amount compares to what you were paying during last year.

Here are a few other top financial changes that will be applied as a result of the budget speech;

• Sin Taxes Increase (expense)

- A box of cigarettes will now cost an additional 88 cents per box

- A bottle of spirits (750ml) will increase by R3.21

- A can of beer will now cost 7cents more

• Petrol and Diesel on the Rise in April (around 40 cents per litre) (expense)
• Old age, Disability and Care Grants to increase by R50 per month (income)
• Foster Care Grant to Increase to R680 (income)
• Child Support Grant of R240 per child is now extended to children up to the age of 15 years
• R932 Million to be injected into the treatment and prevention of HIV/Aids

And that’s about as much financial coverage as I choose to dabble in.

Go check out the tax calculator, amidst the doom and gloom of our finances I think you may be pleasantly surprised at the saving you will be making in the next 12 months.

Hope you all have a marvellous evening and I will catch up with you later on in the week.

Namaste’

Jo Blog

Joblog@jobs.co.za

While the current state of global economies are resulting in even unsatisfied workers being more inclined to hold onto their jobs for the time being, these stats have identified 4 differentiated groups of workers with varying degrees of loyalty, motivation and overall job and company satisfaction.

Stats produced by TNS have segmented employees into four distinguishable groups;

• Workers Committed to both their Job and their Company – Ambassador’s
• Workers Committed to their Company but not their Job – Company Orientated
• Workers Committed to their Job but not their Company – Career Orientated
• Workers Uncommitted to their Job and their Company – Uncommitted

As obvious as it may be, those employees with a greater sense of job and company satisfaction the healthier, productive and balanced their lives are where conversely those who show no commitment to neither their job nor their employer are off ill more frequently, take duvet days more often than others, have lower output or productivity levels, generally suffer from more health issues and tend to experience more severe levels of stress than others.

To further illustrate the extent to which workers are affected by commitment and job satisfaction levels, these are the stats that have been quoted;

Ambassador (48%)

Specialised roles in larger enterprises that strive to create employee centric working environments

Company orientated (4%):

“Brand Loyal” Employee’s (often creative’s and financiers)

Career orientated (18%)

Roles that are established around transferable skills application
Uncommitted (29%)

Sales roles that can be applied to multitude of selling skill or sales industries

While it is encouraging to see that majority of workers are “Ambassadors” with a total of 48% leading the way, the closest following figure points out that 255 people out of 880 are uncommitted to their employers as well as their careers.

Pretty frightening if you consider that we spend more time at work than at home which means there are many unhappy, potentially ill and stressed out people in the world.

I hope that this has provided you with some food for thought and if you feel that you could potentially be of the uncommitted quadrant, that you do something about this and do it quick.

The bottom line is; work is something that we should enjoy and love to do day in and day out. Sure we all have bad days in the office and sometimes can’t bear the thought of having to deal with another task on our “to do” list, but life is supposed to be fulfilling and exciting and at best enjoyable.

Try to find what it is that makes your working world spin round and chase it until you’ve got it.

The only person you are doing an injustice to is YOU and by selling yourself and your career short will force you into the “Uncommitted” corner, which if you think about it, is a really sad and unproductive place to put yourself in.

I hope you all have a great evening and will see you all tomorrow.

- Horrah Friday is just one more sleep away!

Peace Out!

Jo Blog

joblog@jobs.co.za

0861 JOBS 101

Piggy-backing off the instability and vulnerability that consumers are currently experiencing as a result of the current state of the global economy, internet fraudsters are becoming more active in stealing the identities of unsuspecting audiences along with increased Phishing practices intended to gain access to sensitive personal information as well as banking or credit information.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures”, with online criminals feeling the heat themselves as well as having identified a window of opportunity in which they are now pursuing in order to take advantage of those susceptible to such online fraud

I thought that perhaps it would be a good idea to discuss such online treats in greater detail for better identification and classification as not many people are savvy to the different types of online fraud that can and does occur every day.

Phishing: This is an attempt at attaining personal, financial (banking login information and credit card details) and other confidential online user details by way of impersonating the identity of a legitimate and authentic online entity. Many banking institutes have fallen prey to such phishing attacks whereby online fraudsters will send an email requesting for client to confirm details such as bank account details, online banking login details or perhaps even credit card details which are then later compromised.

Protect Yourself: Never ever give out username’s or password details to anyone that asks you to do so. Any reputable website will be well aware of such security threats and will not ask you to confirm such information in the first place.

Identity Theft: As the name would suggest, identity theft is where online scammers assume the identity of others and register on websites (generally in bad network neighbourhoods and on dubious websites) under a false alias. What has been known to occur of late given the current financial crunch that all economies are currently experiencing is again, while assuming a false identity, credit applications are being applied for along with evading poor credit ratings and other criminal charges.

Protect Yourself: When registering or logging into a website that you commonly visit be sure to check the URL of the website and that this address is the correct one. Eg: www.jobs.co.za vs. www.jobz.co.za etc.

Spyware: while not as common but still ever present in the technological realm, spyware is the use of suspicious and illegal software onto personal computers that secretly monitors the users behaviour and to a certain extent takes partial control over the user’s interaction with their computer.

Protect Yourself: Install good quality Anti-Spyware software that will run regular checks on your computer to make sure it has not been compromised.

Malware: More commonly known as computer viruses the term malware refers to Malicious Software / coding that infiltrates and damages files and the general operation of a computer, with the user normally being unaware until the damage has already been done. Malware or computer viruses come in the form of Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses and Dishonest Adware and generally incept a user’s machine by way of the internet (visiting bad server networks) or via email.

Protect Yourself: Install a good quality antivirus program. As with the Anti-spyware, this program with run regular checks and ensure that your PC is protected and should it identify any form of the above mentioned viruses, that it isolates these and removes them from your system.

I hope that these explanations have helped you to better understand the types of fraud that occurs online and how better to protect yourself against such criminal behaviour.

It is a sad fact but one we all have to work with and protect ourselves from as we delve deeper into the infinite online universe.

Hope you all have a fantastic evening and I will catch up with you tomorrow.

Namaste’

Jo Blog

joblog@jobs.co.za

The problem with time is that the more we need, the less we seem to have and the more we try to save it the quicker is seems to pass us by, neither helpful nor motivating.

In today’s blog I wanted to discuss the scarcity of time and how to improve the way we manage this at work in order to maintain service level agreements, improve productivity and at best make our lives easier on a day to day and month to month basis.

I recently submitted an article in the Recruiter Advice Article pages on Jobs.co.za regarding managing Recruiter time better and ways in which to improve daily output. Time management in not simply reserved for Recruiters but rather a skill that can be implemented and improved on in all aspects of life and your career regardless of what you do for a living.

Time management can be improved by simply concentrating on a few key focus areas that will automatically increase your daily output and free up more time as it were, allowing you to meet daily deadlines as well as potentially cover additional tasks off your to do list.

Don’t be fooled or feel bad if you are currently lacking in the time management department, even the most time conscious people feel pressed by limited time and pressured to constantly beat the proverbial clock.

The only difference between these people and those lacking time management skills is that great time managers are able to squeeze as much as they can into the limited hours of their day when they really need to and make use of each opportunity they have to deliver on relevant tasked requirements in line with their scheduled deadlines.

Based on my article, here are a few pointers on how to improve on your own time management which can be applied to both your working day as well as life in general.

Set Priorities – Identify key items on your task list and arrange these in order of importance as well as allocate realistic time frames to complete these tasks in.

Treat Time as a Limited Resource – Time wastage and procrastination is the number one time zapper that we are up against. By acknowledging that the time you have to complete certain tasks is limited will help you to avoid wasting this precious resource in future.

Understand your Role and Responsibilities – Don’t allow yourself to become distracted by taking on other peoples tasks in order to look good or simply be nice. Understand the part that you have to play in your career, your job and your life and take responsibility for this over and above anyone else’s tasks. Unless you have time to spare at the end of your day, you should maintain your focus on YOUR role.

When are you Most Productive - We are all different in the sense that some of us get more done early in the morning, the night owls operate through the grave yard shift and others through lunch time. Pay attention to when you feel most productive and be sure to utilise this time to your fullest potential.

Take time for a Break – Rome wasn’t built in a day. When deadlines are looming and “time is ticking” we tend forget how to pace ourselves when the going gets tough. Take a quick break every once in a while and notice how your efficiency and accuracy improves and less time is spent on correcting unnecessary mistakes made from rushing.

These are just a handful of suggestions that you can try out in order to improve on the way you spend your time and manage it.

Give them a go and you will notice how by applying simple solutions such as these 5 tips, you will improve on your delivery requirements and find more time in the day to do so.

Let me know how these go, I’d love to hear any feedback that you have.

Peace Out,

Jo Blog

Joblog@jobs.co.za

I hope you have had a great day so far and are revelling at the idea that for most are being set free from your cages, climbing out of your boxes and bursting into the weekend with fervour and fun.

Aren’t weekends the best! Even if you have nothing planned they always seem to wipe a wave of energy through us and bring about a second wind that even to most droopy eyed can’t help but soak up.

I plan on working for most of the weekends as I have some things I need to attend to before the start of the new week and while I’m here in the office with Jobs.co.za top of mind, you too may have an encounter with us whilst out and about during the weekend.

Jobs.co.za has launched into the New Year with Job Seeker centric marketing campaign, which hit the streets this week. This new campaign encourages increased quality CV registrations and has been incentivised by a terrific competition that Job Seekers are going to love.

The Job Seeker Prize CV competition has set out to grow the quality and quantity of Job Seeker CV registrations by means of the Jobs.co.za CV Creator.  The Job Seeker with the most popular Job Seeker CV (by number of Recruiter views), created during January and March ‘09, will win a Professional Image Makeover with a professional image consultant valued at R10 000.

In order to enter the Jobs.co.za Prize CV competition, all that Job Seekers need to do is create a top quality CV using the Jobs.co.za CV Creator and let the viewing begin.

You can expect to see our outdoor marketing campaign in and around the streets of Morningside, Sandton and Randburg in Gauteng as well as Glenwood, Glen Ashley, Durban North, Kloof, Pinetown and Musgrave in Kwazulu Natal

Along with our outdoor marketing efforts you may also hear our latest radio of aired on 94.7 Highveld Stereo

Visit the Prize CV Competition landing page on Jobs.co.za to view the terms and conditions, to register and enter or simply to find out more.

I have also included pictures of our outdoor campaign for your viewing pleasure so that when you do spot it on the streets you can show your keen interest in worldly matters and attention to detail to whoever may be in your company :”)

(These may take a little bit to upload and may only be  viewable by Saturday or Sunday)

Alright, I think that’s my queue to get out of here before I start getting sillier than I already am.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I will defiantly catch up with you next week.

All the best and please let me know what you think about our competition as well as the new marketing campaign by leaving me a comment on this post or by dropping me a mail.

Take care and namaste’

Jo Blog

joblog@jobs.co.za

0861 JOBS 101

Okay, okay, so you may not be all that thrilled to be back at work or even more so, back in the swing of the Job Seeking thing but to open the year off on a positive note I thought I’d start out by saying…this year is YOUR year.

In fact forget two thousand and fine, I dare you to call it “Two Thousand and Mine!”

:”)

Everything that you want this New Year to  be and everything you set out for it to be, can and will be yours, provided you inject each day with as much personal integrity, honesty, patience, balance and persistence as you can muster up.

I’m certain that some days you may falter and others you may just be in a bad mood which of course is all perfectly ok.

“Mama, said that there’d be days like this” but prevail and prove to be stronger than the challenges you are presented with and I can guarantee succeed you will.

So yes, welcome back everyone, I hope you all missed me as much as I missed you and I hope that you are all in high spirits ahead of the renewed potential of the New Year.

Speaking of potential, the New Year has also introduced the class of 2008 to the South African job market and brought about a new era of talent, skills and possibility in the form of recently graduated Job Seekers.

While it seems to be a common focus in most of the media out there at the moment, I thought that perhaps Id jump on the bandwagon and add my two cents worth of value to graduates entering the Job Seeker market.

Aside from the obvious of creating a winning CV and keeping your eyes peeled for opportunities, graduate Job Seekers should remember to make use of and utilise all available job hunting resources available to them.

• Tap into varied means of Recruitment resources through that of utilising Online Job Portals such as Jobs.co.za as well as making use of the services offered by Recruitment Agencies.

Both offer unique opportunities to all Job Seekers that both provide solutions to varying needs;

Job Portals:

- Offer 24 hour access to Job search by industry location or job function

- Provide the opportunity to upload or create tailored CV’s in order to sell transferable skills

- Utilising pre defined job alerts to search for jobs without having to actively search (automated    functions that alerts Job Seekers of possible matches once located)

- Ability to refine searches to pinpoint exact opportunities that you may be looking for.

Recruitment Agencies:

- Personalised service offered whereby agents search on behalf of the Job Seeker based on the person to person relationship.

- Act as a middle man between job seekers and corporate clients with niche hiring requirements.

• Learn from the advertisers and creatively market your skills interests and accomplishments. There is nothing appealing about a wordy CV that has relied on the use of a thesaurus to sell its contents. Remember that as graduates, you will not have extensive levels of experience as yet which means you need to tap into creatively appealing ways to sell who you are and what you plan on accomplishing in the early stages of your career. Offer foresight and depth into ways in which you plan on succeeding and goals you plan on reaching. Display your drive your motive and your determination to learn and grow and your “No Fear” attitude towards hard work.

• Where possible try to gain experience through apprenticeships, learner ships and other experiences by which you can expand your exposure to varied industries and interests. You can’t win if you don’t play and the only way to know what you will be truly happy building a career around is by trying out the different roles that interest you. Not only will this help you to identify things that you like and dislike, but will also further groom you by developing your work experience and tools to cope with this new stage in your lifecycle.

• Begin to network with those that know you. At this stage in your career game you don’t have a working reputation to sell your skills. Instead, chat to friends, family and family friends and discuss options that they may be able to offer to you or perhaps even know of other acquaintances that may be interested in hiring graduate staff. The more you communicate your interests and desires, the more people will be able to offer their help and guidance as well as possible workable graduate opportunities. Remember that most placements are made through word of mouth and just because you are a graduate, doesn’t mean the same does not apply.

For more Job Seeker advice on how to prepare a CV, write a cover letter or anything more that you may require in order dive into the wonderful working world, please visit the Job Seeker advice pages on Jobs.co.za and if you have any questions or a specific problem that you are currently facing, leave me a comment in my blog or drop me a mail at;

joblog@jobs.co.za

I will be back again soon with more news, advice and some fun here and there.

Namaste little ones and welcome to the “Wonderland of Work”

Jo Blog

joblog@jobs.co.za

0861 JOBS 101

I can hardly believe that my chocolate advent calendar has just over a week’s worth left of festive season’s calories to munch on. The 23^rd is upon us, Christmas only 2 days away and the New Year peeping around the corner.

Time certainly flies when you are having fun and what a fun year it has been.

With a focus on creating a Job Seeker centric job portal, 2008 has brought about the rebirth of South Africa’s most established Job Portal, Jobs.co.za.

With a new family to ensure its success, a firm focus on the goals at hand and a positive attitude to push through each challenge, Jobs.co.za would like to thank each and every visitor to the website and hope that your experience has been a good one.

After successfully re-launching Jobs.co.za, moving forward into 2009, Jobs.co.za promises to deliver even greater benefits to service the South African job market with. With marketing campaigns planned and ready to roll out, new tools and functionality to be added to the mix and further growth to the Jobs Team to ensure that clients and Job Seekers are getting the attention that they require, 2009 is going to be better than fine.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, the Jobs.co.za offices will be closing as of this afternoon for the holiday period and will reopen on the 5^th of January 2009.

We would like to wish everyone a safe, prosperous and love filled festive season and trust that as you ring in the New Year, your lives will be recharged with energy, gusto, enthusiasm and success.

The website will still be accessible and you will still be able to register, create CV’s, run searches and apply to job ads.

Should you encounter any technical difficulties during the time that our offices will be closed, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 0861 JOBS 101 (0861 5627 101) and we will direct your call to the most suitable means of resolution.

And with that, this old Guru guy is heading on out to go and spread the word, share the love and make nice with the natives.

In keeping with the steady pace we follow towards the New Year I’d like to leave you with a piece of writing to end off 2008 with. Written by Osho; a professor of philosophy, spiritual teacher and author of a collection of life changing books that have the ability to enlighten even the darkest of hearts.

I hope that this inspires all of you to push forward through the challenges and victories that the New Year will uniquely bring to each of us as and when we need to experience them.

“The seed cannot know what is going to happen; the seed has never known the flower. And the seed cannot even believe that he has the potentiality to become a beautiful flower. Long is the journey, and it is always safer not to go on that journey because unknown is the path, nothing is guaranteed.

Nothing can be guaranteed. Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls – and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core. But the seed tries, it makes an effort; it drops the hard shell which is its security, it starts moving. Immediately the fight starts: the struggle with the soil, with the stones, with the rocks. And the seed was very hard and the sprout will be very, very soft and dangers will be many.

There was no danger for the seed, the seed could have survived for millennia, but for the sprout many are the dangers. But the sprout starts towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why. Great is the cross to be carried, but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves.”

- Osho [Chandra Mohan Jain], Dang Dang Doko Dang, chapter 4

Happy Holidays everyone and I will be back with you in 2009.

All the very best!

Jo Blog

joblog@jobs.co.za

0861 JOBS 101

I hope you are all well and slowly winding down as the year draws to an end.

As much as I’d like to say I am, sadly a Guru’s job is never done and in fact on contraire’ this time of year things always tend to heat up on my side.

None the less, the festive season always promises positivity and at best good company with those you love so I hope you are all finding your little piece (peace) of heaven as we wrap the year up.

A week or so ago I posted a piece about Jobs becoming the first member of the IAEWS, the International Association of Employment Websites. As mentioned the IAEWS is an organisation that protects promotes and directs the operation of job portals and job boards and ensures the integrity of such services is maintained.

In other words users of the Jobs.co.za website are protected at all times according to the IAEWS code of ethics that Jobs.co.za adhere to in terms of user confidentiality (passwords and user name protection), fair and just operation of the website, transparent and open operation of the website, self regulation and providing services to users with the highest level of responsibility and integrity.

Now you may be wondering, ok we get it, Jobs.co.za are now members of the IAEWS and I’m safe and well protected and you’d be correct in saying so.

You are safe on Jobs, but are you safe on other websites that you register with?

Sometimes in trying to hurry along the registration process we encounter online, often we agree to terms and conditions of websites without ever even glancing at them while submitting personal details to companies we know nothing about

Bad idea…

When registering on any website we submit personal and highly confidential information (especially in the case of job portals).

By not reading the T’s and C’s of the website we register with, we essentially open ourselves up to having our personal information be taken advantage of and misused and compromised for commercial gain.

By all of the above I’m specifically referring to the selling of registered databases and fundamentally your personal and highly confidential information.

A common factor found circulating in the underbelly of the World Wide Web, is where website owners collect user data, compile elaborate and lucrative databases and proceed to sell this information to other website owners for a fortune.

So this might not sound so bad, but how would you like your personal information be registered in dodgy internet neighbourhoods, porn sites or alternatively sold companies who proceed to inundate you with spam.

My point is that while we have slipped into a comfortable second gear when using the internet, vigilance and attention to detail should always come first when submitting personal information online.

Research a site before being too quick to submit your personal information. Read their terms and conditions, if you don’t understand something in the T’s and C’s, Google it and look for further clarification and be 100 % confidant that your information will be protected.

Register with websites that are transparent about their affiliations, what they plan on doing with your personal information and how it will be gathered.

Only ever contribute your personal information to those sites you have paid some attention to in making sure that have your very best interests at heart.

I hope that I have enlightened you and at best made you aware of simple ways to protect yourself online and when registering on websites.

Your integrity is the most important thing you have to protect.

Once it is gone you can never get it back and while we like to think we live in a world of peace and love and community sadly there are a few people out there with other things on their mind than being “a nice guy”

Thanks for your time!

Peace out

Jo Blog

joblog@jobs.co.za