If you have staff who “take a mile rather than an inch”, I would suggest you have recruitment problems (Communication control, letters.computing.co.uk).

I manage a company that imposes no restrictions on the sites employees can access on the internet from work and we have not had any problems.

People spend time on the net when things are slack, but as long as they deliver their projects as expected, I don’t care. It is all about empowerment and responsibility rather than treating employees like children.

If your employees are not delivering, I would suggest they have bigger problems than being distracted by social networking sites. If they are delivering, why do you care when and how they take their brain breaks?

If your employees are not pulling their weight now, I’m fairly certain they will find other distractions if you block their net access. Such actions do not cure any problems, they merely drive the symptoms elsewhere.

Hugh, submitted on the web

I read the two recent letters of the week on recruitment agents with interest, being one of the mass unemployed myself (IT recruitment agents don’t know enough…, …then again, perhaps it’s the clients, letters.computing.co.uk).

I was made redundant at the end of April and, like Patrick Hobb-Chambers, I have applied for copious amounts of jobs – all of which my CV would match.

Like Patrick, I believe that either my age and experience could put off potential managers, or that the agents use word-matching to pick what they consider to be the best candidates.

I can also relate to what recruiter Ben Sugden says in his letter, that given two equal candidates, he would try to get that something special from assessing the attitude of each candidate.

Unfortunately, what both have failed to say is that a good proportion of agencies advertise jobs to which they do not have the rights.

It seems it is common practice for agencies to trawl job sites – both company and public – looking for jobs to advertise. When candidates apply, the agencies approach the recruiter with some “perfect candidates”. They then try to sell their services, usually unsuccessfully, and when they are rejected, they simply drop the poor candidates without even the courtesy of an email to let them know.

Before they all scream their innocence, I would like to add that my better half works in HR and she receives these calls all the time.

So to answer both sides – yes, it is important to have a good CV and sell yourself and yes, the recruitment agencies could do better. However, shouldn’t something be done to stop the underhand practices – it’s hard enough out there without being conned.

David Spoors

It is tough to expect graduates to be rounded, moulded employees immediately after university (Skills for a global industry, markkobayashihillary.computing.co.uk).

An academic institution is, by its very nature, not a vocational training institution. Its role is not to prepare you for work or the work environment, but rather to teach you a skill or a subject area.

Perhaps if the stigma were removed from vocational institutions and more people enrolled, we would have a more balanced graduate workforce. Perhaps if companies could afford more graduate recruitment roles, this would not be an issue.

The truth is that every appointment has to be 100 per cent right these days and a graduate is rarely going to suit.

Howard, submitted on the web

I found last week’s letters of the week extremely interesting (IT recruitment agents don’t know enough…, …then again, perhaps it’s the candidates, letters.computing.co.uk). I agree with both sides, while also disagreeing.

Recruitment agents are salespeople. As with any salesperson, they know the buzz words for the industry in which they work. But when was the last time you believed the word of a salesman who knocked on your door? Answer: rarely.

Recruiters have a job, and that is to work for clients who are looking for staff. They are not there for the candidates, and in all honesty, like any good salesman, they are looking at the commission they can get.

Candidates think they can send off a CV and wait for recruiters – who apparently have nothing to do all day but look for a job just for one candidate – to give them a heap of jobs, all with a pay rise, fewer hours, and more interesting work.

Recruiters fall down because they do not give feedback. Responding to 250 applicants to say: “Sorry, you were not selected this time” costs nothing at all. If the recruiters’ IT systems work well, it’s a matter of hitting a single button.

Having said that, candidates let themselves down by not accepting that they must do 95 per cent of the work themselves. They need to customise every CV they send, with a personalised cover letter. And they need to keep chasing.

B Parker

I agree with Simon Perry’s comments on the virtuous circle benefits for telehealth (The opportunities and risks of telehealth in the NHS, quocirca.computing.co.uk).

As a university lecturer, I frequently teach the topic to student nurses. I emphasise that this equipment provides tools that enable us to deliver healthcare in much the same way as we use electronic equipment to provide healthcare in hospitals.

As healthcare professionals, we must not allow the technology to replace patient contact. Used correctly, the benefits should allow us to reduce unnecessary visits and hospitalisations, allowing us to use freed-up time to visit patients who require interventions and care. Human contact is an essential component of healthcare and we must not forget how important it is for both patients and care providers.

Ray McKinnie

As I read the letter from Bob Justice on the difficulties he has faced finding an IT job (Join the job club, letters.computing.co.uk), my first thought was: “I could have written that.”

I was made redundant in June 2008 but, unlike the letter writer, had a little bit of luck when my local university gave me a one-year, part-time contract. The people I work with have been great, but my year is almost at an end and the university does not have the budget to renew my contract. Being part time gave me a chance to secure the full-time job I was after – or so I thought. But here I am, two weeks from the end of my contract and how many interviews have I had in the year? Absolutely none. I have applied for more than 100 jobs, had plenty of phone calls from agencies, but after the initial call, I have heard nothing. The agent disappears off the face of the earth, they are never able to speak to me when I call about progress and no one ever answers my emails.

I have two theories about this problem. The first is that a recruitment agent submits my CV and the potential employer looks at my experience and guesses I am older than they are.

If they employed me, I would become a threat, undermine their authority and expect a salary larger than they want to pay. So they throw away my CV and employ someone younger and cheaper, who has less experience.

Theory two: the agent looks at my CV and it is not an exact match so it is thrown away. Because the agent only provides people and is not an IT expert (although some I have spoken to in the past year think they are), they work on the exact-match theory. If they knew what they were doing, they would know that an experienced programmer adapts to their circumstances and picks up new skills easily because their experience gives them the basic building blocks necessary to do so.

I am in this industry because I enjoy the work. I am not in it for the money. Provided I can pay my bills at the end of the month with a little to spare, I am happy. So give me a chance.

Patrick Hobb-Chambers

As a recruiter in the field of IT support and software development, I have found it difficult recently to source capable and accomplished staff. I was therefore surprised to read that skilled and experienced individuals were finding it equally difficult to secure employment (Join the job club, letters.computing.co.uk).

I have received many varied applications and the factor that sets the right candidate apart from the rest has rarely been skills and/or experience – the key decider when weighing up candidates has always been attitude. Qualifications tell me the candidate has ticked the right boxes in an exam or done enough to satisfy a board of examiners at an academic body. Experience, as displayed by CV or in interview, tells me that a candidate knows their industry well enough to carry out their past few job roles. If I find myself torn between a number of equally skilled and experienced candidates, I look to the candidate’s general attitude to sway my decision. Attitude can be identified readily during the interview process and through informal discussion with candidates.

Bob Justice may think himself hard done by with his unfortunate unemployment, but I disagree with his assessment of the situation. There are myriad options open to a skilled and experienced individual such as Bob. All it takes is the confidence and attitude to get out there and sell himself as the talented individual he is, rather than seeing himself as “a punching bag for when things go wrong”. There may be competition in some areas of IT at present, but we are far from being the hardest hit.

Ben Sugden

The assertion that the chief information officer’s (CIO’s) influence in the business is increasing is undoubtedly a positive sign (CIOs and CFOs – working better together to beat the recession, www.computing.co.uk/2243762).

IT plays a vital role in every major organisation, yet for years its influence has been undervalued. This is partly due to the fact that many firms have struggled to sufficiently assess the financial value of their IT assets, as they would other assets such as brand, real estate or intellectual property. If CIOs can grasp this value, they will be able to show that IT spending is more effectively aligned with business needs, making them a useful ally for chief financial officers in a recession. IT can rapidly reduce costs and deliver huge competitive advantage, so it is fitting for the CIO to playing a greater role in business decisions.

David Stephenson

I take issue with Andrew Thomas’ letter about the use of social media in business (Trusting sociable staff, letters.computing.co.uk).

Phone calls are open and obvious in their nature, sitting and tapping at a keyboard is not. We have an acceptable use policy at my firm, we are open about why it is necessary and have presented each member of staff with the policy and talked it through with them to prevent abuse. This is vital to all businesses as this issue is a people problem rather than a technical one.

However, despite this, several staff members have spent hours a day posting on Twitter, Bebo, Facebook, and the like. We eventually stopped access to these sites other than during the lunch hour. This involved buying expensive software and is a cost that should not be required.

We do not live in an ideal world, Mr Thomas. There will always be staff who take a mile rather than an inch and this has to be controlled – it is called management.

Alistair, submitted on the web

I must take issue with Andrew Thomas, founder of Social Media in a Corporate Context, when he says that if staff are trusted with a telephone, they should be trusted with social networking software (Trusting sociable staff, letters.computing.co.uk).

Using a telephone is a highly visible activity – visible in terms of colleagues and visible in terms of phone bills. If someone were to abuse the use of a phone, the evidence would be there for all to see and hear.

My company is trying to minimise call spend as far as possible as this may be seen as a perk of the job and personal calls could eat into the bottom line. Any spend that doesn’t move the business along can end up costing people’s jobs.

Updating a Facebook entry or using Twitter is a hidden activity at the desktop. If someone is typing away, without looking at the screen would anyone else be able to distinguish between someone finishing a report to a tight deadline, or someone involved in a hectic session of: “Last weekend was amazing – what are we doing this weekend?” We can run a proxy server report, but then we step into the trust issues raised by Mr Thomas.

Social networking has its place. However, without a cohesive business strategy for its use, there are any number of caveats and there needs to be a balance between a trusting, social-networking environment in the office – with responsible use – and a free-for-all that results in the work becoming of secondary importance and the viability of the company suffering.

Besides, anyone who works in manual labour will often have no access to social – or any – networks and there is no issue of morale or trust there.

Mark Evans