January article highlights: Job interviews, working from home and relocating

Below we have summarised three top articles for January 2021:

Throughout our lives we are conditioned to tell lies, to make both ourselves and others feel good (or to protect someone’s feelings). Does this come out in job interviews? Psychologists think yes and by both the candidate and hiring manager. One of the first pieces of advice we give to candidates is that a job interview is a two way process; it’s about a company deciding if you’re a good fit for them and for you to see if they are a good fit for your career and ambitions. With this in mind, all parties are selling and as such it’s likely that both are lying as much as the other! In my experience as a recruiter for instance, a hiring manager has never told me: ‘our culture is terrible and we work longer hours than we have to’. Yet sometimes, this is the case! Equally, candidates rarely say that their next job is ‘all about the money’ or that they like to ‘put in the minimum required and clock off at 5pm on the dot’. Of course, interviews are an integral part of all processes, recent studies have just investigated people’s behaviour in more detail.

With the tax year coming to an end we thought it important to revisit one of Martin Lewis’ best finds last year. With the pandemic forcing millions to work from home, the UK government sent up a microservice to enable remote workers to claim tax relief. Even if you have worked at home just for a day, you may be entitled to a years worth of relief. Martin Lewis explains more.

The pandemic caused economic turmoil last year however UK house prices still rose, hitting a record high at the end of the year.  It still remains relatively unclear as to what the ‘new normal’ will mean for time spent in the office however, what can not be denied is the interest in residential housing outside of the major cities. One positive of the pandemic is that businesses are better set up than ever to offer their employees flexible working and there is no doubt that whilst some will go back to normal, many will not. For this reason, the property market in 2021 will be looked upon with keen interest by many. 

With companies now set up better than ever to enable their workers to operate remotely, many have been thinking about relocating to outside of the major cities. It does however still remain unknown what the new normal will look like with regards to time spent in the office but one positive is certainly that businesses are now better setup than ever for their employees to work flexibly.