The twenty first century presents some interesting and difficult challenges to the job seeker. This is doubly true for Thanet where jobs are hard to come by at the best of times. If you are dead set against starting your own business then you need to be the best competitor in town when it comes to the game of "get a job".

Here are a few tips that can help

Beware of Facebook!

Our Tony recently pointed out the dangers of saying even simple things on places like facebook. Comments that we would have always have shared such as "my job is boring" are written down for everyone to see and that encludes our current employer (if we have one) and all future ones too.

If you wouldn't say it on a CV, not even a radical one (see "Be Different" for more on those), then you need to keep it private or keep it silent.

One way towards creating privacy is to limit some things to members of a specific contact list. To this list you can privately say whatever you feel without saying it to people that get to choose how much money (if any) they want to give you.

Use facebook

Just as facebook, linkedin, MySpace, Live in Thanet and other social media sites can be used against you (as mentioned above) they can also be used for you.

If you assume that the chances of an employer or potential employer will read your profile anyway then you need to make sure that you have plenty of good profile to look at. I would recommend setting up an account on every last one of the sites mentioned above and then dress them up with everything that speaks well of you.

Do you love to work hard? Do you play team games? Do you have a positive passion (such as a charity you support)?

These things need to be mentioned so that your friends are fully aware (and then so too are strangers deciding if they want to offer you an income).

Talk at length about any time well spent.

Were you designated driver? Then make sure how you show how everyone got home safely.

Job hunting? Then mention the 100 letters and CVs you sent off on speck this week (this makes it clear there is going to be competition for your services).

Write a note about the industry you want to join that shows you understand it. This goes further than anything else to show that you care about the job you are seeking. That caring will give you the edge and that edge could win you a good job even against better qualified people with poor social media profiles.

Even just being friendly and sociable without being negative can have a huge benefit on your job hunting. Trust me when considering a stranger for employment social media is a good indicator of who they are when the guard is down.


Keep reading for more ideas on how to use the modern world to find and keep a job

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» Continue Reading: Find and Keep a Job Thanet in the Year 2009

Having met with a number of Thanet Star readers and found that my doodle of Sandy E under the water was one of the most popular things I've come up with recently I thought it might be nice to open the floor to readers old and new and invite you to share your art work on a strongly Thanet Related theme.

To share your artwork please make sure that they are a JPG, JPEG, GIF or PNG format file. You can email it to Matt along with who you are and a little bit about you. We will endeavour to share the art, funny sketches and other images created by you guys and gals of Thanet right here on Thanet Star.



To kick things off with here are some more cartoon like attempts to depict the current "leader" of the local council that I did not feel were up to the grade of being part of a suitably funny image.

No one likes getting sand on their carpet so the sandy carpet's sketch I felt was an easy target. However, I'm a perfectionist and did not feel I had captured the "big nose and no ears" well enough.

The original is bigger than this but I don't want to drown you in my doodles.

Keep reading to see more.

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» Continue Reading: Matt's scrap book - Sketches of Sandy E.

Thanet’s more convenient conveniences - Tony Flaig talks about public toilets and needle collection boxes. Should needles be collected outside the GP surgeries or are public toilets a better place? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Cllr Green wonders if Councillors should undergo a CRB after all they do come into contact with children. What do you think? Tell us in the comments below.

Past My Own Sell By Date has ECR announce that he is stepping down from Thanet Blogging. Lots of people will miss him but will any try to take up the slack? Tell us what you think below.

Gadds are brewing a barley wine. Recently I got to sample some Gadds ale and I have to say it was bl**dy tasty. Have you supped some Gadds yet? What did you think?

Justin Williams of the Telegraph group is asking where we brits get our local news from as so many local papers shut down. Personally I get mine from blogs. What about you?

Another councillor (Mark Nottingham, from Ramsgate) asks if Broadstairs has the highest council tax rise in the country?. What do you think? Answer, as ever, can be added in the comments.

ECONOMIC RUIN FOR ST PETER'S TRADERS AND WHERE ARE THE COUNCILLORS? scream the all caps headline from Thanet Strife. It seems St Peters is being dumped in the pan and typically no one is saying anything.

So what gives with Thanet? Is there good news to be found? The floor, as they say, is yours.

What exactly was the point of those "consultations" held by the council? Clearly it was not to gage the opinion of the voters 90% of which opposed the sell off which is happening with apparent cross party support.

Clearly Thanet has no democracy and no one gives a damn.

Even Roger Gale (MP) seems resigned to the fact that the council can do what they like and things like legally binding covenants can go hang for all they care.

No wonder the Council has no moral issue with robbing old ladies.

It seems to me that all councillors think that we the voter are, approximately, worthless. These consultations appear to have been nothing but a cynical show of "following the rules" before doing exactly what Sandy Ezekiel and co feel like doing and it has the backing of all the "lessor councillors" no mater how strongly they protest otherwise.

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» Continue Reading: Do Thanet councillors think the people worthless?

A new facebook "event" aims to cut down the number of people that ride their push bikes on the pavement in Cliftonville.

The event was created by Thanet Community Safety and is called Cliftonvilles' Cycle Campaign would like to remind people You "wheel" be fined.

The Community Safety Partnership has produced a poster that has been distributed to shops in Cliftonville, which informs residents and offenders, that if you are caught riding a bicycle on the pavement you will be fined a £30 fixed penalty notice. The fixed penalty notices are being issued by the local Police officers, and this will be a focus for them over the next couple of weeks.

I remember as a wee nipper my mum saying things like "don't ride on the roads" and "stick to the pavements on the way back" mainly because it was too dangerous to ride on the roads with the way people drive. Especially if it was getting dark.

So have things changed and what would you advise children to do?

Let's open the floor to some debate.

Should it be legal to ride on the pavement?

Are the police just chasing easy money?

What do you think?

Thanet District Council is statistically not a democratically elected council according to even a little basic reckoning.

My opinion of the current set up of the council is that it is incorrect in that it not only fosters ill will towards local government and a cynical distrust of councillors but because, in my opinion, it simply does not work. It serves only to bring the entire process into disrepute putting local councils on a par with head lice, dustbin day and tax returns in the minds of many. Also it has not been ellected democratically.

That is if you assume that democratic election represents the will of the majority. 30% of the population turned out to vote. More conservatives won places than any other group. Assuming that there were Labour, conservative and all others that means just and that no more than 11% of the population voted for our current council.

13,750 want the council as it is while 111,250 people did not ask for this council. If you go on to assume that not all people who voted conservative wanted Sandy Ezekiel as "leader" of the council then the numbers drop even faster. On average a council seat is controlled by just 250 people.. Impact a single round table, guild, masonic lodge, church, cult or some tiny demographic and the seat is as good as yours.

Most parties can easily hope to raise 200 to 300 members in around half or more of the wards in Thanet and probably have done so a long time ago. The result is only the hotly contest wards are even worth worrying about.

But that's the problem - just 13,000 people out of 125,000 in Thanet are calling the shots. So in any true meaning of democracy Thanet District Council was not democratically elected. Worse still only the most powerful "gang" among those who were elected got to choose the "leader" of the council and only the most influential group therein got any real say in the selection process.

So I say to you:

Thanet has no actual democracy!

Read on to find out what can be done about it.

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» Continue Reading: Thanet District Council was not democratically elected!

Tomorrow we will say our last and final goodbye to our grandmother.

She would have been pleased to have seen all the flowers at her funeral (which took place not so very many days ago). Indeed she often threatened that if there were not enough flower she might have to come back to haunt us. She need not have feared my nan was well loved and the service was very well attended.



My Nan loved flowers. She also loved her two children (my mum and my uncle (obviously)) and wanted to leave them a good inheritance. Sadly this might not actually be the case thanks to Thanet District Council.

If I were my nan I'd haunt TDC but maybe that's just me.



Over the next few weeks I intend to honour my nan as only a geeky fellow can - with a series of blog posts celebrating her life. I'll also be extensively correcting the Daily Mail on a few facts.