Employers screen job candidates

When you have an employment interview at a company, be careful! More and more companies screen their job applicants at the Internet through business network sites and social network sites. They want to know how job candidates present themselves at the Internet. Through network sites, they try to get a first impression about a person. Furthermore, they search for more information such as a curriculum vitae, the qualities of a person and connections with other companies and people. This information, they try to figure out through business network sites like LinkedIn. If you have pictures on the internet when you are going out, are drunk or kiss with people, delete this pictures as soon as possible! Employers looking at social network sites for pictures, personal information and interests. The most visited websites for this information are Hyves and Facebook. The main characteristics of a person are reliable, enthusiastic, critical and sympathetic . These characteristics try employers to find out via the Internet when they are screening people. If the candidates’ online behavior is undesirable, they are often rejected by one company.  

When you have an employment interview in the future, think about the above information.

Testosterone and women

During the course of cognitive sciene, teachers talked in a lecture about testosterone and finger lenght. There are man with 'female finger patterns' and man with 'male finger patterns'. Furthermore, there are also women with 'male finger patterns'. The patterns are associated with certain characteristics. Another point is that women are better with verbal tasks and more emotional. Men are better with visuo - spatial tasks.


When I was reading the newspaper 'De Pers', I saw an article about testosterone and women. Scientists from Utrecht and Cambridge gave 15 female experimental subjects a testostorone pill. The results were shocking! The ability of women to read the mind of other persons decreased significantly. Hereby, the gift to read the mind of other persons decreased to the level of man. Apparently, the hormone testosteron has an impact on the functioning of the brain and women's ability to guess what other persons think about something. However, the effects of the testerone pill differed from woman to woman and were related to another measurement: the relationship between the forefinger and ring finger. Mostly, the forefinger is longer than the ring finger while these two fingers by men are the same lenght. These differences between women and men are caused through a difference of exposure to testosterone. The experiment shows that women with a relatively long ring finger (typical for men) had more problems with the testosterone pill than the more 'female women'. According to the author of this article, his opinion is that testosterone makes women as stupid as men. What do you think about this opinion?

The Apps4Sustainability challenge

We received the task to develop an interface ‘which makes life more fun’,  for the course User Interface Design. We came up with the idea to develop an application for mobiles phones, aimed particular at foreign students. The details for this application are strictly confidential.

The website http://www.ourmobilegeneration.org/ invented a great concept. The website organized the challenge Apps4Sustainability, a challenge to develop the best mobile application which can be off help in the field of sustainability. People from all over the world who have an idea for the design or purpose of such an application can elaborate this idea or can add ideas to existing applications.

The jury for this challenge who will select the winning conept, consists of members from the companies Vodafone, Iphoneclub.nl, Enviu.

Our Mobile Generation is an idea of the organization Enviu, the Dutch Government and the Foundation Vodafone Netherlands. Enviu is a innovator in the field of sustainability.

The winning concept will receive a sustainability-award, with a accompanying amount of 30.00 Euro for the further development of their concept. Everybody is interested in winning such an amount to develop your idea, aren’t you? This is maybe the opportunity to introduce our idea and to amaze the World with our new application = )

Cold reading

Last week, the second semester started. This means 5 new courses and interesting assignments. The assignment of  Business Information Technology is to write a blog about something you learned during the courses at the University in Tilburg. During the next 10 weeks, I will write every week about a new topic.

During the course of cognitive science, teachers talked about decision making. People all over the world, make new decisions every day. There are also famous people who have to make decisions. One of these famous people is Char Margolis. Char is an American psychic medium who is using the method of cold reading during her shows.

Cold reading is a method to determine or express details about another person to convince that the reader knows a considerable number of details about the person than he actually does. Without prior knowledge of a person, a cold reader with experience can get enough information about a specific subject by analyzing the person. They also make guesses about the subject and ask the person whether they are in the right direction or not. After that, the reader emphasize that he recognizes the answer to a question.

During a cold reading session, a medium can use the following methods, which in combination can lead to interesting results:

• Analyze the person's gender, body language, age, clothes, hairstyle, level of education etc.
• Use of general statements.
• Show a considerable number of options without a refer to a specific subject.
• Observe the person during the session.
• Allows the person to speak enough during the reading session.
• Use ambigous questions.
• Flatter the person and say what he wants to hear.

If you want to know how a proffesional makes use of cold reading, check this movie :)