Winston Churchill’s famous quote that “Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language” still holds true today – also for our careers industry. When I talk with my American colleagues about CVs or résumés, or we discuss our latest mentoring projects, I quickly realise that we may be speaking the same language, but actually, we do mean very different things.

When Wendy asked me to come on board of this blog to provide a British perspective on careers and jobs, I couldn’t wait to get started. But then I found myself wondering – what would you Americans want to learn about the UK? Let’s face it: the truth is that we in the UK tend to look towards you in the US for inspiration!

Especially over the last few years, us Brits have realised we’d better watch out for innovations and technological breakthroughs that arrive from the other side of the Atlantic, whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, or writing achievement-driven CVs for a Blackberry. At times, it’s hard to keep up with the relentless pace and the growing list of things we are now supposed to be doing as savvy job seekers or  highly trained career professionals. So it takes us a little while to catch up with you, let alone implement the myriad of tools and technologies you develop. For example, many of us in Britain thought that Twitter would never be big in this country, let alone become an accepted job search tool. It just didn’t seem a good fit with our culture. But hey, how wrong could we be?

In the UK, we do things differently. We have our own traditions, beliefs and practices, and we also have HR regulations set by the European Union to comply with. That explains why, for instance, many years after the launch of LinkedIn, we suddenly have fundamental debates about the best practice of using LinkedIn in the workplace, and the legal implications for both employees and employers. And, we work to identify what job seekers and recruiters need to watch out for when it comes to visual CVs and video blogging, due to our strict anti-discrimination laws.

So I hope that sharing our debates and best practices in the UK will be of interest to you in the US – whether you are a professional in the careers community or an active job seeker wanting to move over here. But I also want my blog posts to be highly practical: I want to give you lots of resources, tools and tips, so you’ll know how to navigate a successful job search and career in Britain.

I look forward to sharing the practical and the topical with you – all about jobs and careers in the UK. Wouldn’t it be great if all of us in the careers community developed a common language?

Until next time, 

Ruth