The Hospital Authority is planning to recruit 300 doctors in the coming year, Sing Tao Daily reports. But Professor Raymond Liang Hin-suen, president of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, says it will be difficult to fill all the vacancies, with about 250 medical students graduating this year.

The intake of medical students was cut five years ago, Liang says. While the intake has been increased to 320 this year, students will not graduate for another five years, so it will take time for the benefits to be felt.

The Hospital Authority is also looking to hire 1,100 nurses and 300 medical specialists. 

Firms turn to social media  

As companies emerge from the downturn, they understand the significant reach and importance of using social media to rebuild their organisations.

According to a survey of more than 2,500 employers in the United States, 35 per cent of respondents use social media to promote their companies.

One-quarter of these employers say they use social media to connect with clients and find new business, using it to recruit and research potential employees (21 per cent), or strengthen their employment brands (13 per cent), the CareerBuilder survey reports.

When it comes to managing social media strategy, 43 per cent of employers report that their marketing department handles social media outreach, followed by public relations (26 per cent) and human resources (19 per cent).

One-quarter of employers have one to three people communicating on behalf of their organisation, while 7 per cent have four to five people to handle the work. Eleven per cent say more than six people communicate for their company via social media. Fifty-seven per cent say they didn't know. Reuters  

Good looks hold women back 

Attractive women are discriminated against when they apply for traditionally masculine jobs, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Women considered good looking face a struggle when they apply for jobs usually associated with men, or positions for which appearance is not seen as being important to the job. Such positions include directors of finance and mechanical engineers, according to a survey in Newsweek magazine, which polled 202 hiring managers and 964 members of the public.

The study also found that attractive men suffered no similar discrimination.

"In these professions, being attractive was highly detrimental to women," says Professor Stefanie Johnson, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School.

"In every other kind of job, attractive women were preferred. This wasn't the case with men, which shows that there is still a double standard when it comes to gender."