The GAAPweb blog

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 51

Please forgive the brevity of today's blog. There's not a great deal to report. Maybe credit crunch cautiousness has kicked in since last week. It could be that everyone's out there scrabbling around for pennies and getting to them before me. Thankfully there were a couple of pickings to keep us going.

Monday - Nix came in with a penny she'd found in the corridor down to the easyJet lounge at Glasgow Airport.

Tuesday, I'd just got back from lunch when Iain marched over to me, put 2p down on my desk and boomed the following:

"Parking the buggy at the buggy shed, turned around and saw this. It was between me and a 14-month-old. I won the race."

A little monologue which, I think, probably tells you quite a lot about Iain.

Week Fifty-one

How much found: 3p

Total found so far: £39.06

How it could now be spent: a Le Creuset Round Grillet pan in Almond.

Credit crunch or no credit crunch, I'm coming back brighter next week.

Recruitment by Recruiters - The Interview

Sara Johal and Douglas Shaw specialise in temporary recruitment for Communicate, a boutique financial recruitment consultancy in Central London. They have agreed to give us a look at the job hunt from a recruiter's point of view.

1. How do you find jobs in the first place?

On the temp market a role can come from anywhere. We have established relationships with our FTSE 250 clients so we already understand their business and types of candidates we need to be speaking to them about. If a candidate is good most companies will take them on a temporary basis to make use of their skill set, especially if the headcount is high and they can’t take them on permanently.

Similarly, the candidates that we’ve placed tend to come back to us when they’re recruiting as we’ve built a strong and trusted relationship with them. We understand the way in which they like to work, making the recruitment process into their team a lot quicker – most candidates will start without an interview, based on our recommendation.

We also commit to business development everyday - speaking to our clients and active candidates about what’s happening in the market and how they’re finding it. We’re a solution-based company so this is a good way of finding problems to solve – most clients aren’t aware how beneficial a temp can be.
 
2. What happens to an application for a job when it arrives with you? 

We read the CVs that come in and check the skill set of the applicants to see if they match the required skills for the job.  Even if they’re not quite right we generally still meet with them, providing they’re eligible for work in the UK, as they’ll be a good fit for another role that’s coming up.

Once we’ve spoken to them we’ll speak to our client about them and either arrange an interview or for them to start work with them the next day.

We always meet and interview each of our candidates before or during putting them forward for roles, and we stay in touch with them after they have found a role, even if it’s through another agency so we can keep up to date with how their career is progressing.

3. Is there much teamwork involved in recruitment?

The most important thing is that we find the right person for the role so we always share candidates. There has to be a lot of team cohesion to get the job done well and place candidates in the roles they want.

4. What makes a CV stand out?

Qualifications, academic credentials and experience are obviously key, but the way you present the CV is also extremely important. 

Your CV should be detailed but not so detailed that your experience is lost in a sea of words – your skills and knowledge that are interesting to employers and that you can then expand upon in interview are better than your life story.  Bullet points are a useful way of highlighting this key experience. 

You should also state the job title of the person to whom you report at present as this shows where you fit into the team.

5. Do you have any hints for a good interview?

Before an interview you should always research the company.  Make sure you’ve read the job description and thought about how you can match your experience to the requirements.  You should prepare relevant examples from your career that you can talk about in interview. 

It is also a good idea to prepare questions for your interview – your recruiter can help you think of useful questions so ask them for a set of sample questions. If you do find yourself at a loss when the “any questions?” question is posed, ask about the interviewer’s own background to get an idea about them and how they got the role.  This can help you decide whether this is something you aspire to or if you’d prefer to take a different route in your career.

Always smile, be punctual, and look smart – you’re working in finance and there is a certain expectation of you – even if you go for an interview somewhere with a dress-down culture. 

6. What is your favourite thing about the role?

The variety of people we meet every day and the gratification of helping someone find a job – and of helping a company fill a role which will then help keep their business working well.

7. What do you find stressful about the role?

We focus on temporary recruitment, and clients often use multiple agencies.  There is a lot of pressure to get good CVs to the client and it becomes a bit of a race. 

Apart from that, candidates who don’t show up to interview and don’t call to let us know are very frustrating!

7. Are there many differences between the places you have worked as a recruitment consultant?

They generally operate along the same lines – after all, they have the same aim in the end of placing candidates in roles.  However, there are differences between smaller and larger agencies. In some companies you can focus in depth on individual roles rather than spending less time on more roles.  It’s just a different way of working and it’s down to personal choice and style in the end. What we particularly like about Communicate is that you are not always in competition with your colleagues for the same candidates for very similar roles.

Sterling Advice

In a time when purse strings are being pulled tighter than Russell Brand’s jeans, we the people look for answers as to why prices are rising and stagflation looms frightfully over the economy.

Maybe then we could find some direction as to the next course of action; should we be preparing for recession by saving, or does this only serve to fan the flames of the fire? Should we collectively try to counter the crunch by spending, or will we come to regret parting with our hard-earned cash too frivolously?

Setting the issues of disposable income aside for a brief moment, there is much concern, certainly amongst friends of mine working in a temporary capacity, that their respective employments aren’t as secure as they once were.

However, this is not the case; temporary work is actually on the rise as employers seek more flexibility in their workers during the slow in market growth. And more good news is on the way my friends, as temporary workers’ rights are slowly being altered to match those of their permanent counterparts.

That’s right; after 12 weeks of temporary work at the same establishment, temporary employees in Britain will now be legally entitled to the same treatment and rate of pay as salaried employees.

Whilst many other EU countries don’t distinguish between the two types of employment with regards to rights or pay, this is still a huge step forward for temporary workers in the United Kingdom. Even permanent work doesn’t appear to be suffering as predicted during the crunch, with London employers actively seeking to take on more workers next quarter.

In fact here at GAAPweb, contrary to the national trend, the ratio of temporary to permanent roles being advertised has remained encouragingly constant over the past 12 months. Such stability sends out a warming message to those seeking employment in the finance sector.

So why are we worried? Well, we’ve all noticed the rising food prices, and despite the fact that the Wall Street Journal has actively encouraged its readers to start stockpiling food, at least we know the main cause; rising oil prices.

Not only are oil companies announcing record profits, but taxes are higher than ever, and panic buying of fuel has spread across Britain like wildfire.

Despite the escalated cost of living, it is important to remember that we are not yet in a recession. True, the economy has fluctuated in and out of recessions more regularly since the abandonment of the Gold Standard in 1931, but these peaks and troughs in market growth can be combated with intelligent spending.

The biggest cause of economic uncertainty is, in my eyes, erratic economical behaviour such as panic buying itself. Therefore instead of talking and panic buying ourselves into a recession, perhaps the best remedy for ailing bank accounts is simply to stay cool and stay sensible.

Somebody once told me that worrying is like a rocking chair; it will give you something to do, but it will get you nowhere. Inflation may be hitting us where it hurts in terms of being strapped for cash, but hitting the panic button is perhaps more the cause of the problem than the solution.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 50

Thursday - Maz had been at a GAAPweb corporate event the previous night, schmoozing and boozing. She'd clearly kept her wits about her, because I was again greeted in the morning by a Post-It, on which was written 'Found this on the bar last night' and an arrow leading to a 2p.

Now I've seen Maz when she's had a drink, and I know that the complicated motor function it must have taken to pick such a tiny object up can't have been easy for her. Bravo Maz.

Trudging home on Thursday, I unfortunately noticed a 2p that was sat in some guttering after it had been raining. I'm still picking grit out of my jeans pocket.

Friday, Dan was moving desk. Well, that's what he said, but as far I can see he's still there. Maybe he just meant he'd decided to push it a little bit, I don't know. Anyway, he came over soon after with a 5p he'd found under his hard drive.

Friday was, by any measure, a taxing day. Completely drained, Kirsty and I decided we needed succour, urgently. The kind we needed could only be provided by a loved one, or the pub. In the absence of loved ones, we were driven to seek comfort in drink.

We'd been in the pub a couple of hours, long enough to drown our ill-humour in a sea of wine and vegetable biriani, when we decided it was probably time to go. I went to pick up my bag from under the table, and right there beside it, leaning into it, like Thumper cosying up to Bambi, was a £10 note.

It was like the universe was telling me I'd suffered, and now it was time to rejoice. No scrub that, it wasn't as ethereal. It was weirder than that, because it was far more worldly. What was really happening was that the universe, in its all-seeing, market-aware wisdom, had decided to pay me overtime!

The second ten pound note of the project, and both of them found on days when I'd been feeling mopey and sorry for myself. Not much incentive to be happy now, is it?

Week Fifty

How much found: £10.09

Total found so far: £39.03

How it could now be spent: a 4-hour "Sibelius' Home and Art Nouveau" tour in Helsinki (I'd have to get there first, but there's always next week's cash - I'm practising being really miserable in the hope of a £50 find...)

Who owns your online networking contacts‏?

In an initial judgment released this week, Mr Justice Richards of the Chancery Division of the High Court held that, under certain circumstances, the LinkedIn contacts of a former employee could be the company’s confidential data.

Hays v Ions was an application by Hays to force its former employee to disclose contacts on his LinkedIn account (as well as other things pertaining to his new business, Exclusive Human Resources Ltd). Hays successfully obtained an order to disclose “emails sent to or received by [Mr Ions'] LinkedIn account from the [Hays] computer network” as well as timesheets, invoices and other documents showing business made from these contacts, but failed in its request to see EHR’s complete candidate and client database. Hays will presumably use this information to consider whether there is a potential claim against Mark Ions in due course.

For many of us, the idea that our employer could ‘own’ our contacts on LinkedIn or Facebook is unthinkable. It's our profile, right? Our education, and current and previous employers? And a mix of our personal friends, previous colleagues, and other professionals we have dealt with in some way?  The issue in this case is the contacts themselves, and the process of uploading them to the site (done automatically by a tool on LinkedIn and Facebook).

Whilst I do have some sympathy with both parties, the proposition that an employee must delete all contacts added as a result of that employment seems strange to say the least. The idea with networking sites is that each person has a profile that builds up their whole life, not just one company. The obvious implication I can see is that the former employer, applying the same logic, could insist that a more personal relationship must cease when an employee resigns, on the grounds that the two people met during a business capacity only.

However, the internet has given every person a platform to share their opinions and thoughts to a wide audience, and even photos taken inside an office and uploaded to Facebook could be seen to constitute a breach of the employer's confidentiality requirements. It could also be said that many users have an overriding objective to increase their number of friends, or ‘connections’, on these websites, and so they add or accept people whom they wouldn’t dream of inviting round to a family barbecue. But that’s 21st century life all round. It's all about the numbers – quantity, statistics, sizes and money – and I’m not talking accounting.

Crisis? What crisis?

I find it interesting that there is so much panic in the UK over the "credit crunch" and current financial difficulties. Virtually every free sheet carries some doom and gloom front page headline, when effectively things arent that bad!

To be honest, I view the current conditions as more of a correction of overheating in the past, than a long term downward spiral.

Certainly, house prices are falling, but then again they have been hugely over-inflated. Certainly, there is pressure in the banking and finance sector, but then again there has been a lot of over-hiring, and over-payment in that industry for years. Certainly, your average person will start to feel the pinch, but again, this is to be expected.

Generally, most people have a higher standard of living and far more security than a generation ago. We have started to take for granted the fact that overseas holidays, luxury goods, a private car are a part of life, whereas actually these are what they say on the tin - "luxury goods" - and have to be earned, without being essential to our survival.

In my mind the more important factor to take into account, and act on, is the rising oil price. This should be a warning to people of worse to come. I believe that the world's oil resources have peaked, and that in future the oil price is only going to go up.

Instead of panicking though, people should start to change their lifestyles. Drive less, drive more economically, make use of pooling arrangements, fly less, take more local holidays, etc. We should also start to change buying habits, for instance by buying local produce that is not shipped so far.

What people need to realise is that the oil price not only affects transport costs, but also food prices and many other goods/services that rely on oil. I also feel that this is indicative of increased energy prices that will soon be coming our way.

Again, instead of getting all upset about this, people should start to invest in greener technologies, take necessary measures around the home to use less energy, and put pressure on businesses that use excess packaging/ignore their impact on the environment.

As you may have noticed, I run the risk of getting into a whole "green" debate here. But effectively I feel that the only way people in general will start to take notice of the need to conserve the environment is when it starts to hurt their own pockets.

I certainly feel that we all need to be proactive in tacking climate change, and thus in some way I welcome these increased prices, even though of course I am the first to moan when I have to fill up my petrol tank!

I am certain there are lessons for us all in what is happening around us at the moment. Perhaps we need to reassess our values, and what is important to us. Instead of focusing on "a letter to the chancellor", let's focus on how to ride out this temporary "recession" and make some lifestyle changes that will benefit us all in the long run.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 49

Monday morning I strolled into the office and, having found money waiting for me this time last week, I should have really been expecting this, but it came as a lovely surprise. I reached my desk and was confronted by a huge pile of copper coins. I was so impressed I had to measure it.

It turned out to be 1-and-a-half-inches tall, and was made up of 16 pence in 2ps plus 12 pence in 1ps. I've no idea who put it there, but essentially it was me who found it, so it goes in the pot.

Wednesday, I was boarding the bus home from work. I'd just stepped through the door and, crucially, made eye contact with the driver, when I spotted a penny on the step up to the driver's seat.

It would have been fine if I'd just avoided looking at him. I could have passed off my penny pick-up as an absent-minded gesture, a result of being tired and not quite there after a wearying day at work.

But I'd looked him in straight in the eye and smiled, starting the bus-boarding routine in the normal, accepted way, and now I had to interrupt the ceremony that I'd begun...

The etiquette of bus travel dictates that, having looked up at the driver, you give him/her a little half-smile, make your way up the steps as quick as you can, utter an appropriate greeting, and buy or show your ticket.

Now I had to fly in the face of bus passenger etiquette, with the driver watching and a hot, tired busload of impatient people waiting.

Cringing and cursing myself for having seen the stupid penny in the first place, I ducked down and picked up the penny, as quickly as I could without looking manic, before bounding up the steps.

Week Forty-nine

How much found: 29p

Total found so far: £28.94

How it could now be spent: a pair of Churchill leather slippers.

Apologies for the late arrival of this blog - the result of an uncommonly busy Friday last week.

I've graduated - what should I do next?

Hi. I have recently finished university studying Accounting and Finance, and am unsure on what next route I should take to find a job. Any suggestions from anyone? One thing I am sure I want to do is carry on doing ACCA exams, but I also want to be working too.

It is generally a very good idea to continue after university and get your ACCA. This is especially the case if your exam results are good, and if you feel that you understand Accounting and Finance.

In order to get a job, you simply need to start applying! By that I mean, look for positions that meet your relevant qualification level. This may mean that you have to start off in a job that does not seem ideal to you, but hopefully, if you prove yourself, you will be able to move on quickly.

Try to pick an organisation with a big accounts function that allows you room to move. Alternatively, try to make a good impression in your job, so that you can later move up to a more challenging/higher paying position.

I recommend that you carry on your studies part-time. It often helps to be getting the practical experience whilst you study. Again, ask in your interviews if the firm you are joining supports studying.

Nice to meet you

GAAPweb held our first ever Meet Up at the Warwick pub in Soho last night.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Originating in America, Meetup is a website designed for
like-minded people living near each other to meet and pursue hobbies, network, get support, make friends, find playgroups or even change the world!

The range of Meetup groups is worth a browse in itself and covers a colourful spectrum. Particular favourites of mine are Hermit Crab lovers, The UK Science Fiction Live Action Role Playing Meetup and Ukranian egg enthusiasts.

As well as the weird and wonderful there are Meetup groups for those of us who are just slightly more down to earth. GAAPweb's Meetup group, imaginitively entitled "The London working in accountancy meetup" is open for anyone currently in, or looking to start a career in finance or accounting.

Online networking is becoming increasingly popular and with Meetup you can combine the huge scope that online communications have along with the opportunity to do a bit of old fashioned face-to-face networking. Here at GAAPweb, our interest lies in meeting the people who use our website to find out what you think of our service, the jobs we advertise and the recruitment market.

Although we didn't have the turnout we expected (we can't compete with the final of The Apprentice AND the Euros) we felt the evening was a real success. Everyone who came had the chance to meet other finance professionals and we had some great feedback about GAAPweb, including praise for our current service and also some great suggestions for improvement.

We'll be holding another Meetup next month so if you're in the neighbourhood why not pop in and say hello. All you need to do is add your name to our group.

In the meantime don't forget you can always leave your ideas and suggestions in a comment on our blog.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 48

Monday morning I yawned into the office and sleepwalked over to my desk. My senses were immediately assaulted by an aggressively neon pink Post-It stuck to my desk with lots of writing and a couple of coins on it. I woke up.

The first bit of writing said "5p found under a table @ Dogstar before anyone arrived", and had an arrow pointing to a 5p. Ah-hah. Nix. She'd had a birthday on Friday (a big one...) and threw a blue-themed party at the Dogstar in Brixton.

The next bit said "1p found outside Moon Under Water bar in Leicester Square when seeing Indiana on opening night."

It's great when people go out and do things with their free time. It means I don't have to. I can just sit at home getting rich.

Tuesday - staying at home while other people went out and did things brought me riches again. My mum and little brother went to Asda.

Now, I've been told they have a little routine they enact every time they go there together. While my mum stands there sheepishly, my little brother always looks under the 'put your little change in here and we'll give you slightly bigger change of less monetary value' machine.

Well, this time he ducked underneath and made a beautifully symmetrical find - two 20ps and two 10 groszy Polish coins. At time of typing, 20 groszy is worth about 5p.

Friday - after work I needed chocolate, so I had to run the Friday night gauntlet of teenagers that hang around our parade of local shops spitting and cackling.

Tonight, they'd obviously roused themselves out of their apathy long enough to send out 'Hanging Round Outside the Chipshop Wicked Party Nite' invites to every teenager within a 20-mile radius. They were everywhere.

So of course, I found some money right by them. A 2p daring me to pick it up outside Dominos Pizza.

Reader, I dared.

Week Forty-eight

How much found: 53p

Total found so far: £28.65

How it could now be spent: some hand-stitched rubber grip reins.