AssessmentCentreCoach Job Blog

Six in 10 employers are going to hire new graduates this year, with 17% increasing the number of graduates they will recruit, according to job site CareerBuilder.co.uk.

CareerBuilder surveyed 100 companies across the UK, also finding that 20% of employers will offer higher starting salaries to graduates than in the previous year. Continue Reading »

The number of London-based financial services jobs average for 2012 is estimated to be 255,000 compared with peak of 354,000 in 2007.

New estimates from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) show a sharp downward revision in the number of City jobs.

Cebr now estimate that the average number of City jobs for 2012 is likely to be down to 255,000 compared with the estimate of 288,000 made 6 months ago. The additional fall reflects the impact of the Euro crisis on the banks which has fed through to a second credit crunch and then into the financial markets. This is despite the impact of the increased lending by the ECB through the LTRO since December.

Much of the fall in the number of City jobs has already taken place during the past 6 months and Cebr cautiously estimates that the position may be starting to stabilize as a result of the action by the ECB , with a modest recovery forecast for the period from 2013-2016. By 2016, Cebr forecasts that the number of City jobs may have recovered to 268,000.

The last time that the number of City jobs was as low as 255,000 was Q1 1996.

Cebr CEO Douglas McWilliams said: ‘The new data we have on jobs shows how the financial crisis is hitting the City. The combination of weak demand, aggressive regulation, high taxation and the rising competitiveness of financial centres in the Far East mean that London’s position is weaker than before. London remains the top ranked financial centre but its lead has narrowed.

‘One of the consequences is that the tax revenues from the City – which did so much to finance UK public spending in the boom years – are greatly diminished and likely to stay that way’.

Source: Cebr analysis: http://www.cebr.com/

ITV launches its first-ever graduate recruitment campaign today. Ten graduate roles will be offered for two-year placements, according to Catherine Schlieben, ITV head of recruitment.

The broadcaster already offers 10 one-year news traineeships for entry-level journalists. That initiative will run alongside the new graduate recruitment programme.

Schlieben told Recruiter that placements in the graduate programme will be made in three areas: commercial, corporate (finance and human resources) and creative production.

The graduate recruitment programme is the latest step for ITV in a restructuring and refocusing of the company’s recruitment activities that began two years ago.

Schlieben outlined the changes made to date at a conference last week held by The Forum for In-House Recruitment Managers (The FIRM) in London.

Much of the media has picked up on a report in Swiss newspaper Sonntag on Sunday which claims that Credit Suisse could announce that it is cutting up to 5,000 investment banking jobs when it reports its first-quarter profits on 25th April.

The IB unit increased headcount by around 4,000 between early 2009 and mid-2011.
The newspaper’s source says that the investment bank, which continued to beef up for much of 2011 as rivals stopped hiring, was now ’simply completely oversized’.

Even after announcing 3,500 job cuts last year (2,000 in July and 1,500 in November), Credit Suisse’s investment banking division still ended 2011 with a headcount of 20,900 – up 200 from the end of 2010.

A cull of 5,000 from the investment bank would therefore represent a massive 25% of the total employee base.
Adding to the credibility of the report, Bloomberg says that Oswald Gruebel, former CEO of both Credit Suisse and UBS, suggested in an interview with Finanz & Wirtschaft that Credit Suisse is currently employing between 3,500 and 5,000 too many employees in its investment banking division.
Gruebel also said that the big Swiss banks would now be in the business of shrinking their balance sheets, rather than positioning themselves for growth

Source: http://www.ijreview.com

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing The fifth would pay $1 The sixth would pay $3 The seventh would pay $7 The eighth would pay $12 The ninth would pay $18 The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a h higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving). The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!” “That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. – Professor of Economics.
_______

Accountancy firm KPMG’s ‘Business Leaders Survey’ shows that ‘people matters’ has entered the top five concerns of 3,000 business leaders across the Europe and Middle East, having not even made the top 10 last year.

Four cash-related problems topped ‘people matters’: while 24% of leaders saw managing and retaining the right people within the organisation as critical, more thought changing operations to become cost efficient (43%), improving cash management (32%), exploiting growth opportunities (30%) and preparing for major business model changes (25%) were seen as more important.

Anna Marie Detert, director in KPMG’s People and Change consulting practice, says: “The simple fact is that boardrooms have realised that they cannot afford to lose good people.

“Without high-potential future leaders and individuals with business critical skills, it is simply not possible to drive through important initiatives that can restore or improve an organisation’s economic status.”

Full findings from KPMG’s 2012 ‘Business Leaders Survey’ can be seen on the company’s website.

‘Presentation at Interview’ is the most important factor in standing out from the crowd, according to 23% of jobseekers from a survey by TipTopJob, a network of generic and specialist job sites.

Presentation comes out on top, ahead of 22% who said work experience was the top factor, 20% thinking it was an effective cover letter, 18% qualifications and 17% relevant skills.

According to Tim Oates, director of Cambridge Assessment, which owns and manages OCR one of the leading exam setting bodies, the physics syllabus has been made easier. The reason for this, apparently, was to make it easier to attract girls and less bright pupils to study physics at A level.

(I find it pretty offensive to females to regard them as less intelligent. I’m sure that some of the girls I know from Oxford University studying maths would feel the same, as would my PhD wife).

What happens when less bright pupils get to university? According to Alison Wolf who headed a government-ordered review into vocational education, universities are having to provide catch-up classes because too may teenagers with top A-level grades are not ready to cope with the rigours of a degree.

So, that’s a good reason to make A levels easier then?

Multinationals looking for graduate hires look at the ability to speak a foreign language as important but not essential, according to a survey of global firms.

Research carried out by the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), the Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) and research agency CFE shows that UK students are Continue Reading »

Leading professional services firms have already been swamped with graduate applications for 2012.

Ernst & Young has received more than 3,200 applications for fewer than 800 jobs; in practice, and allowing for interns from summer 2011 already offered positions, there are only between 480 and 560 jobs available.

At KPMG they have received 7,200 applications for 850 jobs between 1st July and 1st November. By comparison last years applicants for the same period were 4,500.

PwC, which says that it is seeking to hire 1,200 graduates, has said that applications have risen by 90% and Deloitte has indicated that it has experienced a similar increase in applications.

source: The Times