Link, share, join, listen ...
Link, share, join, listen ...
PricewaterhouseCoopers is on track to receive a record 30,000 applications for its graduate entry scheme with just 1200 places available - the latest indicator of the strains in the British labour market. That’s an amazing twenty-five applications for every one place.
This figure is 50% higher than the 20,000 applications received for its 2011 intake. Ian Powell, Chairman and Senior Partner, notes however that one of the “real challenges” of applications on this scale is the fear of quality candidates slipping through the cracks. That means you’re eliminating a lot of people on paper.
I have some sympathy with this view. Compared to this time last year, the Interim Partners financial services practice has seen an increase of approximately 40% in new candidates wishing to join our community. This is largely due to investment projects being abandoned or postponed, redundancy programmes and generally more candidates opting for the interim lifestyle. What becomes increasingly important, therefore, is the quality of each individual’s ability to market him or herself effectively. There is a variety of tools on hand to help nowadays, from the obvious Linkedin/comprehensive CV to less commonly used techniques such as Twitter/websites/thought leadership pieces.
But for my money, the main route to success is to stick to the basics. Well- presented (grammatically correct!) communication, flexibility and polite persistence will ultimately pay off.
I would be interested to hear what your best marketing tips are…
Liz Sinclair is Account Director for Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
Yet again we approach the bonus season for Bankers – not much seems to have changed and yes, we are still talking about it!
The public in the main are still angry about their pay, shareholders undoubtedly have strong views too but are powerless to influence change and block large pay outs to bosses.
Mr Cameron says he is determined to end the “merry-go-round” of super-rich bosses rubber-stamping each other’s enormous salaries and being rewarded for failure – even if that means legislation.
Research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests chief executives in 87 of the FTSE 100 companies took home an average of £5.1m in basic pay, bonuses, share incentives and pension contributions in 2010-11.
This represents a year-on-year increase of 33%, while the average increase in company value was 24% according to the think tank.
Does this “make your blood boil” as Mr Cameron says?
This maybe a solo position but I am not against a bonus culture, providing it is linked to positive performance and within a scheme that contains the necessary checks and balances to monitor this. Isn’t this how all businesses run?
Clearly not all banks are the same and we should not tarnish them all with the same brush ! However, it would be a very sad indication of an overall banking culture if legislation was needed to control a fair bonus culture.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
Angela Hickmore is a Director at Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
I hope that everyone had an excellent Christmas and New Year. 2011 was not without its challenges but the financial services practice of Interim Partners had another strong performance with growth over 30% for the second year running. Given the level of change within the financial sector I expect 2012 to be equally busy with cost reduction exercises, regulatory reform and integration programmes widely present in the market.
Now that the festivities are over and normal service has resumed I am fully focused on what needs to be achieved in 2012 and how to go about it. At the risk of sounding strange, I must confess to thoroughly enjoying writing business plans, it’s a great chance to step back, lift up the drains and think hard about what works and what doesn’t. Something new that I will be doing this year is working towards achieving the Chartered Director qualification with the Institute of Directors – its been a long time since I went back to school but am looking forward to sharpening up on subjects such as finance, strategy, marketing and corporate governance.
I would like to ask those within the Interim Partners network: what are your objectives for the year and what are you doing that is new for 2012?
Andrew McIntee is Director of Financial Services for Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
With the G20 summit failing to reach a conclusion over the weekend we have to wonder where and when this will all end! Everyone recognises the crisis – “Europe will be crippled by debt till 2021″ says Merkel but the solution seems to allude.
Having just come back from Dublin where the economy is now showing very small signs of growth there is fear that the harsh austerity measures taken in the last 12 months will all be in vain if this new crisis is not sorted.
And what about the UK? We’re not in the Euro (and as a Cabby told me it’s simple for us as we can print more money!) , but this will undoubtedly impact us.
The E & Y Item club reported in the Sunday Times that Britain’s Gross Domestic Product could fall by 4% to below it’s level during the 2008/09 recession. Over 3 million jobs (this does not include the interim/contract community) in the UK depend on trade with the EU and politicians are saying that resolution of this crisis “is the most important thing to happen to the UK economy this Autumn”
Even closer to home Interims are asking me what the effect is on the interim market and interim opportunities. Sadly I have no crystal ball for the future but whilst there are signs of some areas of the Market contracting in certain non critical business areas, we need to remember the Market in general has not stopped. Yes Its harder, decision making is sometimes slower and sometimes not made at all but there are still opportunities!
The REC job outlook for September 2011 indicates demand for interims and contractors will remain at current level or increase over the next 12 months. Over 2/3 of employers surveyed are planning to keep their contract workforce over the next 3 months and 22% saw increases.
But the most interesting statistic of all is this one – 86% of employers are planning to match or increase the number of non permanent staff, deferring commitment to permanent staff whilst there is economic uncertainty.
We benefit in the UK from a Market that understands the value of a flexible workforce and corporate agility. The positive impact of an experienced interim who can achieve operating efficiencies and cost reduction, who can show the quickest way forward on achieving transformation and who understand the FS regulatory landscape is not lost.
So tell me what you think about the Euro crisis and it’s impact on the UK?
If you’re an interim do you see fewer opportunities or no change and if anyone has that crystal ball maybe they would like to share!
Angela Hickmore is a Director at Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
Interim managers often tell us they go into this partly from a lifestyle choice. The opportunity to work hard for some months but not all of the year can be very attractive. However, if you’re on assignment and have your head down working away, I don’t know about you but I find my lifestyle changes immeasurably as the nights darken, oh, and remind me again why the clocks go back (no, with small children you don’t get another hour in bed). Running home after work in the cooling heat of the day in summer is almost pleasurable, in the mellowing sun of autumn is a delight, but in the blustery, leaf-strewn chill of winter is never fun. Allow me a moment to moan. People are greyer, more irritable and there seem to be more of them on the daily commute. It’s a real effort to exercise or even to make yourself go out at night (although it’s still mostly worth it when you get there). Battening down the hatches in front of the TV/iPad seems infinitely preferable of an evening.
But the good news for industry is that I imagine we are probably more productive. No wistful gazing out of the window wishing you were in a park or on a beach, or snatched lunch breaks in a rare London patch of sunlight. And work feels strangely homely compared to the sight of wet and miserable shoppers tramping the streets outside.
Roll on the spring, but in the meantime it’s good news for British industry in my view. Does your work pattern change according to the season? I’d be interested to hear how you manage (or not) to maintain a healthy balance in your life.
Liz Sinclair is an Account Director at Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
There has been a campaign running for some time now for a “Robin Hood Tax” or “Tobin Tax” on financial transactions where a levy is applied to all share, bond and currency trades. The debate intensified this week when the Church officially came out and supported the idea (I wonder if this was an attempt to divert attention from the pickle they have gotten themselves into at St Paul’s).
The Church is not alone, the EU is very much in favour of implementing a transaction tax and Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are keen to implement it. They no doubt do so knowing full well that London will bear the brunt of such measures and take the effective risk of driving its valuable financial services sector abroad. If additional taxes were proposed on agricultural or engineering output instead I very much doubt the French or German stance would be so enthusiastic.
David Cameron and George Osborne have naturally been cautious on the idea in a bid to protect the UK’s interests, agreeing in principle but arguing such a tax would need to be globally implemented to avoid a mass flight of financial services businesses to relocate in countries with more favourable tax conditions. There has already been the “super tax” on bonuses, the four year banking levy came into force this year and now the Tobin tax is under discussion. Will there become a point when the UK will lose its appeal to be a major centre for financial services? How big in reality is the threat to the UK’s financial sector from other global locations and what could those locations be?
Your thoughts as ever are appreciated.
Andrew McIntee is a Director and Head of Financial Services at Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
I was amazed to hear of the 31 year old trader at UBS who has been charged by the City of London police today following the discovery of £1.3bn of unauthorised trading losses. What raised my eyebrows more was that it was the actions of the trader himself informing his bosses of the positions that brought the matter to a head, rather than being picked up by any of the risk management controls.
I accept that no systems are perfect and a few quid will go astray here or there, but £1.3bn is more that UBS earned in the first half of the year. Of course financial services is a zero sum game and no money is ever lost, it is simply transferred, I’m sure that their loss is somebody else’s gain, but that will be of poor consolation for the UBS employees whose bonuses hang on good results. This will be exactly what UBS doesn’t need at this time; the recent strength of the Swiss Franc has been killing the competitiveness of the bank and it is already under pressure back home after receiving a £35bn taxpayer bailout in the banking crisis, this episode will do nothing to reassure them that their money was well invested.
I have never seen a time when greater focus was applied by senior management within financial services companies to risk, controls and compliance yet 3 years on from the eye of storm and it would appear that some companies have learnt very little.
So what is the answer? More proactive regulation, greater external auditing of controls and risk management, more personal liabilities for Directors of banks? Do we have to accept that no system is fool proof and determined people will always find a way around it?
Comments, as ever, are welcome.
Andrew McIntee is a Director and Head of Financial Services.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
In the wake of recent corporate fiascos, it’s only seconds before negative attention is turned to Board members to see how they could have managed their businesses better.
One of the issues seems to be a tendency to reward well deserving colleagues and acquaintances with a Board position without understanding whether they are actually the right people for the job. A while ago, the government tried to encourage a shake-up of boardrooms – The Higgs Review advised there needed to be greater representation of all aspects of commercial life in the boardrooms and to draw on a much bigger talent pool. The impression is that fundamental change to board make-up (e.g. more women, more ethnic minorities etc) is not happening.
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has recently undertaken a review of corporate standards for listed companies and produced four clear recommendations for board members:
To increase accountability, all directors of FTSE 350 companies should be put forward for re-election every year.
To promote proper debate in the boardroom, there are new principles for the leadership of the chairman, the responsibility of the non-executive directors to provide constructive challenge, and the time commitment expected of all directors.
To encourage boards to be well balanced and avoid groupthink, there are new principles for the composition and selection of the board, including the need to appoint members on merit, against objective criteria, and with due regard for the benefits of diversity, including gender diversity.
To help enhance the board’s performance and awareness of its strengths and weaknesses, the chairman should hold regular development reviews with each director and FTSE 350 companies should have externally facilitated board effectiveness reviews at least every three years.
What do you think? These guidelines seem eminently sensible, but do you think they will help? Or do we need more stringent performance metrics, such as external auditing, to prevent further corporate disasters? And equally, what effect (if any) do you think these standards will have on the demand for C-level interim resource in the future? Your thoughts would, as ever, be welcomed.
Liz Sinclair is an Account Director at Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
It’s been a good week for the customer in Retail Banking!
Lloyds has made a commitment to “improve customer services” whilst Santander is bringing it’s contact centres back from India to the UK to “improve customer service”. As for the new banks Metro Bank’s philosophy is “banking focused on the customer”.
So why is it I am not convinced that Customer Service will improve – are you? How many of us can really put their hands up and say they are really pleased with the service from their banks and if so what does “good ” really look like? What is the role of the branch in good customer service and if on-line Banking is the way of the future how do banks show good customer service with a face less channel?
What do you think?
Angela Hickmore is a Director at Interim Partners.
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
Following on from my blog post in early April about the Vickers Report, it would appear that the Chancellor has accepted the major finding of the report that large banks must ringfence their retail operations to make them independent of any investment banking divisions. Increasing the tier 1 capital ratios from the current 7% to a forecast of 10% will also be imposed – thus providing a Government answer to the ever present question of “too big to fail” that has been debated to death since 2008.
I thought it was interesting that George Osborne has come out in public support of it now, rather than wait until the publication of the final report in September. This will send a clear signal to the banks involved, mainly RBS, Barclays and HSBC that the time for lobbying is over and to start making plans to comply with the new rules. Ed Balls has also come out and supported the findings; given the cross party approval I would suggest that at this point any arguing against the Vickers Report is now futile.
What will this mean for interim management? Certainly a lot more change to deliver which as ever remains the engine room of the market. Ringfencing will require that retail operations will need to be able to stand on their own two feet – with their own IT systems, finance and risk functions etc. Considering the size of the organisations in scope it could boost demand for interim managers in the sector for several years.
All these changes and increases in capital to improve market security will have to be paid for somehow and no doubt the banks will be looking to pass some of this cost on to customers – for everything there is a price!
Andrew McIntee is a Director and Head of Financial Services
Click here to read other blogs on the Financial Services sector
