Interview advice for compensation, benefits and rewards jobseekers

Portfolio CBR understands the importance of making the right impression during an interview. To help jobseekers perform well, the specialist recruitment agency has constructed a guide containing a hint, tips and information to think about beforehand. With a wealth of experience in recruiting high calibre candidates for head of reward, compensation consultant and reward manager roles, Portfolio CBR understands what employers are looking for during the application process.

Before any interview, read over the job description to get a full understanding of the position, and look at the company's website to gain some background information. Showing an interest in the business and its work is likely to impress an interviewer.

As first impressions are important, a professional demeanour and appearance will highlight your suitability for the job at hand. Get to the interview in plenty of time and if you are running behind schedule, contact the interviewer straight away and apologise upon arrival. Also, keep jewellery to a minimum and bring any papers in a handbag or briefcase. Also, make sure that your mobile phone is switched off before you arrive to prevent any nasty surprises.

As competency questions are becoming increasingly common in job interviews, make sure that you look at the job requirement in detail. Think about your previous employment and how it relates to the vacancy so that you can highlight your relevant skills and experience to the interviewer.

Remember to talk clearly, providing concise and direct answers. Also, try not to slouch or fidget, keeping your hands on your knees or the edge of the table. Of course, never refer to previous colleagues or employers in a negative manner or appear overly confident or arrogant. Instead, be courteous throughout and remember to smile.

At the end of many interviews, it is likely that you will be asked if you have any questions. Try to think of a selection of relevant and appropriate enquiries in advance to avoid being put on the spot during your appointment.
 

www.portfoliocbr.com/

Portfolio CBR - a recruitment agency specialising in compensation, benefits and reward - provides recruitment services to nationwide businesses of all sizes. With a wealth of market knowledge, Portfolio CBR works to find ideal candidates for contract, temporary and permanent positions.

For more information on Portfolio CBR and its recruitment services, ring 020 7650 3190.

Web development specialist celebrates ten years of success

Tier 2 Consulting, Hertfordshire’s leading web development specialist, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month and the team is delighted with the news that 2012 is set to become one of its most profitable years since its creation in 2002.

The software company, based at the Business & Technology Centre in Stevenage, specialises in the development of high quality web applications and systems integration services.

Over the last 12 months Tier 2 Consulting has secured a string of exciting new business wins, including new projects with global pharmaceuticals company, GlaxoSmithKline and major insurance brokers, Lloyds of London.

GlaxoSmithKline was so impressed with the project it has also renewed Tier 2’s support contract, which is now in its 10th consecutive year. Following these recent account triumphs Tier 2 is now actively looking to expand its local development team to support several new projects over the next few months.

Andy Kennedy, Managing Director at Tier 2 Consulting, comments: “Obviously we are all delighted to be celebrating our 10th anniversary this month and I can’t quite believe how time has flown. We started out as small business that focussed on delivering quality web applications and we have kept that ethos right up until today. I think some of our success could be attributed to the dedication, skills and hardworking nature of people from this region and the fact our whole team is client facing. We don’t outsource all of our projects abroad, our team is UK based, and our clients always deal with us. If you have an experienced local team that works closely with the client it will almost always deliver high-quality software efficiently. I have always felt that to deliver high quality software you need to speak to the actual people working on the project.”

He added: “We are all looking forward to an exciting six months. We have recently created a new delivery manager role for one of our technical consultants and are planning to find two more senior web developers from the local area to join our growing team.”

Tier 2 Consulting's recent projects have included the development of a genetic toxicology tracking system (GETIT) for GlaxoSmithKilne, the design and development of a web-based platform to deliver high-quality legal subject matter to the general public and legal advisors for a legal services provider, and the development of online learning and assessment tools for the dental students at King’s College, London.

With unique industry partners including Red Hat, the world’s largest provider of open source technology, Tier 2 is able to maintain the highest levels of technical skill and experience in Red Hat's JBoss product range. The team also provides bespoke training, consultancy and development services to global companies.

CloudApps suits and boots fifty Planet Positive customers on its sustainability platform

CloudApps, the multi award-winning provider of sustainability performance management solutions, has moved 50 of Planet Positive’s customers onto its platform. CloudApps’ software is now helping companies like GMI Construction, FREM Group and Claremont Group Interiors to accurately chart and reduce their corporate carbon footprints.

Onboarding Planet Positive’s global network of 200 customers proved not to have been an issue for CloudApps during the software implementation. The sustainability software provider uses the Force.com cloud platform from salesforce.com to deliver its solutions and the successful roll out of the software to 50 companies illustrates the speed and flexibility of both the core sustainability product and the underlying cloud computing platform.

Peter Grant, CEO CloudApps, is looking forward to seeing the effect of CloudApps’ technology on Planet Positive’s customers. “Companies across the world acknowledge Planet Positive’s certification process as one of the most stringent. The rewards which come from being Planet Positive certified enables businesses to enhance their brands. CloudApps is proud to be powering the process across a global portfolio of customers, responding to the need for a fast roll out speed on a large scale.”

Steve Malkin, CEO and Founder of Planet Positive, believes all of its customers will be integrated on the CloudApps’ platform by the end of this year: “Planet Positive certification is designed to be fast, affordable, and accessible. CloudApps’ speed and flexibility has been demonstrated by the uptake of 50 customers within the first two months. Our objective is to enable every business to experience the benefits of sustainability as soon as possible.”

Charles Stanley & Co. Ltd saves £100,000 with Advanced’s Unified Communications Solution

SIP project is completed in just six months and will continue to save £100,000 year-on-year

Charles Stanley & Co. Ltd, one of the UK’s leading stockbroking and investment management groups, has saved more than £100,000 after investing in a Unified Communications Solution based on Systems Initiation Protocol (SIP). The company is anticipating continued savings of £100,000 year-on-year. The project, which went live in July 2012, was completed in just six months by Advanced 365 (Advanced), which specialises in providing managed services and converged voice and data networks.

Advanced was first approached by Charles Stanley for telecommunications support three years ago when the investment company was facing the challenge of moving offices and retiring a legacy dealerboard system. Leveraging the existing investment in Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), Advanced replaced the system with a SIP-based IP Trade dealer board for use in its London and Manchester dealing facilities.

Advanced has since completed several key projects, including reducing Charles Stanley’s voice recording estate from 36 to just two recording servers whilst providing a more reliable system.

Mark Smith, ICT Manager from Charles Stanley says, “We were impressed with Advanced’s specialised knowledge of the finance sector and the fact that the company built a thorough understanding of our exact needs before submitting its proposal.”

The latest and largest project has already saved the business more than £100,000 in line rental alone. This project involved replacing old phone circuits with SIP technology compatible with CUCM. 481 ISDN channels have now been reduced to 100 and 5,200 DDI numbers have now been reduced to less than 2,500, which has contributed to cost savings whilst also providing a more robust, secure and future proof telephony platform.

The investment firm now owns its centralised SIP platform and has full control of its telephony estate, rather than having to rely on the previous provider to carry out maintenance and porting work. All dealing room and back office telephony has all been brought together under a single platform, which simplifies day-to-day call management and upgrades. The new platform also encourages more efficiency and enables the business to continue to deliver a high quality service to its private investors.

Smith says, “The roadmap for the SIP project was well thought out and was delivered in a very quick timeframe. In fact, it only took a couple of minutes to switch the numbers over during trading hours allowing our traders to continue with business as usual with absolutely no disruption.”

Charles Stanley has the challenge of moving some of its trading offices every year, which involves ordering new circuits and new phone numbers. This is never ideal for stockbrokers. With the new SIP platform, brokers can keep the same numbers wherever they move to, meaning that there is no interruption to business and the company is no longer reliant on the previous provider to carry out porting requests to meet tight deadlines.

Smith adds, “We were especially impressed when Advanced managed to port four branches per week over a three month period. This all happened quickly and seamlessly and is just one of a series of successful projects that has saved us a great deal of time and funding over the years.”

Protect your organisation from the risk of high data usage

The demand for constant access to the internet and business information whilst on the move means we are downloading more and more data on mobile phones and tablets.

The average smartphone user downloads approx. 325 MB per month, and this is growing year on year by over 100%. By 2015 over 90% of traffic on smartphones will be data traffic – mostly web browsing and video streaming.

With twice as many personal devices connecting to corporate networks now than compared to two years ago, IT managers need to ensure employees are aware of the security risks they are exposed to when using their own smartphones and tablets. Businesses supporting Bring Your Own Device policies also need to understand their employees’ data usage and ensure that they have the most suitable mobile data plans in place.

Mobile device management solutions can help businesses monitor and manage all types of mobile devices used within the work arena.

However, employees remain the best line of defence. Business owners and IT managers must help them to understand the security elements of protecting their corporate networks and introduce best practice to help minimising threats posed by mobile data downloads.

The Minimising Mobile Data Downloads Infographic is a valuable resource for educating employees about their data usage.

David Consulting Group acquires SMS Exemplar

International software development consultants, David Consulting Group Ltd. (DCG), is pleased to announce its acquisition of the SMS Exemplar Group which includes Software Measurement Services Ltd (SMS) and SMS Exemplar Ltd.

Both David Consulting and SMS are metrics specialists with extensive expertise in the quantitative management of IT software systems. In recognition of the formidable reputation for measurement excellence and know-how built up by SMS’ founding Director, P. Grant Rule, who tragically died in 2011, David Consulting Group will trade in Europe and the UK under the name DCG-SMS.

With continuing pressure to drive down costs, more organisations are looking critically at the value delivered by their IT systems. Most notably, a more rigorous, quantitative approach to managing software projects is being adopted by the public sector in order to control costs and ensure value for money.

Measurement data can be used to drive improvements in productivity and flexibility but is part of an overall business strategy, not a technical quick-fix. As such, it requires the expertise of experienced consultants, such as DCG-SMS, to guide an organisation through successful implementation and provide advice in areas such as system performance, growth opportunities, cost savings, risk management and best IT investments.

“Demand for the expertise offered by David Consulting Group and SMS is growing,” said Alan Cameron, Managing Director of DCG-SMS. “Business managers in the UK and Europe tell me that with today’s software-intensive business systems, the technical know-how and experience is essential. The creation of DCG-SMS combines the expertise of two great companies and will help us better meet the needs of more clients.”

SMS Managing Director, Sue Rule, will join DCG-SMS as Marketing Director and is delighted to be taking the SMS legacy forward with the David Consulting Group.

“DCG and SMS have a very similar ethos of offering high-quality, business-focused expertise to our customers,” she said, “Our UK and European clients will benefit immediately and we fully expect that North American clients will be able to experience the value of our joint capabilities in the very near future.

“By bringing the companies together we significantly increase the range of software measurement and improvement services and can expand our services to new clients.”

David Consulting Group:

Version One urges public bodies to adopt e-invoicing by 2016

E-procurement to become the rule for public bodies by 2016 according to European Commission

Electronic invoicing software provider, Version One, is urging UK public sector bodies to ditch paper invoices in favour of e-invoicing by 2016 to help comply with European Commission (EC) proposals. The EC announced earlier this year that it intends to make electronic procurement (e-procurement) for public purchases the rule rather than the exception across Europe by mid-2016.

The EC regards public sector adoption of e-procurement as a means to save 100 billion Euros per annum and has proposed that the whole public sector is given until mid-2016 to comply. As only 5 – 10 per cent of procurement processes are currently carried out electronically across Europe, there is a significant hill to climb if all public bodies are to meet the European Commission’s deadline.

Version One is urging UK public bodies to take small steps towards achieving full e-procurement by first implementing electronic invoicing, which is one of the most significant time, cost and paper savers in the procurement process.

Greg Ford, Managing Director of Version One, says, “Public bodies can spend an exorbitant amount of time and money manually processing and storing thousands of paper invoices every month. By adopting electronic invoicing for the automated processing, storage and management of purchase invoices, this can deliver deep spending cuts while enabling finance staff to replace time-consuming administration with value-adding activities.”

Using electronic invoicing solutions, purchase invoices that arrive into the organisation are imaged (if in paper format), the invoice data is automatically extracted and verified before being uploaded to the finance system, and a link to the invoice is automatically circulated for authorisation via email. All electronic invoices can also be stored in a central, easily searchable archive, preventing invoices from going missing.

Ford adds, “It is imperative that public sector bodies move from manual paper-based invoicing to e-invoicing within the next few years to comply with the European Commission’s e-procurement mandate. With thousands of pounds cost savings easily achievable by moving to e-invoicing, this should be one of the first stages of any e-procurement project.”
 

www.versionone.co.uk