Month: November 2011

Graduate scheme can prove a foot in the door

Charlie

Graduate jobs are tough to come by in today’s economic climate, with NEETs (those not in education, employment or training) bearing the brunt of unemployment. Employers have cut back on positions as well as the scope of any graduate scheme they might run, reflecting the harsh realities of the economies they are having to make to stay afloat. Many companies are still running an internship programme, which can be a great way to move into a job. However, internships must be considered with caution, since they differ enormously in quality and purpose.

In the worst case, an internship is just an employer’s way of finding cheap labour. Under the pretence of teaching you about their industry, they can essentially exploit their interns. The change in the law that requires employers to pay interns at least the minimum wage has reduced this problem slightly, since they still have to get value for money out of those who come to work for them. However, there is still the problem of widely differing expectations. Too many interns arrive in their new place of work, only to find that their employer has taken the prospect far less seriously than they have. In these cases, an internship is little more than a way of marking time.

In the best cases, though, internships can be unparalleled learning experiences. They will often lead to a job in the relevant industry or the company itself, and it is worth ensuring at the application stage if this is a possibility. This fact alone will often enable you to distinguish those who want to prepare you for working in the sector, and those who are just looking for cheap workers. Larger employers with well-organised schemes are usually good bets. However, smaller employers can be goldmines, since they offer great scope for getting to know the whole of an organisation. If you are uncertain, read any reviews you can find or ask previous interns. Feedback is often stored on university careers sites.

An internship is one way into graduate jobs, and may be an option in a climate where the graduate scheme market is more limited than it was a few years ago. Nevertheless, you should not give up on these. Start early, and cast your net wide to maximise your opportunities. You can always turn down offers you get if you realise you don’t really want them. What you don’t want is to find yourself in the position of so many other NEETs: finishing university, with no job or internship lined up, and no immediate prospect of finding something you really want to do.

Please visit http://www.careerplayer.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.careerplayer.com/

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Bacs: fast, easy, safe

Annie

bacs software has been around for years now, but it still has not been universally adopted by businesses. This is strange when you consider the many advantages of making bacs payments, rather than older and less reliable or secure methods. There is still some suspicion about trusting computers to do your work for you, and people tend to be warier than ever where their money is concerned. The maxim holds that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, but that weak link is usually down to human error. In practice, bacs is a fast and reliable way of making payments to suppliers and receiving them from customers. It can save you time and money, and reduce the errors and risk associated with handling cash and paying third parties by other means.

Bacs stands for bankers automated clearing software. Essentially it is an electronic transfer of funds from your account to another party’s account. This can take up to three days, but can equally be almost instant. (There is another option, SWIFT, which is guaranteed same-day.) Even in the worst case scenario, then, bacs is as fast as paying in a cheque or cash. It has several advantages over and above that.

One of these is security. Making online payments means you do not have to keep cash on the premises. It also reduces the scope for fraud, since you will no longer be making out cheques. Reliability is another. The money leaves your account immediately, so you know how much is left, and you are not likely to be caused cash-flow problems by people delaying paying in cheques and then the money leaving your account unexpectedly. Additionally, once you have correctly entered a payee’s details once, they can be reused after that. Paying the wrong person and having to recover the money shouldn’t be an issue.

Bacs software can be used to time payments, and in conjunction with accounting software can be used to take care of payroll payments – automating pay day and saving a huge amount of time and effort, as well as reducing the error inevitable in doing the job manually. Bacs payments and receipts can also be combined with auditing software to further reduce error and duplicate payments, resulting in surprising savings for most businesses. In conclusion, there are many reasons to use bacs and few to ignore it.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.bottomline.co.uk/

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School Uniforms – cheaply and easily

Annie

School uniforms can be costly and, due to your children’s tendency to grow at inopportune moments, short-lived. There is a certain level of economy that can be made by passing school clothes along from one child to another, and even around groups of friends. But eventually you’re going to have to bite the bullet at some point and find some new ones. Sometimes you won’t get much notice. For instance, if the weather turns cold sooner than you expected, you might find that you need to buy coats and hats before you expect it. Or perhaps a much-needed piece of clothing gets lost or irretrievably ripped. In these instances a good online London schoolwear supplier can be worth its weight in gold.

Shopping online for what you need can be a very welcome change from trudging around the shops with an unwilling child. Of course there are some caveats. You need to be sure that what you are buying will fit. The best way to do this is to find a similar item of clothing that your child already wears and that does fit, and make a note of the size. If it comes from the same outlet, so much the better. Otherwise you can find out with a tape measure – not something children often enjoy, but given the alternative of forcing them around the high street for a day, they should see the attractive side of it. The other thing to do is confirm that the store has a good returns policy, just in case you do make a mistake. Quick delivery is another box to tick – there’s no point if the store has the items you want but they won’t turn up for 2 or 3 weeks when you need them in 2 or 3 days. That’s one reason why local UK companies have an edge.

The other thing to remember about an online London schoolwear supplier is the price benefit. Shopping online tends to be cheaper, because overheads are better. There is no need for a big and expensive shopfront to tempt new customers – just a warehouse and a few staff somewhere convenient. That’s why this can be an economic way to purchase school clothes. That’s something that has appeal for everyone in a time of squeezed incomes. school uniforms never seem cheap, so anywhere you can save a few pounds is welcome.

Please visit http://www.uniform4kids.com/