Business Updates

August 14, 2019 by Julie McGrath

A large enterprise or corporate businesses offer big benefits and perks like good salaries, a fancy workplace, etc. but when it comes to personal or professional growth, SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) play an important role. Working in a small business, offers an abundance of benefits, as it recognises the potential and value of every employee.

Small businesses offer exceptional career opportunities to its employees, giving them a chance to stand out in the workplace. Working in a small or medium enterprise (SME), connects an individual to the senior management, allowing greater exposure to widen an individual’s skill set.

Listed below are 7 benefits of working within an SME:

Widens your skill-set: Working in SMEs leads to a better understanding of the job role, helping develop and broaden your skill-set. Small businesses develop their employee’s overall skills set and encourage their entrepreneurial drive. They get an on-the-job, first-hand experience to understand and introspect the business better.

Advancement in the career graph: With ample opportunities to learn, all individuals get a platform to showcase their talent towards a positive progress in the company.

Offers employee-centric work culture:A smaller workplace leads to more cohesion amongst the team. An employee centric work culture leads to a better understanding amongst professionals and greater transparency in workflow, which is crucial to an organisation’s growth. Unlike a large company, an SME creates an atmosphere that is more nurturing than that found in companies with thousands of employees.

Client-facing roles which facilitate better customer- centricity: Employees working in SMEs are in a direct client facing role, mostly. This lets the employees of SMEs understand the clients’ ask better, to give them a customised solution.

Adaptable and Flexible:A large company often has a complex structure whereas an SME has a more flexible work policy. This allows an SME professional, to contribute more to the company than someone of an equivalent designation in an MNC (multinational corporation).

Rapid Response to Change:A simpler structured SME allows even junior level employees to learn more about the company’s industry as compared to employees of similar ranks in huge multinationals. Employees who work in an SME intimately feel the pulse of their industry. Also because SMEs have a simpler corporate hierarchy, employees of such companies are able to understand and adapt more quickly to changes in their industry.

Greater Learning from Niche Industries:Many of the world’s largest companies are also the customers of equally large companies. This often means that many of the smaller niche segments in an industry are serviced by smaller and medium-sized businesses. This creates a niche that is ideal for SMEs to exploit and allow those working there, to gain better insight into niche industries and market segments.

Working in any organisation opens avenues for many learning experiences. SMEs stand apart from their larger counterparts because of their ability to help employees grow in a manner, which is unique and distinct from the kind of growth possible in companies that have a thousand or more employees.

We are partnered with some amazing SMEs throughout the UK that offer excellent benefits including personal and professional growth . Check out some of the latest featured jobs that could be right for you.

April 3, 2019 by Julie McGrath

Can you believe that we’re already at the start of Q2 2019? Filled with warm weather, cold weather, Brexit (still) and plenty of IT news and developments, let’s take a look at the highlights from Q1.

Let’s hear IT for inclusion

Diversity and equality in IT have been in the spotlight for good reasons this quarter. Amazon launched Amazon Amplify — firstly, a program of initiatives to increase the number of women in its UK technology and innovation roles. Also the Learning Foundation and Nominet joined forces to ensure that all children in the UK have equal access to digital information and education.

IT salaries on the rise

An increase in IT and tech jobs wasn’t the only growth in the UK last year. We saw a significant surge in salaries within the IT sector, most noticeably within machine learning, AI, DevOps, big data, data science and CIO roles.

Cloudy with a chance of change

This quarter saw the launch of the FinOps Foundation. The non-profit consortium, consisting of big names including Spotify and JustEat, aims to help enterprises manage their cloud costs better by sharing financial management strategies. It is hoped that this leads to faster cloud adoption and better utilisation of cloud resources across the globe.

Speaking of the weather, the 2019 State of the Cloud Report was released, with some interesting data on the adoption of Azure. While AWS still leads when it comes to the public cloud market, Microsoft Azure is catching up, with interest in Google Cloud on the rise.

Cybersecurity headlines

Cybersecurity remains firmly in the news this quarter, following cyber incidents and data breaches involving Airbus and the Student Loans Company, who suffered a shocking 965,639 cyber attacks in 2017/2018.

In more positive cybersecurity news, Tech Nation launched the UK’s first cybersecurity scale-up accelerator program, and Orange acquired SecureData — making them a leading player in the European scene.

Speedy Gonzales

Speed enthusiasts will be pleased to hear that Virgin Media began testing 8Gbps this quarter. Eight homes in Cambridgeshire experienced what it was like to download a 20GB ultra-high definition 4K film in 20 seconds. Meanwhile, O2 announced that it will begin rolling out its 5G network this year — a year earlier than planned, and just in time for the new broadband speed regulations. It will also be launching a number of 5G innovation spaces across the UK, allowing businesses to begin testing their devices.

Hackaone

Stack Overflow hosted its first ever hackathon. Employees working on Stack Overflow products or with the Stack Overflow community were all encouraged to get involved learning where issues were and thinking about how to tackle them next time. Part two TBC

It’s been a positive and strong start to 2019! Good luck to all of you for Q2 and thank you again for all your support! If you need any help or advice with your career or your business, please get in touch!

Don’t forget to take advantage of our April promotion and have your CV updated by one of our professionals. Let us take the time, stress and hassle out of changing jobs.

Data Driven Investor
Evolution

March 4, 2019 by Julie McGrath

Hire For Skills First

How do you identify young talent that will have the greatest impact?

For most companies, the standard practice is to target select, prestigious schools, universities or colleges, invest in a prime spot during seasonal career fairs, and collect as many CV’s as possible to build an entry-level talent pipeline. However if you are an SME or start up this isn’t always possible. Let’s find out why hiring for ‘Skills’ first rather than ‘degree’ first maybe beneficial to your business.

First off, in the age of digital transformation, the demand for developers won’t be able to keep up with degree focus recruiting. If everyone’s fighting for talent in the same pools of talent, hiring will be exponentially more difficult. Secondly, if your goal is to make strong hires, we need to look past ‘only’ grades, as they aren’t reflective of true ability.

It’s time to focus the conversation on skill. To dive deeper on understanding the state of student developer skills. 10,000 developers were surveyed by Hacker Rack across universities worldwide on how they’re learning, what they’re learning, and what they look for in a job. For instance, we learned that even though 76% of tech students are pursuing a degree in computer science, 65% of all student developers say they are at least partially self-taught. And nearly one third of all developers said they’re completely self-taught.Self-directed learning is the norm among developers; so when companies focus on hiring based on proven skill instead of prestigious degree a massive pool of overlooked talent opens up.

A degree is not enough to learn how to code

Although most computer science students are learning software development in universities, over half of all student developers say they’re partially self-taught. And nearly one third of all student developers say they’re completely self-taught.

This prevalence of self-taught knowledge means two things: First, computer science programs lag behind the pace at which technology evolves. For skills that are growing in the industry today, students have to rely on self-teaching to learn.

Second, self-teaching is ingrained in the developer DNA. Developers have an insatiable thirst for learning. On average, students are planning to learn 6 languages, while more senior developers are learning 4. Their thirst for learning makes it clear that Computer Science (CS) degrees shouldn’t be the primary measure of student developer skills. Instead, teams need to look beyond school performance—to personal projects, portfolio, skills assessments, and the like—to accurately evaluate their skills.

Students rely more on YouTube than professionals

Developers have traditionally flocked to Stack Overflow as a means of learning new skills or working through problems. But that could be changing with new generations.

University students today seem to be showing less interest in Stack Overflow compared to professional developers. Instead, YouTube is starting to become more favourable as a learning tool for the next generation of developers. We found that 73% of students use YouTube, compared to only 64% of professional developers (where the majority of professional developers were aged 25-34, and the majority of student developers were aged 18-24).

What platforms do Student and professional use to learn how to code?

Outside of the classroom, the face of education is shapeshifting quickly. The popularity of video-focused mediums may signal the beginning of a larger generational shift led by Generation Z (those born in the mid 90’s – early 00’s), who make up the majority of today’s college and university students.

This trend supports recent research by Pearson & Harris Poll, which found that Generation Z (ages 14-23) preferred YouTube and video to learn versus other applications of learning.

Check out some of the latest jobs that we are hiring for that will consider ‘skills’ first!

January 29, 2019 by Julie McGrath

Belfast Met partnered with Women in Business recently to run the successful Bring It On event, bringing educators, teachers, pupils and industry professionals together in order to encourage pupils to take an interest in IT Careers.

Now more than ever, there is an increased effort being made to encourage young women to enter the world of technology careers and to subvert the traditional stereotype of the industry. With the skills gap within IT still quite wide and more jobs to fill than qualified people to do the roles, there is an increased effort to promote the sector to young students as they are choosing their career paths.

Belfast Met recently pulled together to run an event with Women in Business that aimed to give students an insight into what the various local tech job roles entail. The event consisted of a series of talks and workshops, with leading companies such as Fujitsu, Liberty IT, Deloitte, CME Group, Allstate, Graffiti Recruitment and Kainos in attendance. Funding for the vent was provided due to the Department for the Economy, was able to play an important role in addressing skill shortages in NI.

The event was well received by student Niamh O’Connell, who said that “Bring it On was a great event which was very inspirational for young girls and I would definitely consider a career in IT after it.” Katie Hughes, another student in attendance positively commented, “I think the Bring it On event was superb. I have learnt so much about careers that involve IT and have developed an understanding of what it is like to work within IT. At the start of the event I was nearly certain that I did not want a career in IT but by the end I was certain that I did”

The fact that two girls who would not have considered IT prior to the event and now after hearing what the industry entails and what opportunities are out there for them would be keen goes to show the power of education. It’s hoped that introducing the sector to students from a younger age will allow them to develop a passion and an interest that could lead them to pursuing the viable career option, and this event suggested that this strategy works.

Source: Belfast Press Release – Sync NI

December 6, 2018 by Julie McGrath

January and February are traditionally very busy times for job seekers, hiring managers and recruiters alike but why do so many people change jobs in January? There are of course many reasons why people change roles but there are several reasons why they do so en masse.

There is a myth that the job market stalls in November and December. This is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything else. Yes, it can take longer for the interview process to progress to offer stage, but hiring managers are still looking to fill their vacancies and typically would like new starters to join the team in January. The myth though can mean that people delay starting their search until the New Year.

A lot of companies shut down over the Christmas period which gives two more reasons for the spike in job seekers. Any long break from work increases the likelihood of people considering a job change. Time off can make people reassess their day to day lives and make them realise that they are dreading going back to work. If that is the case, then it’s probably time to change. Job hunting can be a very time-consuming process, particularly in the early stages when you have to write a CV and find jobs to apply for and recruiters to work with. The long break means that people finally have time to do that. – Don’t wait, do it now, get ahead of the crowds, get the advice you need and let us help you get your CV ready, with our £250 free CV review. Yes, sometimes Christmas does come early.

So, to ensure you’re ready for the ‘New Year, New Me’… why don’t you focus on what you really want from a job and consider these 5 things now, so you can make 2019 a year to remember. Ask yourself these 5 simple questions:

What have I achieved?

List everything you achieved over the last year that make you valuable to your current company and how that can be transferred. Being able to explain the value of your achievements can be a sound basis to begin discussing a raise in Salary.

What do I want?

You need to be prepared to articulate what you want. You’ve sometimes got to be explicit. What stage are you at within your career, what type of organisation do you want to work within; large corporate, SME, Contractor etc. Mapping out the path you need to take to achieve your goals is something you have to do for yourself.

What is the bigger picture?

January is theoretically when the job market starts moving, so it’s a good time to look for opportunities. But before you start applying for a new role, taking a step back and considering what you want from life generally as this will influence the next move you make in your career.

If you want to buy a house in the next couple of years, or if you are thinking of starting a family, these life goals will have a profound influence on the career decisions you will want to make.

Who is my dream employer?

Make a list of the top 10 organisations you would love to work for, then research them, follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook. Look beyond the obvious large corporations as we have many SMEs that are more agile, flexible, and somewhere your ideas can really make a difference.

Take a few hours researching the internet and checking out their company culture, environment, locations etc and then understanding does this align with what you are looking for.

Who can I talk to?

Career experts agree that talking your options through with somebody is often helpful. Partnering with a specialist recruitment agency can often spark new ideas on jobs you might not know exist and give you some helpful advice on local companies that would be interested in someone with your skills.

We know changing jobs can be time consuming and frustrating, let us help reduce that or even take it away. Chat to us now, and we can give you some free impartial, relevant career advice.

July 23, 2018 by Julie McGrath

Online food marketplace Just Eat has announced it is recruiting to fill 150 technology roles, 80 of which have been recently created

The new roles are spread between the two Just Eat technology centres in London and Bristol. This is the firm’s biggest search for talent in the last three years.

Fernando Fanton, chief product and technology officer, said that the firm’s data and technology is absolutely vital to maintain its service to its 22.8 million customers and more than 87,500 restaurant partners.

Adding an additional 150 people to the team that creates the firm’s digital experiences, such as its mobile application, is Just Eat’s way of “turbo-charging” its existing efforts to develop its customer and application experiences, according to Fanton.

“We are constantly looking for ways to push technology boundaries, and we look forward to bringing even more highly skilled and talented individuals to our world-class team as we continue our mission to create the world’s greatest food community,” he said.

Just Eat has been on top of digital advancements over the past year and has been trialling and implementing many types of “food tech”, from launching an application that can be used for Amazon Alexa and Apple TV, to trialling the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) on its consumer side for browsing menus and also on the restaurant/partner side for data visualisation and insight.

The 150 vacancies are on all levels, from entry level to experience management, and include roles such as associate engineers, principal engineers and technology managers.

The additional team members will help Just Eat to provide an overall better customer experience, all-important in a digital world where customers are fickle with their choice of brands and services.

Just Eat has already hired more than 200 engineers, developers and data scientists in the past 18 months, amounting to 650 technology professionals across the UK once the new 150 roles have been filled.

The company benefits are also hugely desirable including a £1,000 training budget, as well as five extra paid holiday days for job-related training, their own choice of hardware and quarterly hackathons. The retention rate in the firm’s Bristol technology centre alone is 92 per cent.

If you are searching for a new tech job in your area, please get in touch with one of our Tech Consultants now. We have lots of great jobs available with a range of different businesses. You may not live close to London or Bristol but we can certainly ensure your are given the best possible options for your career goals and location.

Recruiting Times

7 Benefits of working within an SME vs Large Corporate