“Well, because they are the smartest guys and gals, from the best business schools in the world,” answered the investor.

“So why do you believe that they are the best business schools in the world?” asked the skeptic.

“Because The Wall Street analysts say they’re the best,” answered the investor.

It follows 1.2% growth in the second quarter of the year, and is double the 0.4% expected by analysts.

Meanwhile rating agency Standard and Poor’s upgraded its outlook for the UK’s triple-A credit rating.               Chancellor George Osborne called both reports “a vote of confidence in the new government’s economic policies”.      The gross domestic product (GDP) figure released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is only a first estimate, and may be revised.

Analysts had expected a slowdown after weak retail sales and housing data.

Government relief

“This is the second major GDP growth surprise in a row and suggests that the UK economy is more resilient than many had feared,” said James Knightley, economist at ING.

“The government will no doubt take this as a sign that the private sector can fill the gap created by public sector cuts, but with consumer confidence, hiring intentions surveys and housing activity data all softening we remain cautious.”

But chancellor George Osborne said that, along with the government’s Spending Review announced last week, the ONS data should help underpin confidence in the UK economy.

“The ONS believe that the underlying growth in the third quarter was ‘broadly similar’ to the strong second quarter,” he said. “This gives me confidence that although global economic conditions remain choppy, a steady recovery is underway.”

You can see evidence of a stifled recovery everywhere these days. Everywhere, that is, except the official statistics.”  However, shadow chancellor Alan Johnson claimed the data showed no such thing.  “There’s no sign yet of the kind of momentum in the private sector that we need to actually create the 2.5 million jobs that the [Office of Budget Responsibility] is suggesting are necessary, to actually come out of this with increases in employment,” he said.

But the government’s planned cuts in its Spending Review got a stamp of approval from ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which raised its outlook for the UK’s triple-A rating back to “stable” from “negative”.

“In our opinion, the decisions reached by the United Kingdom coalition government in its 2010 Spending Review reduce risks to the government’s implementation of its June 2010 fiscal consolidation programme,” the company said in a statement.

‘Policy focus’  Later on Tuesday, the CBI published a letter it has sent to Mr Osborne and Business Secretary Vince Cable ahead of the publication of the government’s growth white paper.

In it, the business group calls for a “vibrant” small-and-medium sized businesses sector, and help with exports to growing economic regions of the world. In addition, it wants to see “reduced uncertainty” around domestic projects in sectors such as energy, and a reform of public service delivery, with barriers to outsourcing of services removed.

CBI director-general Richard Lambert said there was a need “for a policy focus on those measures that can have the greatest impact on growth performance in a relatively short timeframe”.

Building momentum?  The construction sector continued to grow strongly at 4%, the data release from the ONS showed, although this was slower than the 9.5% recorded in the previous three months.

The building industry has been dealing with a backlog of work that had been postponed from the beginning of the year due to bad weather. “It’s basically all down to construction again and I think the implication is that that’s not sustainable,” said James Nixon, economist at Societe Generale.

“The underlying rate is obviously significantly less than these headline numbers would suggest.”                                        The recovering construction industry contributed almost a third of the total GDP growth for the quarter.

However, the latest data suggests that the recovery may be becoming slightly broader-based.

Manufacturing slowed to 0.6% from 1.0% the previous quarter, but was still ahead of predictions.Service industries also held steady at 0.6% growth, with the transport, storage and communications sub-sector returning to growth.

The pound jumped following the news, which lowered expectations that the Bank of England will engage in further quantitative easing in the near future.The pound rose one cent against the dollar, to $1.585, immediately following the data release.

The BBC has learned the review, due later on Wednesday, will recommend that workers be automatically enrolled into occupational schemes, no matter how small the company.

Government estimates show about seven million people are currently not saving enough for retirement.

Critics say the plan will damage small firms and make them uncompetitive.

Pensions for all?

The principle of automatic enrolment of employees into pension schemes was established in the Pensions Act (2008), which set out reforms designed to make saving for retirement the norm among employees.

The cost and time spent on administrative work will damage micro firms”  John Walker FSB

The key feature was that all employers should provide an adequate pension scheme for their eligible employees – typically those aged 22 or more and earning at least £5,035 a year.

If such a scheme was not provided, then the staff would have to be automatically enrolled in the forthcoming new state scheme, known as the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST).

Employers would also be forced to make a minimum level of contributions.

However, in June the coalition government announced a consultation and review of the precise scope of automatic enrolment.

Higher earnings level

The review, carried out for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), recommends allowing employers three months grace before staff are automatically enrolled, to ease the burden on companies employing large numbers of temporary workers.

The report says if a member of staff chooses to sign up before the three month period elapses, companies will be forced to make contributions then as well.

This is to make sure people who often change jobs can build up a pension pot for their retirement.

The review also recommends automatic enrolment should only apply when a person earns more than £7,500, considerably higher than the previously proposed level of £5,035.

Companies that do not have an occupational scheme, and choose not to set up one for themselves, will be compelled to use the NEST scheme.

This has been set up by the government to cater for low-to-moderate earners and their employers.

‘Damage’

John Walker, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said the revised plan would hit the smallest firms hardest.

“The FSB has constantly warned that the cost and time spent on administrative work will damage micro firms – those with 10 employees or less – and that the pension schemes set up by government do not meet their needs,” he said.

Business lobby group the CBI and the TUC both support small businesses being included in the scheme, saying it will help target those least likely to save for retirement.

David Ferris, senior consultant at the pension advisers Punter Southall, said including small businesses would only work if the process was kept simple.

“It will come down to the success of NEST,” he said.

“Can that organisation make hundreds of thousands of companies interact successfully with their online scheme by making it straightforward?”

The coalition government will now have to make a final decision on the review’s recommendations.

NUT head Christine Blower said these included specialised support staff helping pupils with special needs.

She said it was “disingenuous” to say schools’ budgets were being protected when posts were already under threat.

The Department for Education said it could not say what this budget covered.

Schools get a dedicated grant of about £29bn based on per-pupil funding. But England’s schools spend much more than this.

These are absolutely dead straight front-line workers ”  Christine Blower NUT general secretary

Around a quarter of the money they get from government comes from other streams, including special programmes and schemes such as one-to-one tuition.

And it varies from school to school depending on the sorts of needs they have.

In an interview with the BBC News website, Ms Blower said: “We know of jobs at risk in behaviour support teams, specialised support teams and with people who give pupils with dyslexia support.

“These are absolutely dead straight front-line workers – not back office workers.”

“If these are already being cut ahead of the comprehensive spending review, it is not unreasonable for people to claim that actual school budgets are not being protected.

She added: “These are people – the focus of whose jobs are in schools and in the classroom. They are not spending a lot of time in offices away from children.”

‘At risk’

The loss of behaviour staff would lead to more children being excluded from school, she added.

“There is an issue about how well schools can manage without those vital schools services particularly because we know some of these jobs are already at risk,” Ms Blower said.

The NUT recently surveyed members employed directly by local education authorities and found that some 60% worked in areas where redundancies were proposed.

A third said redundancies had already been implemented. In 81% of these cases, the proposed spending cuts were the reason for the job losses, the survey suggested.

Ms Blower also warned against local authorities reducing their library services, adding that this would hit the poorest hardest.

“It’s not going to matter so much to families who can afford to pop down to Waterstones at the weekend,” she said.

Hays Oil and Gas in partnership with Oil and Gas Job Search has revealed the average oil and gas professional in the UK earns £92,000, compared to a UK salary average of around £25,000.
This is before two-thirds of the industry’s chiefs saying they are planning on increasing salaries.

The Hays Oil & Gas Global Salary Guide is based on over 7,000 responses and presents the average salaries of oil and gas professionals working across more than 30 countries and 20 discipline areas.

Eliot Davies, director at Hays oil and gas, said: “With an average permanent salary in the UK nearly four times as much as the average UK employee, oil and gas professionals are earning a premium. Although the UK isn’t in the top five highest paying countries; Australia, USA, Azerbaijan, Canada and the Netherlands pay their oil & gas professionals the highest sums, it is an attractive option for candidates. Oil and gas is truly a global industry, with professionals migrating around the world in search of the next project, and our survey clearly confirms this. Professionals in the industry are well paid, highly skilled and highly mobile.”

“When Hays requested Oil and Gas Job Search’s assistance with the survey, it was with a great deal of excitement that we accepted the challenge,” said Duncan Freer, Managing Director of Oil and Gas Job Search. Our reach, along with Hays’ expertise in compiling such studies, gives us confidence that the guide is an accurate reflection of the industry we work in.”

Although several economic indicators for the fourth quarter of 2009 were weaker than they were in the third quarter of the year, they have improved compared to the last three months of 2008. Asked to rate the prospects of their business, for example, 45 per cent of London’s business owners expected them to improve in the coming months, compared to just 24 per cent the previous year.

More than half (56 per cent) of those who responded to the survey reported increases in turnover, compared with just 24 per cent a year ago. The same pattern was repeated across other indicators, such as profitability, export sales and capital investment.

Impressively, over a third of businesses (36 per cent) said they had tried to recruit more staff during the last three months of 2009. This suggests that many firms have already made redundancies and that businesses, particularly smaller ones, are still doing their best to hold on to staff.

However, there is still uncertainty about the strength of the recovery. “London firms know we are not out of the woods yet,” says LCCI policy director Dr Helen Hill. “Although we see optimistic signs, serious issues still exist that threaten a dip back into negative growth following any recovery in 2010.”

Shortlists have also doubled and candidates face a one-in-ten chance of passing the interview process.

The student and employer matchmaking site, www.studentgems.com, conducted the study to highlight previous results that show experience is valued over qualifications.

More than two-thirds of managing directors surveyed (67 per cent) claimed hobbies and personal achievements also helped to make a more successful CV.

Sue Harrison, co-founder of studentgems.com said: “With jobs being lost across the UK, passing the interview process is becoming much more challenging; the candidate really must ‘wow’ the employer in order to stand out against other applicants.

“We encourage students at university and college to gain as much relevant experience as possible, which is one of the reasons we set up studentgems.com. Then, when the time comes for interviews, their CV is loaded with relevant evidence to show they are suitable for the position. Employers are taking great care in the interview process and ensuring they hire the right person for the job.”

Changing scenery
People’s perceptions are based on either personal experience or what they hear from others – after all, isn’t that how we make nearly all of our own ‘buying’ decisions. So understanding the reservations that potential hiring managers may have about using a recruiter has got to be vital to repositioning ourselves as true experts in our chosen sector; as one respondent said: “Once you have had a bad experience or two, you become sceptical and class the whole recruitment industry as a rip-off.”
There seems to be an increasing gap between procurement department objectives and what hiring managers actually want and need.
Frustration at losing expert niche recruiters from the list of approved suppliers seems to be driving many hiring managers to purchase ‘illegally’ outside of formal agreements or in some cases to conduct their own recruitment in-house.
The recession appears to have caused many niche sector specialists to diversify into new markets where they have little knowledge and experience in order to generate vacancies, and this dilution of specialism has been a significant source of complaint from our survey respondents.

Quality marks
Naturally, agency fees were a key reservation given by 38 per cent of participating hiring managers, however when questioned, the vast majority of participants were actually happy to pay if they felt that they were receiving true value for money.
In the opinion of many, the true cost of getting it wrong or failing to fulfil the vacancy is so high that when some of the intangibles such as the loss of potential business, relationships, continuity and company knowledge/experience are taken into account, the recruitment fee suddenly pales into insignificance.
A hefty 46 per cent of all hiring managers stated that their key reservation related purely to lack of sector specialism and knowledge and the subsequent poor quality of candidates being submitted.
On closer inspection, the frustration due to lack of specialist knowledge appears to become more prevalent with seniority of the role and in sectors where technical or niche skills are paramount.
Inability to ‘speak the language’ seems to create an almost impenetrable barrier and destroys credibility from the perspective of both the hiring manager and the candidate almost instantly. Recruiters who are unable to demonstrate the depth of their sector knowledge appear to have significantly lower conversion and success rates in the eyes of the hiring manager.

Stick to skills
Some suppliers are genuinely committed to understanding the true needs of the vacancy, taking time to visit the client; spend time with their team; establish not only the skills and experience required, but also the attitudes and traits that will enable successful integration of the candidate in the long-term.
In short, doing a good job by establishing ‘exactly what the hiring manager is looking for, and why’ – something that can only be achieved by knowing what they know and stepping into their shoes. Could this be the difference between a recruitment agency and a consultancy?
In short hiring managers want a dedicated consultant who is an expert in their sector.
Someone who has the ability to help them to define the role not just take down vacancy instructions. Someone who speaks their language and will be able to establish true candidate experience and capability through the nuances of terminology used during the selection process – not just through matching key words. They want to know that robust screening and face to face interviewing has taken place which explores and takes account of both the hiring manager’s needs and the candidate’s aspirations. As one participant put it: “When I hire a recruiter, I don’t want 30 candidates. I want three who can all do the job; leaving me just to make the final decision.”
So let’s listen to our clients and celebrate our specialist fields rather than trying to be all things to all people.

EHRC chairman Trevor Phillips has said this practice is also particularly damaging women`s long-term careers in the financial district.
Mr Phillips also said the financial services sector was suffering from a gender blind-spot and there was an unfair culture of changing the roles and responsibilities of women who had been on maternity leave.

The commission had recently revealed that women on average in the City were earning less than half of the wages of their male colleagues.
On the age issue Jonathan Maude, employment partner at lawyers Hogan and Hartson said: “I think it is generally tougher within the financial services industry as you become older and due to career breaks and having children this indirectly affects more women than men. The employment law is there to protect the most vulnerable in this situation, as indeed it should.

“However, this may not be a legal issue, more of a cultural one. Generally, it is understood that certain areas of the financial industry are a ‘young man’s game’ and it is this culture which needs to change. Change is gradually coming about but as long as compensation structures are extant which promulgate the culture it remains a slow process.”

Started the long drive to Manchester which should only have taken two 2  1/2hours.  On the M1 looking out for M6 at the Watford Gap Service junction.

Lo and behold my phone rang (7.15am) and instead of ignoring it I decided to hunt for it. Deep in my bag it was!. By the time I got to it & answered, it had gone to voice mail. Cha! All of a sudden looked across JUST MISSED the turning off to the M6. Yikes(that was not the polite word I used!) Found myself going further up to next junction to turn off.

My morning NIGHTMARE began. I was in unknown territory!. travelled around the countryside for the next 20mins trying to find the connection back to the M6. It cost me 25mins of valuable time…

Arrived in Manchester. The Town Centre is a nightmare. Traffic, one-way roads, road works & no parking. Checked my phone SAT NAV for directions to the JCP. Not too clear, looked on my printed sheet(directions) could not manouver. Time check 9.50am (1st appt 10am).

Panic button in me buzzed!! Damn..Damn…Damn. I had three appointments..10-12, 1.00-3pm 3.30-5.30pm. If i am late for the 1st appointment, guarantee I will run late for all the appts. What a disaster!

Called my 1st appt to advice stuck in traffic, be there soon. Got there at 10.30am. Cha! Finished on schedule but disaster trying to locate the next JCP. The funny thing is I have been there/here before!!! called my second appt to advice will be there soon.  Got there at 1.45pm. What?? I could not believe it. Even the security guard accused me of being late. Cha! Apologised to my client profusely….I was already exhausted from driving around in the heat and starving from lack of substance to the stomach but had to talk non stop for another 2hours. Conscious of time so finished at 3.10pm. On-towards my next appt.  Merry go round continued, could not locate the JCP  (by this time, the person who had made the referral had called my mobile about three times wondering where I was. Did not hear it!!!) called my 3rd appt & apologised for my tardiness once again…

Got there at 3.45pm.  Was booted out at 5.10pm out of the back door. Did not realise that JCP closes at 5pm. Could not finish, will have to have a telephone conversation with client to finish off or another meeting. Could not find where I had parked the car. Another merry go round began this time on foot. Eventually found car 15mins later. Checked phone messages, returned calls then proceeded to make my way back to MK. Traffic out of Manchester absolute nightmare. DIVERSION as Police closed main route to the M60. Drove around and around looking to connect. Time check 6.45pm (had agreed with cousin to dine out at Nandos at 8pm) Cha1! knew I wasn’t going to make it. Phoned and advised of this on spare phone as battery flat on normal phone. Haven’t been able to find my in-car charger.  

Tricky finding way as missed turning from M60 to M6…..sign says Leeds. Stopped off to re-fuel at Tesco. Middle-age psycho blaring his music from his sports car kept looking at me.  Do I look like a call girl (Divine Brown) Does he thick he’s Hugh Grant??…Ignored him.  Bloody show-off!! Couldn’t find way out of Tesco, could not believe. was it tiredness??? Needed the restroom badly but refused to stop-off at Service Areas as hungry & conscious of time. Time check 7.30pm. Switched radio to tape as rock music blaring out!! I already have a headache man!! Found way back to M6, drove like a maniac at 100m/hr most of the way. Time check 8.30pm. Other fools refused to move out of my way. Would not be surprised if a ticket arrives at my address and penalised with points on licence.

Still on M6, battled with M1 S or M1 N & London S or London N…Why oh why do signs have to be so complicated??? why can’t they be straight forward. Opted for M1 South London N.  Right decision, GOOD Time check 9.10pm. Hungry but No dining out to Nando’s as exhausted.  Still drove like a maniac as now desperately in need of restroom. Back at MK for 10pm. dashed to the restroom. non-stop trickle for nearly 5mins. Cha!! not good for the bladder. Hopped back into cousins car for Nando’s takeaway. Stuffed my self with hot-chicken, rice, sweetcorn, chips and salad. Chatted over a cup of coffee then fell into deep slumber.

Is it true, do women have no sense of direction??? My lesson for the day. Buy a decent SATTELITE NAVIGATOR, preferable a talking robot!!.