More Availability of Permanent Jobs in Birmingham
Employers were asked about their permanent workforce and plans for the short and medium term. Eighty-one per cent said they intended to take on new permanent staff within three months and almost eighty per cent in the next four to twelve months. These figures represent a record high that is significantly above the twenty-five per cent recorded at the beginning of the year. They appear to be in response to a rise in customer activity.
In addition, fifty-one per cent of employers plan to use more agency workers within three months, and forty-three per cent in the next four to twelve months. It's good news for candidates looking for jobs in Birmingham and elsewhere.
Despite the positive outlook, concerns have been expressed regarding the widening skills gap. Those involved in sales recruitment, as well as those looking to fill engineering and technical roles, are considered particularly vulnerable, with 25% forecasting shortages over the next year.
Kevin Green, CEO at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), agrees that these results, the best since 2009, reflect the impact of the economic recovery on the jobs market. He also suggests that those recruiting for jobs in Birmingham and in other parts of the country will need to bear in mind the shift towards a more candidate-led jobs market and tailor their hiring processes accordingly. In terms of the skills shortage, Green warns that the government, recruiters and employers must work together to address issues before the problem intensifies further, putting the recovery in jeopardy.
However, Kate Shoesmith, Head of Policy at the REC, points out that even with the shortage in skills, almost ninety per cent of employers say they are happy with the standard of candidates being passed their way.
How Cloud Computing makes jobs in Birmingham easier
Cloud computing is making recruitment for jobs in Birmingham, and all over the world, a simpler and more efficient process.
The concept of cloud computing is not new, yet it is only in the last few years that companies have begun to take full advantage of the many benefits the technology has to offer. Today 78% of organisations within the UK have formally enlisted one or more service that is cloud-based.
In terms of recruitment, cloud technology provides a means of accessing the very latest applications and upgrades and significantly reduces vulnerability to situations such as theft or critical hardware failure. The technology available also allows for quick and easy expansion. Flexibility, agility and mobility are three ‘must-haves’ for the long-term success of sales recruitment companies, and these are exactly what cloud computing can bring to the table. It can be accessed anytime and from anywhere. So recruiting for jobs in Birmingham, for example, does not require the company, or indeed the client, to be Birmingham-based.
In June 2014 the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) found that the number of businesses using cloud services had increased by 15% since September 2013 and over 61% since 2010. Having conducted a number of research projects over the last four years, the CIF can confidently predict that this level of growth will continue and that 90% of UK businesses will have adopted some form of cloud service by the beginning of 2016.
The CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, Alex Hilton, believes that by this time about 10% of companies will be utilising an IT strategy which is primarily cloud-based. 80% are likely to be working within an environment using Hybrid IT, while the remaining 10% will remain entirely office-based.
The Future Is Bright, the Future Is Green
Whatever business you are in, you will have been getting your green credentials in order for some time. Whether you are in the business of selling car parts and components to international markets or you are in one of the marketing recruitment agencies in the West Midlands, you will be looking for ways to bolster your sustainability. Whatever stage you are at, there are always benefits to be garnered from communicating and sharing best practice. Sustainability West Midlands is the government-designated sustainability advocate for the region. As a not-for-profit and independent company, Sustainability West Midlands promotes a network for best practice across the public, private and voluntary sectors. Adopting the roles of independent advisors, the company supports business leaders and heads of organisations to develop sustainability solutions for a greener region.
Whether it is adopting sustainability best practice through your manufacturing methods or simply reducing the carbon footprint of your office-based operations, there are many ways in which businesses can become greener. Public-sector bodies will have the double task of improving their own operations as well as promoting best-practice ideas to local communities to encourage individuals and businesses alike to work together on the green agenda. By linking up with other similar organisations or seeking help from best-practice bodies, your business can find quick ways to improve its position without having to reinvent the wheel. As such, communications plays an important role in the activities of Sustainability West Midlands.
This week Birmingham City Council will be holding the Birmingham Big Green Lunch, which is an event specially designed to encourage local communities to come together to share ideas and make plans to share resources and skills in the common pursuit of a greener, more sustainable West Midlands. The event will be a friendly and social affair held at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens with an educational slant. The event aims to get individuals and communities thinking about, working towards and adopting behaviours which promote sustainable lifestyles for a better environment in which to work, rest and play. Attending an event such as this is a great way to learn about a variety of green issues and ways in which even as individuals you can make a difference.
Communications can play a key role in promoting the green agenda, whether that is for a company’s own marketing potential, as part of their corporate social responsibility output or as part of their contribution by sharing their winning solutions or holding events to promote change. Communications roles can sit within the marketing function or can be a central function of corporate affairs. Whichever angle your company needs, you can find well-qualified and experienced candidates through marketing recruitment agencies in the West Midlands and ensure that your company is recognised for the good work it does. If you are a communications professional and you have a passion for green issues, then let you local marketing recruitment agencies in the West Midlands know that you are looking for your next challenge.
The Difference Two Words Can Make
Imagine if all it took was the addition of two words to your marketing content to make your product or service stand out from the rest. Well, that is what the process of entering awards can do for you if it all goes in your favour. If you are lucky enough to win an award for your product or service, you have the invaluable boost of being able to add ‘Award-Winning’ to your marketing communications and literature. Whatever your product is, if yours is the award winner it immediately communicates a sense of trust for new customers. Whether it is a pasta sauce lined up on a shelf amongst many others or if it is a new state-of-the-art computer, when customers are faced with many choices they will at least look more closely at the award winners when considering their options. Construction companies in the Midlands have just learned the results of this year’s Celebrating Construction Awards, administered by the Built Environment Hub. For the winners the results provide a real boost to their company images and brand profiles. This can only be good news when they are looking to attract new customers or when they are bidding for new contracts. But when it comes to construction industry awards, the positive impacts can be much more far reaching that you might initially think. While the company that was responsible for the Library of Birmingham project won two awards for their work, Birmingham itself is also a beneficiary. The awards bestowed on the Library of Birmingham project contribute to a marketing boost for the West Midland’s Tourism industry and also improve the profile of the city for inward investment promotions too. Depending on the type of award you have won, the best impact can sometimes be gained from the speed with which you are able to add the new accolades to your marketing communications. Awards processes themselves generate publicity in the build-up and then in the award-giving ceremony itself. While you might be lucky to gain some exposure from the build-up, you can certainly double the impact of any publicity from a win by having an ‘Award Winners’ campaign ready to roll out immediately should you be successful. While this does require speculation and therefore taking a chance on the use of resource to prepare such a campaign, the outcome doesn’t have to depend solely on a win — you can also promote with pride being a runner-up or highly commended. Establishing that you are best in class or that you have been voted above your peers and competitors can take a lot of planning and strategic marketing to make the grade. Whatever your approach for establishing and validating your credentials, you need the right talent to take you there. The best marketing professionals can be in great demand, so you need to make sure you are promoting your company as the place they want to work. Work with marketing recruitment agencies in the West Midlands to establish your reputation, as they will actively promote your company to the best candidates. Look out for award-winning marketing recruitment agencies in the West Midlands, as they’ll certainly appreciate what you are trying to achieve.
Social Media Selecting the Next Top Talent
More employers are turning to the internet and social media forums to assess the suitability of candidates before they even meet them through the recruitment process. Admittedly, most users of social networking sites aren’t thinking of what a potential future employer might think of their content when they are posting updates or chatting in forums. Most crucially, the way individuals present their profiles online panders to the ‘social’ aspect of such media. It might be time for professionals to think again before committing personal thoughts and expressions to the net. The very nature of social media means that it is there to be shared. So while you may only be thinking about the non-work side of your life and act in what you think is a private fashion outside of work, the reality is that your online activity is not bound by the same parameters. When using platforms such as LinkedIn, you will pay much closer attention to the way you present yourself, as this site is well known as a forum for professional networking and recruiting. Yet because you may not use tools such as Facebook or Twitter to find your next employer, that doesn’t mean the next potential employer isn’t using those to check up on you. There is nothing wrong with your prospective employer seeing that you are a fun-loving individual with a healthy social life. However, you might want to think about how much you openly share and which more private content you keep as such. Bragging online will almost always turn round to bite you, and the tendency of naive users to ‘big themselves up’ with falsehoods and risque remarks is unlikely to end well. Personal use of social media platforms can play an important role in the recruitment of marketing professionals, and it can have both positive and negative impacts. Good uses of such media can prove a person’s abilities in this field and may support claims presented on CVs. Poor use of social media and a lack of understanding of the implications of it can highlight an individual’s shortcomings. When searching for a new marketing role, assume that marketing recruitment agencies in Birmingham are taking a look at your online profile and edit accordingly. Recruiters might never reveal that they have been tracking your activity online, but it is always safer to present an image consistent with that you might wish to present at interview. Ask marketing recruitment agencies in Birmingham what they think of your social media presence and whether potential employers would find issue with it.
Does Where You Work Matter?
When deciding upon a choice of job, people have all sorts of reasons for saying yes or no to offers. Priorities in terms of what are the most important deciding factors can be poles apart from one person to the next. For some it will be the nature of the job and how that fits with career ambitions, while for others it will be purely about the money. For many, however, location can be a big deciding factor. Just as location is an important part of where we choose to live, it can also be just as important a part of why we choose where to work. Where we work can be important in a variety of ways. The proximity to our homes can be important if we don’t have the time for long commutes. Closeness to home can also be vital for people with children if they need the convenience to enable them to do school runs. The availability of public transport if we don’t drive is another real practical consideration which can determine the geographical locations we can realistically agree to work from. However, there is also the issue of how we feel about the area we go to work in. Whether you are affected by your environment or not, there can be no denying that it will feel very different to drive into a concrete industrial jungle every morning than it would to drive out to a leafy country retreat. So you may find that your job searches focus on areas that you would like to work in, although you can reduce your opportunities if you focus on too small an area. Keeping with the idea of our working environment, the same can be said of how we feel about the offices or buildings that we work in. Any space can be made into a great working environment, but the extent to which a company will invest in such matters can speak volumes about their employee engagement priorities. Of course, none of this really matters if you are not bothered by your internal or external working environments. But if this is important to you, then you need to check out work premises and weigh up the pros and cons alongside the other deciding factors for a job before you accept. When you know which career you want to specialise in, you can save a lot of time job searching by registering with a specialist recruitment agent such as marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire if sales, marketing or PR are your areas of expertise. When you register with marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire, you can specify the key things you are looking for in a job. Even when registering on generic employment websites you can do this, although the tick-box computerised approach won’t always be discerning about which combination of keywords it will match you to jobs with. At least when dealing with a specialist agency you can be very clear with them about what are show stoppers and what are the must-haves.