The Future Workforce

In March, I attended the Preparing the 2025 Workforce - Attracting and Developing Talent Conference where the speakers included former US secretary of education Margaret Spellings; Manpower Group UK managing director Mark Cahill; and, Barclays head of employability Tessa Oversby. 

The main focus of the conference was to discuss Britain's evolving position in the global economic arena and to provide the audience with a pathway to career success. Two topics addressed were whether the UK government is doing enough to create apprenticeship schemes for school leavers and how students and graduates can make the most of their future careers.

At the end of the discussion, I was left with the impression that if universities do not create academic programmes to better suit employers' needs, there is going to be a shortage in certain skills that will be in demand in the near future. Take ownership in preparing the current and future workforce with the skills they need to ensure productivity and add value to the future economy.

In my previous blog, The Expectation Gap, I spoke of the issue that us students feel we are not adequately prepared to supply our prospective employers with the skills they require from us.

It seems there are still questions as to what the ideal skill set a chosen profession requires one should have, depending on their chosen profession, and at the same time to take into account the "manpower mix" that the economy will need in the next decade.

For example, there is the expectation (according to Bill Gates) that there will be a shortage of programmers in the second half of the decade. If this assumption is true, the education system will have to provide the necessary infrastructure and know-how in order to train people in this profession. Hopefully, as the demand for these skills increases, students will pay back the investment through taxes and adding value to the economy. 

Here are some of the most important statistics to come out of the conference:

• 62% of the employers feel there is a national skills shortage;
• If the government is able to divert the 1.03 million unemployed youth back into the workforce, it is possible taxpayers will save £13bn ($19.7bn) in welfare, healthcare and other benefits that would be otherwise be paid over their lifetimes; and,
• The expected cost of university education can exceed £100,000 (due to accumulated interest charges).

In the past, the government was willing to pay for the cost of university education because it was almost guaranteed a person with a university degree would earn more money and pay more taxes throughout their working lives than the average person. 

However, with the introduction of university fees, a considerable amount of that cost is passed down to the student who has to choose the right degree and "educational profile" to guarantee on-going success in his/her professional careers. 

One final point made at the conference was that all employment growth in the next fifteen years will be on the back of those people who continue to develop their "educational profile" with further and higher education.

I leave you with a quote from Greek philosopher Plato: "The direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future in life".

This post first appeared in The Accountant (April 2013)

The Expectation Gap

My plan since I started this blog more than a year ago has always been to cover issues related to preparing for the next step - a professional career - which, I hope will begin after graduation.

In my first blog, I looked back to being a child and talked about my childhood career dream, which at the tender age of five was to become a "cashier because they get all the money."

Now, being halfway through my accounting degree studies, it has become obvious that I am going to need a lot more skills, as well as my academic qualifications, to ensure I'm employable. However, it seems there is a gap between what we students think we need to know and what the employers are actually looking for.

I would like to think employers are looking for well-rounded individuals who have invested in their personal and professional development and have a variety of skills to offer.

Of course this expectation gap varies from student to student and person to person but it does need to be bridged. In order to do that, we need to take extra steps towards meeting the expectations of our future employers because a very strong academic record does not always guarantee an easy passage towards employment. An individual's character and their personality also play a significant role in getting a good job offer.

I would recommend that all us students do our own research on this issue in order to try and bridge that gap and ensure we are not at the back of the queue at the job centre after graduation has been and gone!

If we can show our potential employers we have made some steps towards easing the transition from academia to a professional career as easy as possible this is likely to work in our favour.

Thankfully, it seems a lot of universities are on the same wave length and are trying to address the issue. Many are now offering Employability Awards, which is a form of extra credit given to students who have taken additional steps in order to make themselves more "attractive" to potential employers.

As a student at BPP, I am participating in the university's Employability Scheme. The scheme assigns me to a careers consultant who then helps me develop a more professional image, which is close to what employers are looking for. My mentor will collaborate with me to identify my strengths and weaknesses in relation to my career goals and agree to what actions to take in order to achieve them.

On the back of the global financial crisis and an abundance of redundancies the job market has been saturated with highly qualified job seekers making competition fierce. This makes it even more important we take advantage of the opportunities offered through these types of university schemes to increase our chances of finding a job.

There is a lot of online information about the various employability schemes on offer, which I'm sure you will find useful. So with no more excuses, I recommend you go out and increase your chances like I'm trying to do. Good luck!

Ellie Fanis 

BPP University

This post first appeared in The Accountant (February 2013)

Employability Skills

You may have noticed that I have created a new page called Employability Awards, which refers to a scheme provided by careers services across universities in order to help students kick start their careers.

As a student at BPP, I will be participating in my university's scheme and I am looking forward to sharing my experiences with you.

In my opinion, every student (or non student) should have access to such  a scheme and for that reason I will try to collect and publish as much information related to this subject as possible.

From the moment I started researching the "Employability" subject, I have come across a lot of useful material.  

A very good resource may be the BBC SkillsWise  website, which offers a quick guide to the different skill-sets needed to survive in today's working environment.

For example, you will find short (two minute) videos about skills related to IT, English and Maths which we utilize in our everyday working life, without even noticing it.

I hope you find this useful.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

New Updates

Page 4: Youtube...if you want to


Page 5: Employability Awards

Universities all around England are now offering Employability Awards Schemes which aim to  make students aware of the competitive nature of the job market and improve their employability prospects. Click on the link above to find out what are the benefits of participating in schemes like this.  

Virtual Classrooms

During recent years we consumers have been bombarded with the development of the 'next' electronic device or gadget designed to make our lives easier. Many of these devices help us to keep in touch with friends, family, classmates and colleagues as well as stay up-to-date with current affairs more easily and while on the move. In fact, there is a good chance you are reading my blog on the latest tablet or smartphone from anywhere in the world.

Given the popularity and technological innovation behind these devices, a new trend has begun to emerge in the higher education industry - the introduction of online courses that lead towards traditional degrees.

Many universities globally, through the use of sophisticated technology, are now able to offer "classroom-like" teaching to thousands of students simultaneously, without them being in a traditional classroom. 

Universities like Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have introduced a new platform, edX, which delivers various courses online aiming to "revolutionise education around the world". Recently, UK universities such as King's College, Warwick, BPP University and the Open University have also announced they will be offering online courses to their students during 2013. 

Not long ago, I was asked by my lecturers at BPP University to participate in a user's acceptance test of a new online interactive platform designed to work on an iPad. For a week, along with a few other students, I had the responsibility of testing the functionality of the platform. The goal was to evaluate the experience a student will have while accessing various activity sheets, watching webinars and complete/submit assignments for each module. At the end of the test drive we all felt the technology had come a long way and teaching had taken a whole new meaning. 

After testing this online learning platform, I had the opportunity to experience online learning for real. I watched a few BPP webinars, where the lecturers and the students were spread all over the country. The webinars were arranged for specific dates and times and we all logged on into our "virtual classroom". We had the chance to participate in the webinars, ask questions individually or as a group, and work on problems given by the professors. 

The use of the technology certainly made the distance shorter than it actually was, the classroom bigger than physically possible and the communication more relaxed because the majority of the attendees were at home and the distractions were minimised. I really enjoyed this experience as it exposed me to a new way of participating in a lecture.

Of course, some people prefer the traditional way of learning with face-to-face interaction amongst students and teachers, but, in my opinion, times have changed and we have to do our best to adapt. We now have the opportunity to attend lectures where one teacher is able to reach thousands of students at once and spread knowledge as efficiently as possible.

I am really looking forward to participate in my next online learning experience.

This post first appeared in The Accountant (Januanry 2013)

The Birth of a Business

The business term 'a startup company', which we became very familiar with during the dot-com boom, has now become a common term.

A startup is a company or temporary organisation designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Unfortunately, it is quite a common occurrence that these companies do not survive beyond their introductory phase.

Most entrepreneurs create startups in order to evaluate and research business ideas, which may lead to the creation of a new product or sometimes even a whole new industry.

For most of us, the image we have of entrepreneurs today has been developed with the help of television shows such as Dragons' Den, Be Your Own Boss or The Apprentice, to name a few. These reality shows, emphasize the importance of being able to elaborate on a business idea, to develop the necessary business skills, and hopefully to get the seed money needed, in order to start a business.

I find these shows very educational and they seem to be very appealing to young people like me. I recently discovered there is a big initiative focused towards helping startup companies in the Information Technology sector to develop their business ideas further and hopefully become successful.

For example, a few weeks ago The Telegraph helped organise the London Startup Weekend. Startup Weekend is an international organisation of active entrepreneurs who focus on founding startups and launching potentially successful ventures. During 2012 they organised more than 600 events in 100 countries around the world.

Those events encouraged application developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts to come together, share ideas, form teams, build products, and subsequently launch a startup. The winner of each national competition represent their country in an international event, where people from all over the world vote for their favourite startup idea such as their favourite web application.

I'm writing about this because I have a personal stake in the competition - my cousin took part in the recent London event and actually won the UK competition with his team, Smartward, and then came third overall in the international competition.

These startup events are very important in helping bring awareness to the industry and encourage young entrepreneurs to participate and become part of a wider network of individuals and companies who can assist each other in achieving their goals.

By participating in these events, we can build our confidence, meet other people with similar interests and in general develop vital business skills early on in our professional lives.

I am sure we all have a lot of business ideas for a startup or a web application, but those ideas will not become reality unless we decide to take them one step further. I believe that by taking part in events like the London Startup Weekend, we will be making a good start towards turning our ideas into reality.

And finally, as the Chinese proverb says: "A good start is half way to success."

This post first appeared in The Accountant (December 2012)

M for Motivation

When taking the early train into Central London, I see many people commuting. When looking around the carriage, I think to myself, “Where do people find the motivation to get to work?”

Trying to answer this question, my dad recommended I’d read a chapter from the book “The Upside of Irrationality”, written by Dan Ariely. The chapter of the book was called “The Meaning of Labour”. 

In the book, Ariely talks about experiments he and his colleagues at MIT had carried out. Amongst all the experiments he described, there was one I liked the most.

 Two participants were asked to build Lego robots and they would be paid a decreasing amount of money for every one they made.

The first participant was told that the robots would be kept in a box for later use. He started building the robots and soon enough, after ten robots, he gave up, because he realised that the price of the 10^th robot was half of what he was paid for the first, so economically it didn’t make sense for him to continue.

The second participant was being paid for the robots in the same way, BUT after finishing one, and began the next one; the assistant was dismantling the previous robot in front of his own eyes. The participant was not happy with the dismantling and gradually his motivation to build the robots diminished. Even if he was to be paid the same amount as the first participant, he saw no point in continuing after the fourth robot was built. Clearly, money was not the issue for stopping.

The first participant was able to point at the finished robots and feel pride for what he had achieved. The second participant felt that he had nothing to show for his work and saw no point in completing the task.

I am sure that while reading these lines, you can feel the “emptiness” the second participant felt, when they destroyed his robots. So as you can see, that feeling worked against the participant’s willingness to continue with the experiment.  

This experiment made me look back at my Internship during the summer, where I was analysing time-series of data and producing daily reports and charts. In the beginning, I was focusing on producing the reports as fast as possible. After a while, I noticed that some of the reports were not being used. The reason was that the markets were moving very fast and the conditions were changing all the time, so my work was not up-to-date. I discussed this with the manager and he ensured me that my analysis was of good quality, but as the market conditions change, the reports were “yesterday’s” news. That made me feel demoralized, but this was the “nature” of my work.

It seems that what bothered me the most was the fear that my work was not being recognised, thus impacting my motivation. The reassurance from my colleagues helped me overcome this feeling.

Just as I am writing these lines, I realised that writing this blog is similar to building “lego robots” that may soon be dismantled. Perhaps only my family reads them. Not knowing how many people read my posts can be demoralising, but I am not giving up. As someone famous said: “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

It seems that the field of psychology can play an important role in helping us develop our own understanding of what motivates us and how to improve our performance. It may also help employers understand that more money is not always the best way to increase productivity and performance.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College


If you would like to learn more about Dan Ariely and his experiments, please refer to the  page "Taking account of...: Page 4: YouTube...if you want to"

This post first appeared in The Accountant (December 2012)

Career Advice for Beginners

At the beginning of this week, I was contacted by a headhunter via LinkedIn about joining the BBA Recruit (LinkedIn) group. Building Business Associates is a recruitment agency that advertises job vacancies in all areas of the finance industry. 

I was looking at what kind of discussions there was already happening in the group. The creator of the group has been updating the discussion board with articles in the aim to advise people, whether they are beginning their careers or in the middle of them, about how to make the most of it!

As I am at the beginning of my career, I thought I might share with you some articles I found that I found helpful for myself and could be for you too:

How NOT to write a CV | BBA Associates Recruit

The ABC of starting a new job | BBA Associates Recruit

How to get a recruiter's positive attention | BBA Associates Recruit

There are more of these articles and job vacancies on the agency's website at Building Business Associates (Website) if you would like to have a look.

As well as this website, I also recommend you have a look at eFinancialCareers for recent job vacancies too.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

Masters of Money: Keynes, Hayek and Marx

Lately, the BBC, alongside the Open University, has been broadcasting interesting documentaries telling the life stories of 3 economists: Keynes, Hayek and Marx. Presented by Economics editor Stephanie Flanders explains how their thoughts and actions have influenced the way we live our lives. 

If this sounds like something you would be interested to watch, then I have included the YouTube links below for you:

Masters Of Money | Part 1 | John Maynard Keynes
Masters Of Money | Part 2 | Friedrich Hayek
Masters of Money | Part 3 | Karl Marx

Enjoy!
Ellie Fanis

Internships: Building Our Careers

As autumn is upon us and we have now begun a new academic year, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect back on how this summer was spent.

For us university students, summer time is a good opportunity to gain hands-on experience by doing jobs related to our chosen field of studies. Given the current economic situation, it has become increasingly difficult to find internships.

Internships can play a significant role to a student’s career. Firstly, they expose us to a proper working environment closely related to our degrees. Secondly, they prove to our future employers that we have a good skill-set, in order to work in a particular industry.

After talking to friends who are also university students and had done internships during the summer, I realised that some were paid for their internship and others were not. These are the differences between the two:

The paid internships are those summer jobs where the trainee/intern is able to add value to the day-to-day activity of the company which they work for. I think these “paid internships” require minimal amount of training because the tasks they are asked to do are not very demanding (e.g. Filing, copying, mailing and record keeping). Usually the interns replace those who are on holiday, and provide support to the full time staff. The fact that the amount of training required is not significant, shows that these companies do not always invest a lot of time and resources in training these temporary employees.

It is the responsibility of the intern to educate themselves on what the company is doing and what parts of their studies are being utilised in the day to day business activity of the working environment. It is fair to say that if the interns are able to carry out those tasks without a lot of training, then they should be paid for their services.

The unpaid internships are those summer jobs where the trainee/intern is spending more time learning about what the business does, rather than adding value. I think these “unpaid internships” require a lot more training because the tasks are complicated and they take time to be mastered by the individual.

For example, working as a junior developer at a software company, as my cousin did this summer, makes it virtually impossible for him to produce code to be used in production. It was more beneficial for him to shadow and learn from the other developers rather than trying to produce his own code. It is only fair to say that he was unable to add value and he was more than grateful that he was given the opportunity to watch professionals work and to be educated by them.

If the amount of training received by the intern is greater than the value he/she added, then I think it is fair to say that they should not be paid.

At this stage of our careers, the experience one gains through an internship is more valuable than the amount of money that he/she receives. If I was offered the opportunity to do an internship with a lot of hands-on training on complicated business issues, I would be glad to do it for no money at all, and I did.

And finally, as Buddha said, “Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.”

This post first appeared in The Accountant (October 2012)

Who Moved my Cheese?

As promised from my previous entries, I would let you know about any new books that I come across that I think are worthwhile reading and will help you in your careers.

Well this week, I came across the book "Who Moved my Cheese?" by Dr Spencer Johnson. I must admit, I was a bit confused by the title at first, but it is well worth the read. It is good at advising the readers on dealing with change in both your working and personal lives.

If you would like to read this, I have included the PDF of the book below:

Who Moved My Cheese?

If you would like to buy this book, then click on the widget below:

Ellie Fanis
BPP University

Be Your Own Boss

Presented by founder of Innocent Smoothies, Richard Reed, new series "Be Your Own Boss" aired on BBC3. The purpose of this show is for him to find the next generation of new entrepreneurs around Britain. 

Over 6 weeks, Richard gives £100 each to 500 businesses, created by teenagers. From there, he chooses his top 3 each week, but only can be the winner of a £50,000 investment from Richard himself. 

If you would like to see this episode, I have included the link below: 

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 1

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 2

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 3

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 4

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 5

BBC iPlayer - Be Your Own Boss: Episode 6

I hope you enjoy it. I will be posting the episodes on this blog post over the coming weeks.

BBC News - How to become your own boss

Richard Reed from Innocent Drinks Part 1

Richard Reed from Innocent Drinks Part 2

Ellie Fanis

BPP University

Knowledge Management

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine began her first full-time job after graduation. Her skill-set had matched perfectly with the job description, and she was confident that she would do her job very well. However, having joined this multinational organisation, she realised that there was a knowledge gap between her existing skill-set and what the job required. After talking to her boss, they agreed that extra training was needed, but the organisation did not have an in-house training scheme, so she would have to attend a training course and seminars in order to bridge the gap.

 

When we discussed this issue, we realised that her organisation was lacking a knowledge management scheme, which is something more than simple training. The purpose of such a scheme is to preserve the collective know-how of the organisation and to make it a resource to be shared amongst present and future employees. This is achieved by capturing and preserving knowledge of senior employees in order to be used to train new employees with these refined examples of know-how.

The knowledge management scheme provides a company with long-term sustainable advantages, because its competitors will need more time to accumulate a similar amount of knowledge. It also allows the company to extract value of an employee’s knowledge, even after they have left the company. 

A knowledge management scheme reminds me of what we have at my university, where all the lectures and educational material exist online. It is available to the students 24/7, and it is constantly updated and improved.

The recent trend in higher education is that a large number of universities, mainly in the USA, are providing online classes to an internet platform called Coursera, an innovative application that makes interactive college classes available to the public, free on the web. 

Going back to the business world and its knowledge management needs, I believe that, the steps that an organisation has to take in order to develop a knowledge management system, are very simple, but require resources to be allocated to these tasks. For example, in my friend’s case, they could do the following:

• Identify the knowledge gap – i.e. what an experienced employee can do and what the learner needs to know, in order to reach that level.

• Define the objectives of the training programme – i.e. what you expect the learner to know as a result of the training.

• Create a training syllabus which lists the topics to be covered and the way they will be delivered to the trainee.

• Schedule and provide the training programme internally, using the information contained in the syllabus.

• Preserve the training material for future use.

After talking to some friends regarding the training received from their employer, it seemed to me that they all had similar experiences. Their employers would gladly pay for their training by sending them to external courses and seminars, but they themselves felt that the training should have been done in-house.  

Finally, as Confucius once said: “Learn as though you would never be able to master it; Hold it as though you would be in fear of losing it”.

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

This post first appeared in The Accountant (August 2012)

Making the Right First Impression

When I was younger, I could never speak with much confidence to anyone. I always used to be the child who would sit in the corner, hardly participating in anything. 

Now that I am growing up, I thought to myself "I'm not helping myself this way. I have to do something about it". 

As you have read in my previous blogs, my university holds many workshops in the aim to teach us what we need to know to kick start our careers. 

Not long ago, I attended a networking event. Finding it extremely helpful, I thought I would share with you some tips I learnt to help you make the right first impression when meeting new contacts. 

• Create your personal "Elevator Pitch"

Your elevator pitch should be one sentence long, which includes: "who, what, when, where, and why" of your personal career to your new contact. You must think that this is the only time you will get to sell yourself, so make the most of it!

• Take pride in your appearance

Many employers begin to make a judgement within minutes of meeting someone new. Therefore, whether you will be working in a formal or casual environment, it is important to take care in your appearance. If you look scruffy, employers may ignore your skills, which in fact could be beneficial to them. They will think that someone who does not take care in themselves will be unlikely to take pride in their work. 

• Get professional business cards

Using a graphic design program or even a simple word processor, you can create a clean, simple card in minutes that will reap many long-term benefits. You want the card to be representative of you and as professional as possible. Don't forget: ALWAYS keep them handy! You never know when you will need them!

• Follow the 80/20 rule

Listening is a key part of networking. It should take up 80% of the time and talking 20% of the time. This enables you to ask open ended questions and keep the conversation flowing!

• Remember names of who you meet

Another key point of networking is remembering the names of who you meet. If you are lucky enough to meet your contact again, then they will be impressed if you remember them, immediately improving your relationship and opening a lot of doors for you. 

• Ask open - ended questions

With this tip, not only will you be able to follow the 80/20 rule, but will help you know the person better. This is beneficial as you might find out that you have a mutual contact between the two of you (then you will see how small the world really is!) or if you are really lucky, you may even be introduced to your future employer! 

Now that you know how to make the right first impression, get practicing and good luck!

Ellie Fanis
BPP University College

Olympic Games: Value for Money?

So far this year, it has been all eyes on London with the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations and now the Olympics are just around the corner. This is a very exciting time for everyone as athletes from around the world come together to take part and compete in various sporting events.

The Olympics began in 776 BC, when men from different cities in Greece would walk to Olympia with the aim to show off their skills at their chosen events in one venue. The purpose of taking part at the Olympic Games was to compete fairly, and the athletes were motivated by the glory that came from winning an event. Their reward for winning was an olive wreath, which symbolised prosperity and peace across the country, especially during the games.

For the modern Olympic Games, it is a different story. Our experience as Londoners has been far from that. The moment London was announced as the next host city, renovations and heavy duty spending began. We all understand new Olympic venues have to be constructed, improvements on public transport are essential and housing arrangements for the athletes and the large number of tourists will create a large logistical problem. On top of these costs, let’s not forget security, a priority in these times especially. Therefore, the danger costs will escalate is very high.

We have heard the public sector funding package for the Olympics, which covers the building of the venues, security and policing, stands at about £9.3bn ($14.4bn). That figure is an estimate and is likely to grow even more. Knowing the expected cost, it begs the question if this amount of spending is good value for money. A recent survey showed 55% of people asked agreed it was value for money while 59% thought the taxpayer paid too much to cover the cost of the games.

In my opinion, although the cost seems expensive, it is not a waste of public money. According to the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the Olympics will benefit the UK economy by about £13bn in the years to come. This figure is based on the assumption the infrastructure currently being built to support the Olympics will pay for itself in years to come - the regeneration will add value to the geographic area surrounding the Olympic venues and improve people’s quality of life.

From an accountant’s perspective, accounting for a project like the Olympics will always provide an interesting challenge. I am afraid that, we will never be able to come up with a final figure of the true cost or properly monetize the benefits of the games. We all hope the Olympics will be a success and the city’s residents will be proud to have hosted them one more time.

“Faster, higher, stronger” has always been the Olympic motto but hosting the event has become very expensive and a risky business to be involved with.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-18/olympics-14-billion-turns-junkyard-into-meadow-artist-studios   

Ellie Fanis

BPP University College

This post first appeared in The Accountant (July 2012)