Following publication of the Office of Tax Simplification’s review of small business tax, the government has decided to retain IR35 as abolition would apparently put substantial tax revenues at risk. The government promises improvements in the way IR35 is administered.

These proposed improvements will apparently include guidance on those types of cases HMRC view as outside the scope of IR35. This will make an interesting read. In my opinion it’s what the law says that counts, and with the greatest respect, not HMRC whereby it often appears that no two status inspectors can agree on which factors to ignore. How many times have contractors had to overcome HMRC employment status perceptions and had to prove a negative when confronted by an HMRC IR35 Enquiry?

IR35 is now 11 years old and such a thorny subject even the OTS can’t decide what to do with this issue – more sticking plaster is surely not the remedy to cover spotty legislation.

How about HMRC gaining a basic understanding of work breakdown structures, concepts such as project management of labour and materials with Gantt terminal time lines and delivery of work to budget and so forth. When exploring genuine arrangements between client and contractor, everyone would gain a greater appreciation of contextual factors and apply the key status tests/principles of mutuality of obligation, control, personal service, financial risk, etc, etc.

I would suggest HMRC publishing the obvious guidance would be too simplistic and futile – a bit like HMRC status officers hearing hourly rate and assuming employment status without considering the genuine arrangements?

Chris Leslie
Director, Qubic Associates Ltd
(DD) 0191 493 4940 (e) cleslie@qubictax.com

Well, the 7C Alliance Contractor Support Analyst team asked these very questions while doing the first trial of the new contractor health check call initiative.

The intention of these calls is to determine:

a)    What 7C Alliance can do to help the group, as a whole, to increase its opportunity

b)    What can be done to help an individual member specifically with increasing their opportunity, according to the needs and goals that they advise on becoming a member (which is based on the 7 C’s)

c)    What the individual member can do to help themselves

For the first and only time, we have decided to publicise the responses we have received in the 7C Alliance discussion group and are interested in feedback from other members on this initiative as well as the Open Practice Technology Network at large.

If you are interested in reading the results of the first round of Contractor Health Check Calls, please join the 7C Alliance LinkedIn discussion group by clicking on the link to the left or by cutting and pasting the following into your Web browser: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1542397

Once you have joined the group, you will be able to read and participate in the discussion by following this link: http://bit.ly/70U9oh. We look forward to your contribution to the ongoing discussion!

Written by Stuart Brown, an Associate Member of the 7C Alliance.

Hmmm, these are tough questions, but speaking from my personal experience as a ‘professional job hunter’ (and getting better with every attempt!); there are a number of things that I have found can help to keep you going.

For me, these have been:

• Knowing that there are many opportunities out there and it will take a number of attempts to get the right role. The UK employment market has been improving over the last three months, and while it may not be at the heyday of a couple of years back, it is better than the first six months of 2009. Each interview attempt will better prepare you for your next go.
• After an interview, always seek feedback. If you get the call that you haven’t been successful, remember to ask the recruiter why – you deserve it! Don’t take anything personally – remember, there are multiple candidates and only one person can get the role. If the recruiter doesn’t have any feedback from the client, ask them nicely to follow up with the client. You don’t need a detailed report – just a couple of key points that you can work on for next time.
• Reflect back (in a positive way) as to what you can do better next time. What was it that you need to focus on? This is where a little recruiter feedback can go a long way!  Was it the questions you are asked about the role, your description on how you would manage something or did you not demonstrate enthusiasm about the company and opportunity?
• Keep and develop a support network. No one person is an island and it is incredibly important to share your thoughts and to support each other. Your network can consist of other job seekers, family and friends. Consider mixing your network – meet people both online and in the real world. I keep in touch with a number of job seekers who encourage me when going for an interview, and I in turn do the same to them. A win-win situation!
• Consider practicing your interview technique. Practice by writing up half a dozen likely questions and having a family member or friend question you in a mock interview. There are also some brilliant online videos which ask questions which you can practice your responses such as jobsite. On the flip side, if you have a computer with a web camera, give some consideration to using it to film yourself giving answers to some likely questions. You may feel a little silly, but it can reduce any feelings of anxiety and it could help you to spot some of your personal traits when nervous such as “ums” or “ahs”, playing with your hair or touching your face. When you are conscious of these, you can work towards minimising them.

There are many other tips out there that can help, but these are some that have worked for me. Of them all, I think the most critical is making sure you have a support network and remember, this network is a two way street – if you support others when they need it – you will be supported in turn!

If you are interested in discussing some of these further, look at joining the 7C Alliance discussion group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1542397, where some great discussions are taking place with regard to the type of help that people need to secure their next contract.

Written by Stuart Brown, a member of the 7C Alliance

About Stuart Brown:

Stuart is an Associate Member of the 7C Alliance.  He provides services to the 7C Alliance on a voluntary basis for facilitating sharing of knowledge about Social Media, including raising awareness of its value, as well as currently being on a part-time contract to 7C Alliance Limited where he is working as a CRM Business Analyst reviewing and refining the Contractor Support Analysis and Contractor Resource Administration functions.  He can be contacted at 7C Alliance Limited by email to stuart@7c-alliance.com or found on LinkedIn through clicking on http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stuartkbrown

About The 7C Alliance:

The 7C Alliance is a Professional Association of IT, Telecoms and other independent technology contractors and consultants who come together to support each other through coaching, mentoring and marketing activities based around each and every member’s set of 7 C’s – which is what they have realised and accept as being what each and every contractor needs to be aware of for survival and success on contract.

About 7C Alliance Limited:

7C Alliance Limited is the company, incorporated by Matt Miller – the inventor of the 7 C’s concept – to provide services to The 7C Alliance.  This includes the setting and management of online forums,  facilitating the provision of coaching and mentoring services, industry-level and professional meetings, events and training as well as other activities to support the professional development and lifestyle of the independent technology contractor.

The evening will include a short talk on how to network effectively for work by someone who is setting up a business to help people do this (and see below for details on them and this talk), followed by some great networking opportunities while taking the Vinopolis “Grapevine Tour”.

Read on for a few more details about the night and speaker, or register online as indicated in the section below.

A Little Bit About The Vinopolis Wine Tour
Vinopolis is a well-renowned venue for showcasing wines from across the world in one place – and their Grapevine tour gives a good introduction for novices and enthusiasts alike.

The price listed on the web-site for the wine tour is £19.50, however if more than 20 people register interest to attend, then we will be able to get a discounted price of £18.50.

The tour includes:

• • Admission to the Vinopolis Wine Tour (1.5 hours in length)
• • A ‘How to Taste Wine’ session
• • 5 regular wine tastings
• • A Bombay Sapphire cocktail
• • A Vinopolis tasting notebook

Click on “Vinopolis Grapevine Tour” to go to the site and get more details.

A Little About Diana Lowe and “The Art of Networking” Talk
Prior to taking the wine tour, 7C Alliance is proud to announce that it will introduce Diana Lowe, who will give a short talk she has developed through attending Toastmaster’s entitled “The Art of Networking“.

She has developed her public speaking skills, and this talk, through being a committee member and mentor at the St. Paul’s Speakers, a Division of Toastmasters International

She is using this talk as an opportunity to present her and her new business, which is based on following her passion to help people grow their careers and improve their interpersonal communications. Further details on Diana, and her new business, can be found out by using the general enquiry facility through the 7C Alliance web-site, along with a message: “Diana Lowe and The Art of Networking” as well as any specifics about what you are interested to know.

This will be a great opportunity to come along and listen to Diana in her first public talk launching her new business supporting IT professionals in getting work. We are sure that she will provide some very handy networking tips as well! If all goes well, the 7C Alliance will consider engaging her business as an Alliance Partner and using it to help support its members in developing their public profiles and sourcing work through networking.

Special Guests Confirmed As Attending
Already invited and confirmed as attending are a number of other special interest guests including:

• • A Business Continuity Planning (BCP) Manager of one of the world’s largest investment banks, who is also a prominent member of Toastmaster’s, a group that assists people with developing their skills and profiles in public speaking
• • An expert from iELEVATE, a business specialising in interview techniques, mentoring and life coaching – and 7C Alliance’s newest Alliance Partner

After the wine tour concludes, attendees can continue to network and then adjourn for dinner at a local pub or wine bar.

Registration
Please register your attendance by going to the Contact Us form on the 7C Alliance web-site, and select London IT Contractor Alliance Meetup (LITCAM) Mailing List” along with a statement in the query section I would like to attend the Monthly Meetup on Thursday 12th November“.

N.B. In registering for this event you will also be added to the LITCAM list for future events – unless you request otherwise in the query section.

Registration is required by close of business on Monday, 9th November.

This event is open to any IT contractors and independent technology consultants. If you are not an IT contractor, or do not work in IT, but would like to attend, then please send a request to attend as a query using registration method stated above – and please state interest.

Looking forward to a great evening, in a great setting with some great people!

For Further information and Future Events
For any further information about this event, please email Stuart Brown on stuart@7c-alliance.com or info@7c-alliance.com with ideas or plans for future events. Please call 7C Alliance on 0844 844 2470 to arrange a time for a callback or a meeting to discuss this event or future events

As Mike clearly put it “The many thousands of smaller businesses that generate the bulk of the UK’s commercial income are faced with a hard task in complying with an increasing burden of regulatory obligations, one of the major components of which relates to information management. The least understood obligations are those relating to the conduct of business over the web and to the management of customers’ and employees’ personal data. The Tangled Web presentation provided a brief overview of the nature of these obligations and suggested an approach to their management, from the position that robust measures distributed among and integrated into established business processes are simpler, more cost effective and safer for the business and its customers than an independent ‘stuck on’ mechanism for formal ‘compliance’.”

Mike delved into such specifics as:

- General disclosure rules such as how important it was to disclose your business name and other particulars on all documents and correspondence

- Some of the considerations that need to be given by businesses who collect client personal data along with the 8 guiding principles for collecting such personal information

- Cloud computing and some of the legal and security issues that businesses can face with putting personal data ‘in the cloud’

- Some of the legal obligations in complying with the various Acts related to Information Security and Data Protection in doing business over the Web.

With Mike tying his talk into the BS 10012:2009, he provided a clear reference point with standards that should be adhered to. Comments arose for a number of attendees that it wasn’t just about compliance, but in fact was good business practice and in many cases, adhering to these standards would improve the marketing of their business and provide clarity to potential customers.

By keeping the presentation firmly in the realm of business, Mike prevented some of the technical aspects from overwhelming and made the entire presentation easily digestible.

Comments received from attendees included:

“Necessary stuff for the savvy contractor to be aware of and if I had the opportunity to hear Mike speak again, I would definitely do so.” Stuart Brown

“Michael’s integrated approach to information security – by making sure it meshes in with the business processes and is not just done as an afterthought – has proven itself to be excellent for helping me with not only improving the information security and data protection that I provide to 7C Alliance members (i.e. not just simply focus on complying with the letter of the legislation), but has also had the unexpected benefit of helping me improve how I market 7C Alliance’s services to members as well as better manage relationships with them.” Matt Miller

“A good public speaker who made his talk funny, interesting, relevant and easy to listen to.” Graham Bishop

“The benefits I got from the talk on Information security were two fold.  Most importantly, as a web developer in training, I believe it is important to be able to consult with the client with the content that should be made available on the website, as well as the smaller technical issues such as ‘readable’ font size.  Knowing the security requirements and regulations adds value to the service that I can provide to prospective clients and that gives me a competitive advantage.  Who would have thought that using the ‘Cloud’ services for data storage and other regular office activities could potentially get you into some serious legal trouble!” Adele Coetzee

All in all, a very enlightening presentation and one which gave much food for thought on the topic of Information Security and the Data Protection Act.

The 7C Alliance is happy to run another seminar where the costs of Mike’s time are shared by the attendees. If interested, please visit the 7C Alliance Contact Us webpage, select the General Enquiry option and indicate that you are interested in attending a Tangled Web Talk.

Alternatively, at an affordable daily rate of £500, Mike is available to look at a business’ online presence and analyse how to integrate information security and data protection aspects into that business. He will also provide a detailed report specific to that business. Mike can be contacted via LinkedIn or through his company, Integrated Infosec.

A big thank you to Mike for presenting this talk and to Matt Miller for organising the event and venue (the rather brilliant Tabernacle). Finally, thank you to James Brenan from Cubism Law for supplying the IT security contact – we will look at covering the legal aspects of IT security in more detail with future talks.

Written by Stuart Brown, on behalf of the 7C Alliance.

* Interested in knowing more about the 7C Alliance and why it exists?

* Interested in knowing what the 7 Cs actually are?

* Keen to know how the 7C Alliance can help you to find the contracts that suit you and at the same time assure your quality to the market?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, it sounds like you need to attend the upcoming 7 C awareness seminar!

This seminar will show how the 7C Alliance, through operating as an organised group of contractors and contractor support services, provides a variety of means to assist you in sourcing contracts and ensuring that your capability is matched to the market.

The seminar will be held on the evening of the 6th of October in a West London location. Please register for more information about the venue and start time.

Among other things, the seminar will show you how, as an existing or prospective member, the 7C Alliance can not only make it easier to source contracts but also provide you with advice and support with regard to better marketing yourself, assisting you with new business initiatives and helping you to develop your professional capability. The 7 C framework will also be shown and how it can assist with each of these areas. Finally, the full list of contractor support services will be unveiled with an eye to helping you to become the best contractor that you can be.

A free fair trade coffee will also be provided to each attendee courtesy of the 7C Alliance.

If you are interested in attending or learning more please fill in the form on the 7C Alliance website and select the ‘7 C Awareness Seminar’ option. One of the administration team will be in touch with more information.

Presentation background

These challenges are from a number of market observations gathered by Matt Miller in recent years of working with IT contractors who have been brought together through the 7C Alliance, a professional association of contractors who are supported through Matt’s contractor coaching and supply chain support business, 7C Alliance. I verified these challenges through first-hand experience in my own job-hunting as well as from relevant information sourced from discussions taking place on LinkedIn and other online forums and blogs that I have participated in over the past three months since becoming a member of the 7C Alliance.

I thought it would be useful to summarise the feedback received from attendees at the workshop and to present this using the same key topic areas that were shown during the presentation and in the discussion that followed.

We identified the top 5 challenges as:

1. Agencies’ keyword-driven tools
2. Multiple agencies handling one job
3. Bulk recruitment – first come, first served
4. Lack of quality assurance of candidates
5. Lack of quality assurance of contract requirements

Agencies’ keyword-driven tools

The audience seemed to strongly agree with the first challenge – that there is an over reliance on keyword searches and the process is geared towards simply matching these keywords against given requirements, often without further checks being performed to ensure these matches are indeed correct.

A couple of stories shared included:

- A friend of a participant was in the Special Air Service (S.A.S) and received a call for a SAS Programmer role.

- Another participant was aware of a chef getting a call for an SAP role. The end-client was bemused with receiving such a CV and contacted the agency to find out how. After much head scratching, it was worked out that the chef’s CV had noted ‘interested in jobs starting ASAP’ – and so the SAP of ASAP had been picked up by an automated keyword matching tool as making the chef “relevant”.

- Finally, my own experience with getting a Monster job match alert based on the fact that my CV contains the term NGO. I received an alert that I was a match for a job with Transport for London (TfL), and this seemed to be purely driven by a single keyword match. I did not meet any of the seven key criteria necessary for the role and was left wondering why I had received it in the first place – the power of the keyword!

Multiple agencies handling one job

There was very little feedback with regard to this area, although there was an overwhelming agreement that it was a problem. With multiple agencies handling one job, it was often hard to know which agency to deal with.

One experience mentioned was from a Business Analyst, Heather, who in the past had been told she was put forward for a job. She hadn’t heard back and in the meantime received a call from another recruiter who asked if she had been put forward for the role. She stated that she had but hadn’t yet heard back. The second recruiter offered to follow up for her and subsequently she found out that she hadn’t been put forward for the role as she had originally been told. The net outcome was that the second recruiter put her forward and she successfully got the role.

Bulk recruitment – first come, first served

With the sheer numbers of applications, recruiters have to manage responses in bulk which leads to a number of qualified candidates missing out on opportunities. Indeed, anecdotal evidence from some LinkedIn discussion groups indicates that some recruiters operate a ‘cut-off point’ and simply take the first 10 or 20 through the gate.

Further discussion arose from the fact that the recruitment process seems to be based on “how to reject a candidate” rather than how to accept ones based on meeting requirements. Often these rejections can be driven by arbitrary requirements and the process of rejection is performed by administrative staff based on a check-list of criteria, as they otherwise lack the technical experience to determine a genuinely suitable candidate.

An example was cited by a workshop participant who helped recruit for his replacement. 200 CVs were received and these were worked through by a secretary who discarded any CVs with a single typing mistake, incorrect grammar and the like. This resulted in a total of 12 CVs which were used to determine a shortlist. When the participant looked back on some of the discarded CVs, there were a number which would have been even more suitable than the 12 selected CVs. It was also noted that two of the 12 CVs were widely inappropriate and should never have got through this process of ‘selection by rejection’.

A further example was given by a workshop participant of applying for many roles where the skills required were a 100% match with her skills. Despite applying for many roles where this was the case, she never heard back from recruiters and there was no follow up. This has led to her simply playing the numbers game and sending off applications for many positions without necessarily following up with these applications.

Lack of quality assurance of candidates

With recruitment agents being rather busy, it was noted that there seems to be very little time for recruiters to assure that a candidate can perform as they say they can. As an additional thought, there was unanimous agreement that the lack of feedback from agents is also a big problem. It is very hard to make improvements ‘for next time’ without feedback!

Lack of quality assurance of contract requirement

This area focused on what is done, by either recruiters or end-clients themselves, to make sure that their vacancy or job description lists the complete set of skill-sets, experience, training and soft skills needed for doing the job.

Research has noted that a lot of time can be wasted in searching for the right people due to poor vacancy listings or poor job descriptions. Indeed, in some cases, no job description is available and a few lines on the advertised vacancy are all that the contractor has to go off!!

Often the contract requirements, which are the key things to be done by the contractor and stated on the vacancy advertisement or job description, are discovered during the recruitment process to be either:

- Insufficient for covering the scope of what needs to be done by the contractor; or

- Too broad for a single contractor to necessarily have the experience or capability to do.

Indeed, often these types of requirements are posted at a ridiculously low rate for capability expected – and so expectations of the end-client are unreasonable.

Where the contract requirements are insufficient, this has led to a lack of quality candidates. By contrast, where the requirements or over-stated – that is, demonstrate too many expectations for the role – and, worse, state a rate for the contract that does not reflect value of the capability in the market, there are often too few candidates. A few comments arose along the lines of:

- “The people who make the choice about which CVs are to go forward do not know enough about the role. Agents do not know the technology used in the role.”

- “There are often unreasonable requirements in job adverts”

- Mike, an Information Security Specialist, felt very strongly about the need to educate the end client in setting up contract requirements

- Often it can mean a long wait for the candidate who has gone for an interview – and only to find that the end-client has realised, in the course of the process, that they needed a different type of person or that “someone internally is capable of fulfilling this role” (and hence the ubiquitous response received “role has been filled internally”)

General Discussion

- Everybody was very keen on the idea of increasing human interaction and the feeling is strong that this interaction is widely lacking in the current recruitment process.

- There should be a version of CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) for recruitment which is open source .

- Mike had received the suggestion to include your personality in business terms on your CV with focus on the following aspects:

1. Who you are as a person so employers know what to expect
2. Describe your personality
3. Ensure your key skills are included, but these should be throughout your CV
4. Make sure that your personality suggests a fit with the business culture

I hope the above information is useful and provides an insight into both the top challenges facing contractors when applying for roles and the type of workshops held at a 7C Alliance Job SAW. If you would like to know more about Job SAW, take a look at this earlier blog post.

If you are interested in attending a future 7C Alliance event (either a networking opportunity or a  specific event) please visit the contact us page and submit a London IT Contractor Alliance Meetup request. There is also a 7C Alliance discussion group on LinkedIn, feel free to join if you are a contractor or are interested in contracting and want to participate in some great conversations around all manner of topics.

Finally, I’d like to thank Matt Miller, Adele Coetzee and Allan Keyzer for all their help in preparing for the presentation as well as their invaluable support and advice – thanks guys, I couldn’t have done it without you!

Written by Stuart Brown, a member of the 7C Alliance.