I was wrong when I thought that entrusting me with a phone, and a key (as well as allowing me to dress as I saw necessary), was the Chatter limit; and I wouldn’t have blamed them. But the guys had the generous idea of also entrusting me with monetary funds after my first day. Funds to invest on Chatter’s behalf in a growing business through Kiva. They masked it as a welcome gift, but I knew it was to test my moral choices, I imagine its part of many a recruitment process nowadays?

Kiva is a non-profit organisation that allows people to lend money via the Internet to people (generally entrepreneurs) in developing countries through micro-finance. It includes individual stories of each person who needs a loan so that ‘lenders’ can choose an entrepreneur they wish to fund. The money sent by the ‘lender’ is then transferred to the micro-finance institution (or Field Partner) and disbursed to the selected individual, providing them with the funds required to grow their business. The idea is that eventually the loan is repaid and the ‘lender’ recoups their money and it can be reinvested to another entrepreneur.

The concept is brilliant, and I wholeheartedly support the cause, but I was initially left with a dilemma… Who to lend the money to?

My studies of the Poor Law System hadn’t really endeared me to the idea of classifying those ‘deserving’ of funding from those not. I realised the ‘welcome gift’ my employers had given to me was a bit of a nightmare, and I couldn’t just plump for the Juan Milton because of a surname… could I?

Fortunately my qualms regarding the selection of the ‘deserving’ poor for my loan were alleviated by the fact that the full loan is pre-disbursed to the ‘borrowers’ by the micro-financiers, meaning that ‘lenders’ do not make the decision as to whether the individual is deserving of funding based on their picture and story. I could just plump for a namesake? Well I had a little think, and I’ve came up with a couple of entrepreneurs I could be pals with…

• Julius makes shoes in Thika, Kenya. I can appreciate a decent pair of leather shoes. Providing him with the opportunity to grow his shoe-making business is great; and he intends to educate his family with the proceeds. Education was an important part of the ITFC Charitable Trust trip to Kenya, and I’m an Ipswich fan, so I feel that the choice is in someway justified… I just hope I get the opportunity to buy some shoes off Julius once his business rockets!
• I have been intrigued by Peru ever since I read a fantastic article retelling the story of Peruvian political struggles during the early 1990’s. Whilst Peru has experienced massive social, cultural and economic growth in recent years, the economic disparities between communities are excessive… Dania is the same age as me (21), and hasn’t been afforded the opportunity to study that I have. Her ambition to succeed should not be blighted by her economic circumstance, and she deserves to do well! She also makes red spaghetti, and spaghetti dishes formed a pretty substantial part of my student diet, aside from cold meats and the like.

Hopefully, with the smallest of contributions, I can help these guys to build their businesses and one day see them featured alongside me on a Forbes . One day. If you would like to join us on the Forbes Hot 100 you should sign up too. If you sign up through the Chatter lending Team you get $25 free to loan.

DONE.

Harry

Last year was a struggle. Amongst the self pity and feeling that ‘I had def completed my part of this graduate bargain’, I was struggling to find a graduate job. My answer was to hide away, in an ScS warehouse, until the New Year… Fortunately, seven months on, I managed to convince the Chatter guys I was alright; but with the news that uni may not be worth it after all, I gave my bitter housemates the opportunity to vent regarding the six grievances that have made their own searches for a graduate scheme such a struggle…

WEBSITES- Company Careers and Graduate sites are often the first port of call for guys looking to enter the world of work post-uni… Unfortunately the ‘unique culture’ each business claims to have engrained within itself are few and far between. Lost beneath the vague corporate message seems to be the type of characters actually required, making it very difficult to understand what companies are looking for.

CAREERS FAIRS- The fairs seem to be regarded as a ‘must attend’ by employers keen on early undergraduate engagement, yet in our experiences, they have often been understaffed by poorly prepared employees who cannot always answer the questions you really need answered… Whilst the ‘freebie hype’ is undoubted, on most occasions, the guys didn’t get the opportunity to speak to grads in the roles they had applied for… The idea that they are a ‘must attend’ if you wish to gain graduate employment is scuppered by the fact that it is very difficult to network at such events and you garner very few worthwhile answers.

LOCATION ISSUES- It is difficult to know where a company is based if the only communication you receive is ‘Nationwide’. Combined with the fact that there was no initial point of contact with a particular role, one of my mates was told they would be working in Manchester only for that to be altered to Milton Keynes as she advanced through the recruitment process.

TESTS- With a report last year claiming that every graduate role receives 52 applications, it is important for recruiters to sift, that is the accepted norm… the grievance that my housemates have is that the online ‘competency’ tests are often pointless, not a guarantee of progression, and in any case are very easy to get a pal to do! In our experiences, recruiters claim to test everyone again at the assessment centre, but on more than one occasion, have decided to ‘select’ a small amount of candidates for retest without explanation… Why such inconsistency of approach?

PERSONALITY- Creating a consistent tone/personality for a business is something I have had to learn quickly during my short time at Chatter. Rather inevitably, the grievances in this sense, should not necessarily come as a surprise… ‘Too corporate’, ‘no sense of community,’ and a ‘lack of personality’ were some of the reasons my mates felt disconnected from some graduate schemes… with a friendly atmosphere and passionate approach perceived to be one of the greatest draws.

FEEDBACK- Rejection is inevitable. It is not the worst part of the recruitment process. What is? The indifference of the vast majority of companies to your applications… You begin to lose count of the number of companies and schemes you apply for without receiving an email confirming receipt of your application… Some reply after three months, others never… Yet the lack of contact is at least consistent throughout the process. One graduate employer openly stated their reluctance to communicate- explaining to final stage candidates, ‘We’ll call you if you’ve got the job… you might receive an email if you haven’t.’

Whilst my housemates are now lucky enough to avoid being in the 40 per cent of university leavers failing to get a graduate-level job, it is clear that the of roles are just not there…When the roles are few and far between, I’m sure some of the graduate employers are likely to continue with this practice of sifting candidates with an inconsistent and faceless approach; leading to a lot of confusion… confusing enough for me is settling on one consistent accent.

Harry

“When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’
Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
Theodore Roosevelt

Hi. Im Harry. And I’m the newest member of the Chatter team… I’ve spent most of my time as a fanatic. A football and music fanatic- sometimes trying to get involved- with little success… I’m a Leeds Uni History grad originally from Norfolk, and I moved back to Leeds two months ago with a couple of bags of clothes and a Pete Doherty poster…

Despite my lack of preparation for post-graduation Leeds, I was determined to find carve out a worthwhile media career… Fortunately I was able to convince the guys at Chatter that my career should begin with them.  I didn’t necessarily know what to expect from my first week at Chatter, but one thing I did/still do expect is… that I have a lot to learn.

With this in mind, I guessed I would detail seven things I’ve learnt in my seven days since becoming a fully ‘chatterised’ member…

One: No-one sympathises with my woes regarding the ungodly 9am starts of the working world.

Two: Business cards remain an exciting novelty.

Three: Charcuterie and crispy rolls do not form the basis for a balanced and healthy lifestyle.

Four: Despite the fact that I have made first foray into graduate work, I can still pass for seventeen, even whilst at work.

Five: Novelty/floral print jumpers are unfortunately not the norm in the working world.

Six: It’s no use explaining to people what I actually do for a living. My mum is still convinced I’m involved in something unsavoury.

Seven: Two teas, one black coffee- three sugars.

Next week hopefully I’ll learn something worthwhile, and further convince the guys that I can one day be worthwhile having around. With Doherty on the wall, what can go wrong?

Harry

There are some very sore heads among the Chatterinos today. Last night saw us hit Manchester for the Recruitment Business Awards 2012 (the RBA’s) and we’re very pleased to be bringing home THREE (count ‘em!) commendations for Skype, Northgate and Arqiva as well as an award for our work with the Hyde Group.

It was a great night, laid on by The Drum, with entertainment from Irelands leading Hip Hop crew, Abandoman. They were hilarious, improvising a series of songs on the spot using objects from people’s pockets and people from the crowd. They even got our very own Paul up on stage to humiliate in public…join in the fun.

To celebrate the night we’ve launched a shiny new case studies section on our website, where you can find more details about all of that work and more. We couldn’t have done it without our clients and of course our lovely Flock some of whom were in attendance last night too. So a big pat on the back to all of them.

Cheers!

If you’ve been engaged in building a new website lately, or implementing a new bit of software for public use (like an Applicant Tracking System for example) then you may have heard some rumblings about Cookies and the new EU Cookie law. We thought it might be useful to throw a few notes on the blog here to give you some background.

So, what’s it all about? Well in a nutshell, don’t worry, it’s all a storm in a teacup and fairly easily worked around…but you do need to be aware of it.

Now, the longer version!

In May 2012, the UK finally implemented the EU directive on the use of cookies (and similar technology) on websites. It was a badly drafted, badly implemented law, so broadly framed that it made pretty much every website in the UK illegal overnight. The law basically said that if your website wanted to store any cookies on a users machine, then you had to ask for (and receive) their explicit permission first.

On the face of it this sounds quite reasonable, after all, there’s lots of nasty companies out there tracking our every move right? Well, no. There are probably some very egregious uses of cookies out there, but they’re definitely the exception rather than the rule. Unfortunately genuinely useful, and pretty much benign, cookies like those used by Google Analytics, social sharing buttons, Youtube videos and some content management systems are also covered by the same law.

So we were left with the possibility that we’d either have to break the law, or ask every visitor a confusing question they’d probably say no to (it’s easier than trying to understand what’s being asked) and see the statistics for all our sites drop through the floor overnight. Making ROI considerably harder to divine!

Fortunately when the law was first introduced, the iCO also gave it a 12 month deferral period to allow everyone to get ready, which expired in May 2012. They accompanied it with some really vague guidance that left everybody nonplussed…so most web developers did what they thought best…and ignored it in the hope it would go away.

12 months later, about 11 hours before the law was due to come into force the iCO introduced new guidance that watered down the requirements somewhat…so where does that leave us?

Well, it all depends on your attitude to risk, with a potential of a £500k fine you should at the very least review all your websites and get a good handle on what cookies they’re setting and how they’re being used. Ideally the output of that exercise should then be used to redraft your Privacy Policy page to include information on how the cookies are used, and amend any links to it in your site header and footer to clearly state that it’s about Cookies as well.

Then, finally look at how you might work to either eradicate the cookies entirely, or implement some level of cookie compliance software to gain users consent. That way, if the iCO come knocking, you can evidence you’re aware of the issue and have a plan and a thought process in place to deal with any enforcement notice they might issue.

Phew…