Blog

Making the switch from permanent employment to contracting can be one of the most exciting times of your career. The first major decision you need to make as a contractor is how to operate; do you work as an employee of an umbrella company or through your own limited company? You may be wondering, which option is the best for you? Thankfully, help is at hand. We have all the information you need from the experts at Parasol, including the pros and cons of each pathway, so read on for advice to help you make a well-informed decision. What is an umbrella company? An umbrella company is an excellent choice if this is your first venture into contracting or you’re planning on only contracting for a short period of time (for three-six months, for example). The main reason many contractors choose an umbrella company is the ease of use and less administration. If you decide to go down this route, you are considered an employee of the umbrella company. You will receive a contract of employment; as well as giving you peace of mind, this also entitles you to the benefits given to a permanent employee. This includes: Holiday pay Sick pay Maternity/paternity pay As well as receiving these benefits, you will also be able to claim business costs and expenses. The only drawback is that you can only claim these back if they are incurred during an assignment. Advantages of working as an umbrella employee Working as an umbrella employee can be the simplest way of operating whilst you’re contracting. The umbrella company will automatically deduct Income Tax and National Insurance contributions on your behalf, so once you receive your salary, the money is yours with no need to worry about additional liabilities. What is a limited company? A limited company is a company which you can set up in order to carry out your services. They have their own legal identity; this allows you to own company assets as well as having a business bank account – this account must be separate from your personal finances. If your limited company makes any profit, it then owns this profit. Although contractors working through a limited company can receive more money than those working under an umbrella company, this increase in income is a result of slightly more paperwork each month. You will need to raise your own invoices with your client and – with the help of your accountant – make your own National Insurance and tax contributions. Advantages of contracting through a limited company Forming your own limited company and working as a limited company director can be the most tax efficient way of working. In terms of expenses, limited company directors are also able to claim on a bigger selection of expenses than those working through an umbrella company. Forming a limited company gives you the ultimate control over your business finances, providing the freedom you perhaps first expected when you decided to become self-employed. Working as a limited company director is a great option for those who are planning on contracting for the long-term. A quick overview of both options So far, we’ve explored both contracting under an umbrella company, and through a limited company. It’s now your choice to take charge of your career, and decide which way is best for you. To summarise, an umbrella company could be the best option if you’re new to contracting and want to avoid the hassle of paperwork. It is also the best option for you if you’re intending on contracting only for a couple of months at a time. A limited company does come bundled with slightly more paperwork and added responsibility but if you’re planning on contracting long-term working through your own limited company could be a great option. Helping you decide Whether it’s a limited company or umbrella company you choose, we hope our guide has been useful in helping you decide which option fits you best. For a tailored recommendation, leading umbrella company Parasol offers a set of simple questions designed to point you in the right direction. You can also contact our Head of Contracts Alex Martuccio by email alex@understandingrecruitment.co.uk or by phone 01727 228 244. Check out our latest contract roles here.

Mike Sowerbutts is the Head of Engineering at White Springs, a technology provider dedicated to improving sales performance. They employ approximately 20 employees across offices in London, Banbury, Oxfordshire and San Diego. After ten years of progressing through the ranks at White Springs, Mike took on the Head of Engineering role with the challenge of recruiting a permanent team of highly skilled software development professionals to be based out of the Banbury office. I wanted to interview Mike and find out how he did it and what advice he would give others who face similar challenges in this talent short market. JM: Hi Mike, thanks for taking the time out to speak to me. MS: No problem James. Background JM: First off Mike tell me about yourself. MS: I studied IT & Media at Lancaster University and was based in Oxford before I joined White Springs in March 2009. I then moved to Banbury in order to be able to walk to work, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to jump in the car and commute to work! I now live just outside of York. JM: But that’s quite a commute isn’t it? MS: It’s a good drive yes – but pales in insignificance to a daily commute, given that for the majority of those years, I have been 100% remote! The Challenge MS: Moving into the Head of Engineering role and realising the CEO’s ambitions it was quite clear we had to scale up our team and that two developers wouldn’t be sufficient to deliver on the projects we had lined up. JM: So, what was the plan? MS: I needed to hire six people including a Technical Lead to be based out of our Banbury office. JM: And how did you start to go about doing that? MS: Well, I went out to some recruitment agencies and I managed to make one hire inside the first couple of months. JM: That was good then... MS: Well yes and no. From looking at the candidates and interviews we conducted to make just one hire I wasn’t convinced that I could find another six hires of sufficient quality in the right location within the timescale required. I was ideally looking for experience of microservices, Entity Framework and .NET Core 2.0. I needed to change something… The Solution JM: So, what did you do? MS: I decided to expand the criteria to include the hiring of remote developers who didn’t need to be within a commuting distance of Banbury. JM: Ah okay. What experience, if any, have you had of remote workers previously? MS: I’m one! When I moved to Yorkshire from Banbury I asked to work remotely and while there was initially some hesitation and resistance, the company did have some people in other departments doing it as well as some employees working out of the US so the decision was made to allow me to do it. JM: I’ll come onto what some of that initial reluctance was down to later but for the moment, tell me what your experience was from a recruitment perspective after relaxing the location criteria. MS: I hired the six further people I needed within the timescales I had! I also hired a new recruitment agency to help me as well. JM: What made you choose the recruiter you did? MS: I liked the recruiter, he came across as trustworthy and not too pushy and thankfully he turned out to be able to find the calibre of people I needed. JM: And what did you find with regards to the new candidates that you saw? MS: I started seeing a larger pool of high-quality candidates than I had done previously. It allowed me to be more selective and certain about who I selected as I knew I had more people to choose from. If you are not careful you can hire people for the wrong reasons, i.e. they live locally even if they are not the best for the job. JM: Okay, great, that makes sense. While it seems an obvious positive that you get more candidates to choose from, what about the negatives you hear about employing remote developers? For example, I’ve heard that productivity slumps? Remote working MS: That hasn’t been an issue. I’ve found that by being more flexible and by hiring the right people they don’t take the mick. JM: Trust people until they give you a reason not to then. What about still being able to foster that team culture and effective communication when everyone isn’t in the same location? MS: I’ve been the sole remote working employee in a team previously and that is difficult, especially when your line manager isn’t the biggest fan of remote working. However, when everyone in the team is remote it becomes easier. We use Microsoft Teams (allows multiple communication channels, syncs through Outlook…) to foster collaboration while also having an open chat where we can have some non-work communication and share our love of Star Wars etc! That may become more difficult with bigger teams but for the size we have it works. We also get together at least once every 2 months and go to developer conferences etc. JM: Sounds great! I’ve also heard that companies are concerned about sensitive data becoming unsafe through the use of remote workers – what do you do to mitigate this? MS: We use BitLocker (a full volume encryption feature included with Microsoft Windows) and Microsoft Intune (a device management solution) to handle this. Hiring JM: How would you summarise the impact that offering remote work has played in your hiring efforts? MS: It’s definitely been advantageous. I always ask our current developers for any negatives / improvements but there hasn’t been anything up to now. Given that all of them were 100% office based in prior positions, this is telling JM: And what about the interview process Mike, has that had to change? MS: Not too much, I do a telephone interview first (anything from 20-60 mins), then invite them in to Banbury for a face to face interview including technical tests). Though sometimes it makes more sense to interview at a location closer to both of us. Fortunately the recruiter I worked with was able to provide a space for this. And finally... JM: Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this Mike, finally, for anyone reading this who is considering hiring remote developers what tips would you give them? MS: Okay, first one – look for more than just skillset. If someone’s personal skills are poor then working remotely doesn’t mitigate this, don’t change your team & cultural fit requirements just because they aren’t going to be in the same office. It’s still really important to get the right fit for the team. Secondly, ask the candidate where they plan to work from. You don’t want someone who says the sofa! Someone who can separate themselves from family distractions when needed and ideally has a separate work space is better. It shows they are taking it seriously as well. And finally you need the candidate to have fibre broadband so it’s worth checking their location, connection and speeds. JM: Mike that’s great and I’m sure people reading this will find it really useful to help overcome any hiring challenges they have at the moment. MS: No problem James, speak soon. For more information about White Springs and what they can do for your sales performance click here or contact them on 020 7754 5924. If you wish to discuss your tech recruitment strategy and how to overcome any current hiring challenges you have then please contact myself, James Mills, on 01727 809 074, james@understandingrecruitment.co.uk or www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmrecruits

One of the many benefits of working at Understanding Recruitment is that you’re entitled to a three-month sabbatical after you’ve been with us for five years. Our Delivery Manager Nicola and her husband Tom who is our Head of DevOps and Cloud went on Sabbatical before tying the knot in 2018, as our first Understanding Recruitment love story. We caught up with them to reminisce about their three months of exotic travels… Why did you decide to go travelling? We both love visiting new countries and experiencing new cultures, and the sabbatical offered us the opportunity to do this for an extended period. We could comfortably afford to travel how we wanted to during this time with the added security and benefit that our jobs would be there for us to return to. Which countries did you visit on your sabbatical and why did you choose them? We travelled to Japan, Australia, Bali, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, and Dubai. We had been to Thailand several times before and were really keen to further explore South East Asia. I have family in Australia on the East Coast, so it was a great excuse to visit them. Tokyo has always been an area of interest and we thought it was a great opportunity to go there too whilst being in that part of the world. Dubai was a stop off on the return to the UK so thought it made sense to stay there for a few days too! How did you go about planning your sabbatical? We used specialist travel agents to help us plan most effectively and to advise us on our route. We also contacted family in Australia for advice and did several months of internet-based research, booking most flights and hotels before we went. We also made some bookings whilst we were out there so that we didn’t have to stick to a rigid structure. How did you fund your travel? We worked out an average budget per day and then saved our commission earnt at work to build up to it! What was the most useful thing you packed? We had smaller bags designed to keep all clothes as one within the backpack making them a lot easier to find each day (i.e. one bag for shorts, another for swimwear)! Which place was totally different to how you imagined? Dubai was totally different to what we expected. On the day we arrived there was a storm and the city flooded to the point that we couldn’t get off the plane for an hour when we arrived because it was stuck in a puddle! It is also very cosmopolitan compared to the more rural vibe of Asia where we had just come from. Have you had any bad experiences whilst travelling? Small amounts of money were stolen from our backpacks and rooms where a safe wasn’t available, but this didn’t happen often. What was your favourite moment? It’s a tough call between staying with a wider group on a catamaran for three days whilst sailing around the Whitsundays in Australia; which included snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef, swimming with giant sea turtles and going to Whitehaven Beach, and seeing the light and water show at the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. What has been the best food you have eaten and where was it? We went on a Vietnamese street food tour in Hanoi which was amazing. Did you make friends along the way? Yes, we met lots of people in most places, particularly Oz and South East Asia. What, if anything, would you do differently? We would potentially go to less places and spend more time at each by doing so. What destination would you recommend to people? Hands down it would be El Nido in the Philippines – Las Cabanas Beach! Where will you go next? So far, we’ve got Egypt and New York planned for this year.

Codility is a leading online technical testing platform for Developers similar to HackerRank, CoderPad etc - they have recently released their 2018 Developer Report. If you are a company looking to hire technical staff (and even more importantly, looking to retain them!) you should download the PDF without hesitation. 'Companies that just rely on how ground-breaking their tech/platform is to sell to candidates is simple arrogance' So many companies make mistakes when it comes to recruiting. Slow candidate offers, not very relevant technical testing and poor communication of the role within interviews are examples which I see happen all the time. One thing is clear, the companies that are hiring the best candidates are the companies with the best processes in place. These processes give a candidate insight into how a company works, what their culture is, how they can progress their career there. Companies that just rely on how ground-breaking their tech/platform is to sell to candidates is simple arrogance. Key insights from the report include: Female Developers are not involved in recruiting Personal Development is more appealing than salary How you should be marketing yourself differently to junior Developers to Senior Developers Majority of Developers jobs are not what they expected. Within the report, there also is a key point on the importance of giving candidate feedback. Many companies miss out on such an easy point-scorer with candidates by not delivering interview feedback, both positive and negative. Plain and simple, the companies giving feedback are beating you at recruitment (real-world example below) 'Many companies miss out on such an easy point-scorer with candidates by not delivering interview feedback, both positive and negative.' It was only yesterday that I was having a chat with one of my candidates, informing him that he had progressed from his initial tech test to a phone interview. Usually, I work with many companies who would just email me around the lines of 'Hi Mat, Phone interview please - send availability'. However on this occasion they had given him detailed feedback on his assessment, listing what they liked about it and what they would have improved about it. I delivered the candidate the feedback. The candidate remarked that he was very impressed that they had taken the time to give him detailed feedback, compared to other companies, and how that has shown him what kind of company they are. The candidate was pretty enthused about the opportunity, though now through a couple of lines of feedback it has heightened his experience one more notch. From doing something seemingly as small as giving candidate feedback, you will be able to positively differentiate yourself from a huge amount of companies in the tech industry. 'From doing something seemingly as small as giving candidate feedback, you will be able to positively differentiate yourself from a huge amount of companies in the tech industry.' When a candidate receives an offer, you have to imagine that they will cast their mind back through the process with your company. What were the positives? What were the negatives? To hire the best people, you must be covering all the bases in terms of candidate experience, many of which are highlighted in the codility report. The best companies already are. Are you? I have helped to scale successful tech companies that have got recruitment right. If you'd like to talk about refining and creating recruitment processes, candidate attraction, the mindset of candidates or the market - let's have a chat. Click here to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Most of you have been there. You’ve felt excited and geared up about a new job opportunity, maybe gone to an interview or two or at least applied, but then - silence. Nothing; no calls, no emails and especially no feedback to let you know where it went pear shaped or if the recruiter is still thinking about you. Unfortunately, mutual “ghosting” and the bad habit of not giving candidates feedback hasn’t helped people’s negative perceptions and experiences of the recruitment industry. And who can blame the critics? The issue of feedback has been a constant conversation within our industry for as long as I’ve been in recruitment (which is a pretty long time). Interestingly, the whole candidate experience was the main discussion topic at Understanding Recruitment’s Strategy Day earlier this year and is an area that we’re keen to improve in our “year of the candidate”. My personal ethos is an aspiration to provide feedback (positive & negative) to all candidates at all stages of the process. I think it’s the only way to provide the best service to those looking to take the next step in their career. Despite this ethos I'm not naive enough to think that we provide feedback to the satisfaction of everyone all of the time, despite having won multiple awards and been recognised for our approach to customer service. There can be a number of reasons behind this: lack of care from the recruiter’s side, lack of feedback from clients, recruiters chasing the short term £ rather than the caring about long term reputation, recruitment companies who advocate the wrong behaviours amongst their employees, recruiters focusing on people who they’ll place now rather than people who could be of interest in the future, human forgetfulness, candidate behaviour and many more. To recruiters who aspire to be better, reputation is key, and we want to exceed expectations. Why then, is giving feedback still an issue? It’s a tricky situation with most recruiters juggling multiple roles, clients and candidates all the time and there only being so many hours in a day. So how can we still give people the personal experience they’ve come to expect without burning ourselves out? I don’t have the perfect solution and we’re still working on what that solution might look like for us as a business. I suspect we’ll end up with a combination of the use of smart recruitment & AI tech for a certain amount of automated feedback while also continuing to provide the vital human and personal contact in order to build long lasting relationships. Like a lot of traditional industries recruitment is experiencing a lot of disruption that will raise standards, put candidates at the centre of the business and give you, the customer a better experience. I hope so anyway! I would love to hear your opinions and suggestions on how we can make the feedback issue a thing of the past. Connect with me on LinkedIn to start a conversation.

Searching for your next career move can be hard-work, a bit of a hassle and in some cases pretty nerve-wracking. Although recruiters can’t promise to calm the butterflies in your stomach before the big interview, they're here to help you secure the job you want. Here are 7 thing recruiters wish you knew... Be honest – honesty is the best policy when working with a recruiter. Be transparent about what type of role you’re looking for and let them know straightaway if you’re not open to new positions. This way you’ll get the most out of working together and don’t waste each other’s time. Working exclusively with one recruitment agency is also the best way to simplify the process of finding your next role. Recruiters will always have multiple roles that they’re working on so the chances of you getting a new role increase when you work with one recruiter instead of multiple different agencies. Give feedback – recruiters put a lot of work into getting you that interview and really appreciate a catch up after the interview or at the end of the day (yes, we will probably still be working past 6pm). Although this may seem like a bit of a waste of time, it really helps the recruiter get a better understanding of how the interview went and gives you a chance to share your thoughts on the experience. It also helps your recruiter move you forward in the interview process if you are still interested in pursuing the role. Make time – recruiters know that most candidates are currently employed and probably at work when they call. While this can be a nuisance for candidates, recruiters do try their best not to disturb your day too much and will double check if you can talk. A good recruiter should be discreet and respect that you’re at work and can rarely talk privately. An initial conversation with a recruiter will take around 10 minutes so making time for this at some point is crucial. This initial conversation will help your recruiter understand what you’re looking for and what your expectations are. This will also help them paint a better picture of you when they put you forward to the client. It’s also a way of making sure they find the best role for you and only send you to relevant interviews. Make sure you look at all the information your recruiter sends you before an interview and do the recommended research, so you’re prepared. Also listen to their interview advice as they’ve worked closely with the client and have a pretty good understanding of what type of person they’re looking for. Don’t be shy - recruiters are busy people and work quickly. Having 100+ applicants for a position is not unusual so if you sent in your CV and haven’t heard back from them after a few days, give them a call to follow up. This will help recruiters prioritise your CV as someone who has shown interest and will set you apart from other candidates. Due to the high number of applicants, recruiters can’t always get back to you if you’re not the right fit for the role. So, getting in touch is a sure way to find out if you weren’t the right fit, if the maximum number of candidates have been sent to the client already or if there are other similar roles that you might be more suitable for. Patience is a virtue – recruiters may seem to ask a lot of random questions but it’s all for a reason. They need to build your profile, so they can find you the best roles, tell clients about you and make sure they are aligned with you in your search. For example, we may ask you how you think your employer will react when you hand in your notice. This is not just us being nosey, but actually gives us a good indication if you’re really serious about leaving your current company. Most companies will try and keep candidates with a counter offer because it costs them more to hire a new person. We genuinely think that companies should pay people what they are worth instead of increasing their salaries when they threaten to leave. In our experience, 90% of candidates who accepted a counter offer wind up leaving the business within six months anyway. Once you decide you want to leave, commit to the decision and don’t be fooled by short-sighted counter offers. Remember why you started your job search in the first place. A salary increase won’t change the atmosphere you work in, the work you do or that manager you don’t get along with. Be seen - LinkedIn´s search engine gives priority to fully completed profiles so unless you have completed every section of your profile chances are recruiters can’t find you. You can also share your career interests with recruiters on LinkedIn. This option can be activated on your profile and will not be visible to your network so is a good way to let recruiters know you’re looking for a new challenge and what that looks like. Recruiters also use a wide range of job boards so if you’re looking for a new role make sure your CV is visible here too, so we can contact you with relevant opportunities. Stand out – Looking through CV’s is a huge part of a recruiter’s day and they come across the same buzzwords again and again. Overusing words like motivated, initiative, organised, and driven can actually be an indicator of a lack of time and effort going into your CV creation. To stand out, tailor your CV to each role you apply for. The best way to do this is to run through the job description and highlight the key experiences required for the role. Then show how you tick every box and let your personality shine through.

We all know how important branding is for companies but what about us personally? A personal brand exists whether or not you create it for yourself. Not purposefully building it just means you don’t have control over it. The concept of cultivating a personal brand can seem daunting to most of us. But it doesn’t have to be complex or time intensive and can really help people remember you. Two of our consultants experienced this first hand after recently enrolling in The Recruitment Network Trailblazers programme that aims to develop the next generation of recruitment leaders and runs for a year. As part of the programme’s series of regular London based meetups Hannah and Ben enjoyed a workshop that was all about the importance of personal branding for recruiters. We caught up with Hishem Azzouz from the inbound marketing and creative agency, Hoxo Media, who presented the keynote on the day and shared some of his key takeaways with us: “You can only reach a certain amount of people by calling and meeting them. The amazing part about creating content is that you can reach thousands of people with one post. Recruiters historically just share their new jobs everywhere online, but we all know this isn't successful and quite frankly doesn't work. Recruiters are in a really unique position. They listen to candidates’ challenges and aspirations within their industry along with the businesses in that industry. If you have the courage to start sharing your opinion on candidates/clients’ challenges/aspirations then you can work yourself into an amazing position as a recruiter where you won't just be perceived as someone who helps people get new jobs, but someone who is an expert within their industry. Start sharing your opinion online as a recruiter and take a step closer to becoming a thought leader within your space, which in turn will make you stand out amongst your competitors.” Personal branding isn’t just important for recruiters though. No matter what role or industry you’re in; the more successful you want to be, the more important your personal brand becomes. Whether you just want to improve engagement with your network or you’re aiming for personal branding to open doors to public speaking gigs, you decide how far you take it. As a rule of thumb, the more you put into it the more you’ll get out of it. How to get started Your personality is probably the most unique thing about yourself and being your authentic self is the basis of building your personal brand. Don’t be afraid to let your personality and opinions show in the way you communicate online and the types of stories you tell. It’s all about communicating and creating emotional connections with your audience. Being honest about what you know and don’t know will also help you build credibility in your industry. Ever Googled yourself? We suggest you do! Google automatically gives priority to your social channels and will list the channel you’re most active on above the others. Know what search results are attached to your name by auditing them and get rid of anything that doesn’t fit your vision for your personal brand and could even damage your reputation. Next up, take some time to determine your personality traits and amplify them to make your personal brand stronger. Here are some questions to ask yourself: What makes you unique? What do you stand for? What are your values and beliefs? What are you passionate about? What do you want to be known for? Who are you? What makes you unique? What is your vision for your personal brand? What is your goal with personal branding? What are your professional goals? Who is your audience? Who can you help? How can you help them? What makes you different? Including images in your updates is best practice but make sure they are copyright free. There are multiple sites that offer free images without copyright such as unsplash.com, pixabay.com and pexels.com. You’re now ready to start sharing your personal brand with the world! Start by posting regularly, experiment with short videos and write content online and offline. Ben and Hannah’s top 10 personal branding takeaways: Do a little, often. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Have an opinion and share it online. Connect with relevant people and follow influencers for inspiration. Engage regularly with other people’s content and posts. Pick your channels and post regularly instead of posting sporadically on lots of channels. Include relevant hashtags. LinkedIn is increasingly becoming the tool to search and find high calibre candidates, it has never been more important to have your own personal LinkedIn brand. It’s key you build your influence within your sector by posting articles on your niche, having an opinion on topics related to that industry and asking peoples’ thoughts on current developments. A new feature to LinkedIn that is predicted to take off more and more, is the production of video content. When producing content and engaging with your audience it’s crucial to persist. Initially traction will be slow, but as you continue posting regularly your following and audience will grow and reach more people. Finally, be patient and don’t expect overnight success. Everyone expects a flurry of engagement but how often do you engage with other people’s posts? Simply posting an update is not enough, so make sure to respond to comments and questions from your audience and engage with other people’s post too. As you see, it doesn’t have to as complex as building a whole personal branding strategy and your own website. With tools like LinkedIn publishing at your fingertips, writing short blogs and sharing your take on a topic in your industry has never been easier. Why not challenge yourself to make a start today?

Euan McGonagle, who specialises in the field of Python FinTech at Understanding Recruitment, recently attended the Unthink Tank event in London. This edition explored the concept of 'unthinking', inviting leaders and innovators from the tech, disruptor, and creative communities to discuss the issues that impassion and empower them. Technologist, author, applied Artificial Intelligence designer, technologist, accidental polymath, mental health campaigner, and co-founder of 'Us Ai', Pete Trainor, explored the growing role that Artificial Intelligence plays in our every-day lives, from our mental health to our money. Over the last three years, Pete has helped to pioneer an entirely new approach to AI focused products, one that looks at ‘self-evolving systems’ and ‘minimum viable personality’ to help solve societal and human issues. He was recently voted, by the industry, as one of the 5 most influential people in the British digital industry in Econsultancys 2017 industry report. Here's Euan's take on his evening spent at the Unthink Tank: I thoroughly enjoyed Pete Trainor’s talk on the Future of AI in FinTech. The talk focussed on the use of AI as a tool within Financial applications to identify risks to the user’s mental health. In effect, indicators like credit card debt or unusual spending habits are identified and as a result, help is offered to hopefully prevent any harm coming to the user, with a real emphasis being placed on reducing suicide rates. Firstly, I think the idea is absolutely brilliant and the use of technology to possibly save lives can only be applauded. I also think the tech involved is really cool! The ability of AI to learn what is and isn’t normal behaviour, using the data created by the individual and then tailoring its response based on this is a brilliant idea. In my last post I wrote about the use of Open Banking and The FinTech Revolution. This is a brilliant example of that revolution, the use of technology to bring Financial services into the 21st century. Traditionally from an outside perspective at least, the finance sector has looked to make as much money as possible and not think about the customer. I think it’s brilliant that it is moving completely in the other direction with a far more customer centric approach. I think the revolution of the “Disruptive FinTech” has really driven this. The biggest challenge to this kind of technology is to decide where you draw the line between support and surveillance? Ethically, Artificial Intelligence has always thrown up a number of conundrums (although if you believed the media, sometimes you’d think the robots are taking over!). As AI advances, these kinds of issues are going to become more and more prevalent. How we are going to deal with that? I’m not sure… Pete highlighted this issue and put forward a really interesting question on the topic: "Is one person’s life worth more than the privacy of 99 others?" ​ If you're looking for you next tech role in Fintech get in touch with Euan emcgonagle@understandingrecruitment.co.uk 01727 225 551 or check out our latest roles.

With 750,000 new digital jobs by 2020 the UK is facing a huge tech skills shortage. Brexit could help fill this gap. “Could” being the most important word in that sentence. Before my recruitment days I spent a summer working in parliament between my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree Studies. In my time there I witnessed a vote to leave the EU, a change of Prime Minister, and an unprecedented amount of shadow cabinet resignations. It was a crazy time. Almost 3 years on I have left parliament, finished my studies, started my recruitment career finding top talent for the UK tech market and then switched to doing the same for the Berlin Tech scene. Being English and recruiting into an international Berlin naturally the topic of Brexit will come up in conversation whilst I’m on the phone, and sometimes people are interested to hear my opinion. If anything, I was expecting to become much more Europe-centric in my stance whilst recruiting into Berlin. But this has not been the case. Why? Well, one thing that stands out about Berlin tech is its truly international nature. Each day I speak to tech professionals from all corners of the globe: Egypt, Brazil, China, the Lebanon, and I could literally list the countries all day. The relative ease of obtaining a visa goes some way to addressing the huge skills shortages in Berlin. Something I think maybe the UK can learn from as they look to attract talent in a time where a good Software Developer has a large list of vacancies to choose from; or should I say a large list of recruiter’s emails to choose to reply to. In Recruiting into the Berlin market what I’ve realised is that, yes! Europe is a big place and something that should definitely be treasured. But, the rest of the world is even bigger, and in each corner of the globe is an immense amount of talent that can, not only address the skills shortage, but also add some real value to the UK’s tech industry. Of course, Brexit has the potential to make the UK look inwards which would be catastrophic. Conversely, it could actually give the UK Tech market an opportunity to look at the wider world for strong tech talent, and it is this that can make the UK realise how big the world actually is.