Lego Vs group interviews

I used to love Lego as a child, I could build an awesome tower using all the bricks out of the bucket fobbing off any of the instructions to build an airport or submarine as that was dull, no instead I'd make some Picasso style creation which in my eyes, was simply amazing and another bonus was how quickly you could swallow one and then end up in A&E (mine was within approximately thirty seconds, and it was a red specific brick).

Lego is still just as popular as it was back in my youth, I visited a friend who has a five year old boy and this young whippet had recently moved on from the big Lego bricks to the small ones (growing up you know) and I found myself losing all sense of time and reality working alongside him, then I suddenly thought; I have done this before in adult hood and no, I didn't choke on one.

Adult Lego

So where have I, as a fully fledged adult toyed with Lego before. I had this terrible flashback to when I was about 18 and I went for a interview for an established company (a'hem) which began with an initial "telephone interview", you know where they used to ask you:

"If you had an angry customer would you...1. punch them in the face, or 2. relax because remember, the customer is ALWAYS right

I was passed onto the secondary stages. However just to digress, how could anybody fail those interviews...the only thing I can think of is that a large amount of cats are applying for jobs, as they blatantly couldn't press the right button on the keypad. I look back now and it almost felt like I was going for the final stages of Britain's Got Talent, all for a call centre role on minimum wage and not forgetting the 24 hour, 7 day a week shifts I'd have to start forcing myself to go too.

Second stage

In I walk, all fresh faced and nervous about what was about to happen, and suddenly I find myself surrounded by other people whilst quickly being split into teams. This was new to me, and I did feel like I was enrolling to the Army. "Sit down and be quiet" squawked a particularly Alpha female manager, if she'd asked us to do ten sit ups...we probably would have done.

Then, said Lego was slammed by said Alpha female onto the table into our pathetic groups, with some straws. Our objective was to...well build something. There I am, as a mortified teenager suddenly realising I was never going to get this job as: A: I used to literally build towers and B: Swallow them so all in all, not good.

In the end

I look back and think who does this anymore in such an excruciating manner? Well tons still do, as I know a friend that went to a interview recently for a very well known shoe brand, and he was told, at the prime age of 39 to sit on the floor in a circle and in pairs, paint a picture to express how he "felt about the brand" needless to say he didn't stay. Though I did argue that at least they had glitter pens as well as paint so why not get creative? He didn't find that funny.

Yes, I've had other interviews that were excruciating, for example I was asked "how would you sell this pen" I mean come on...and I answered terribly as I started listing its qualities, like it was a fine wine but it wasn't, it was a bic.

Here at Data Clarity we don't do anything like that. We don't ask people to build Lego or to pretend they were dealing with a difficult person. Nope, because we actually want to learn about the persons history and soul, as that's all that matters to us - not if they can build a bridge with Lego. If the person wants to become part of the Data Clarity team then we'll happily have them on board for their personality as if the attitude is right, the rest can be taught. We'll always expand in the right way.

Avoiding the Graduate Employability Crisis

All hail students, graduates and employed graduates – if you hadn’t noticed from the news, things are beginning to look rather grim. For the younger amongst us, if you want to get a job (or for the managers, keep one) it is time we woke up and smelt the roses – we are now facing an unprecedented ‘Graduate Employability Crisis.’

Tertiary education, which has enjoyed a steady rise in popularity since the 70s, has for the first time reached a tipping point – there is now a huge oversupply of graduates (Papadopolous, 2014), coupled with the lowest number of jobs for graduates (Dodd & Tadros, 2014). Add to this the fact that 49% of graduates say they are unprepared for the workforce (Huynh, 2014), some are, for the first time in decades, wishing that they simply started working after high school as they believe their university course was a ‘waste of time.’ (Kimmorley, 2014). Given the potentially imminent exponential increase in fees, university could be about to become an extremely expensive waste of time (Knott & Gilmore, 2014).

I’m not about to give up on degrees altogether, though. After all, they are a minimum entry requirement for many professions, and can provide an opportunity for fun times and a great lifestyle (yes, I was a marketing student). However, completing your degree with decent academic grades is simply not enough. What do you need to do? Well, let’s start with a great resume and cover letter…

NO

I’m joking.

I barely glance at peoples CV and Cover Letter.

I’m serious.

Read on for some real advice.

Contrary to the views of most university careers professionals, advice columns, books and websites, success as a graduate these days is not about the best CV and cover letter. Nor is it about the best answers to interview questions, or the best psychometric testing results. Succeeding in these areas certainly helps, however, gathering experience in a number of key areas will increase your employability far more than a well-crafted cover letter. Yes folks, I’m about to let the cat out of the bag in terms of graduate success. Read on if you dare.

i) Fail, fail often, fail repeatedly – and live to tell the tale: It was said once that you can’t understand success until you’ve experienced failure and this, more than ever, is true of graduates. The workplace is often, and especially when you are young and inexperienced, far from peachy and in fact littered with challenging and frustrating obstacles. It goes without saying that the more times you have failed in your pre-work life, the more resilience you will have built and the better equipped you will be deal with workplace challenges (including tough interview questions!). So fail, fail, then fail again, and hone your coping mechanisms and emotional control, whilst developing a healthy and positive attitude towards setbacks.

ii) Start a business – or get involved with one: Even if you aren’t studying business – you will no doubt be employed in one when you finish, so you will need to accumulate a reasonable amount of business and commercial acumen. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to start your own business whilst at university. The product or service is irrelevant, the important part of the exercise is that to start a business, you will need to consider how to create a strategy, market and sell something, manage finances, and possibly even manage people. Doesn’t that sound like…yep, that’s basically what any business, large or small, tries to achieve. Learning these lessons early will put you light years ahead of your peers in terms of ‘big picture’ business understanding. This is your lightbulb moment! Clarity365 would help you actually develop your acumen with our easy, simple business management solution. Don't go excel if you do go it alone, speak with us!

iii) Learn how to sell: I feel like ‘sales’ has turned into a slightly dirty word, and many students avoid jobs of this description like the plague – but I can tell you, nothing influenced my interview skills, and later influencing skills, more than having a challenging sales jobs. Because it goes without saying if you can sell a substandard product that you don’t believe in to people you don’t like, that you will be able to translate this skill into selling yourself and your services. So the next time you see a job advertisement for telemarketing…think about it.

iv) Say Yes to Everything : This is simple mathematics. The more activities you participate in the more people you meet, the higher chance you will meet someone that will give you your ‘lucky break.’ Furthermore, having a diversity of experiences makes you a more interesting person, and also increases your chances that you will be able to make better conversation and have more in common with more people, including the hiring manager sitting in front of you. Party? YES. Travel? YES. Volunteering? Yes. Yes. YES YES YES.

v) Go it alone: I turned up to a final interview once, and the hiring manager had screwed up my interview guide. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, perplexed. ‘I don’t need that,’ she responded. ‘The only question I need to ask the graduate is what is she is doing to be independent from her parents.’

It was an extreme reaction, but one that had an undertone of truth. How are you meant to function as an independent adult in the workplace, if you have never cooked a meal, cleaned your bathroom or made your bed? Despite the emphasis placed on teamwork in modern workplaces, at the end of the day you are paid a (base) salary for your individual performance. You will have to make decisions, take responsibility, and generally function as an independent being. It’s better to ‘practice’ being independent then before you are forced to – by moving out, and taking responsibility for your own life and decisions. Also – remember that you are Generation Y, and the hiring manager staring at you on the other side of the table probably was married with children at your age. So it helps to show them you are an established, independent adult.

vi) Believe in Something: The amount of young people I meet that can’t identify a passion (outside of their studies, which I believe they are sometimes programmed to say) is truly startling. My sibling is one of these people, she went to University, studied fine art and now...well what does she want to do? what does she believe in? If you don’t believe in anything, is life even worth living? Having a passion is absolutely key, both whilst studying and when at work, as it shows you have balance. Also, if you can convince a hiring manager you believe in something, or ultimately, inspire them to share your belief, they will have every reason to believe you will bring that same passion to your work and career. So – what do you believe in?

Friends, the Graduate Employability Crisis is amongst us — but don’t let it apply to you.

REFERENCES

Dodd, T & Tadros, E (30 July 2014) Graduate Employment Worst Since 1992 Recession. AFR. http://www.afr.com/p/national/work_space/graduate_employment_worst_since_cgxKIHNeXZ5nvpl0jB85y

Huynh, M. (Aug 11 2014) Australia’s University Graduates not cut out for the workforce? Start Up Daily http://www.startupdaily.com.au/2014/08/australian-university-graduates-cut-workforce/

Kimmorley, S. (Aug 7 2014) Graduates are Leaving University Feeling Underprepared Saying Working Would Have Been Better Than a Degree. Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/graduates-are-leaving-university-feeling-underprepared-say-working-would-have-been-better-than-a-degree-2014-8

Knott, M & Gilmore, H. (May 14, 2014) Graduates Could Pay Up to $120,000 in debt, HECS architect warns. SMH. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/graduates-could-pay-up-to-120000-in-debt-hecs-architect-warns-20140514-zrctv.html

Papadopolous, T. (11 July 2014) Overqualified and Underemployed – Meet Australia’s Graduates. Business Spectator.http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/7/11/education/overqualifie in d-and-underemployed-meet-australias-graduates 

republished by medium

 

The Problem with Excel

The Problem with Excel…

We all know that Excel can do an awesome amount of tasks for you to ease your working day and of course, most businesses use it in some manner. Though the ever changing updates and constant self-training involved can often lead to more issues down the line so yes its sturdy however it often leads to mistakes.

As a person who has used Excel for many years, from holidays to mileage forms I have lost track of my own path numerous times, and whilst managing other employees expenses made something sturdy, inconceivable to use.  

Showing the pitfalls in big business

A prime example of this would be JP Morgan, an American finance organisation whom, as others in the financial sector used Excel on a daily basis.

Fundamentally, a simple copy and paste plus a faulty equation made them a loss of $6 million dollars, with possible fines of $600 million. This is an extortionate mistake for a company of such stature.

Ok, so no I have never lost a company that much money but I may hold my hands up and say that I might have signed off a private expense inadvertently as there are so many loop holes, from general errors, to managing holidays and expenses you can make mistakes from all angles. 

The issue with using Excel as an accountancy package

1. Everybody studied I.T in school/college but how much do we actually know about it as a product and service. As mentioned the updates, confused ribbons and changing formats means that without an Excel Bible glued to your hip, chances are you’d miss a trick.

2. Setting up your accounts through Excel is time consuming and can often lead to a general lack of understanding of how it can help you in the long term. However the huge catch-22 is that it’s free so you balance its ease of use (or lack of it) with the fact it’s free. Actually you waste time and money by trying to work out how to use it.

3. In Excel, there is no flexibility, once you’ve set it up you can’t change or reconfigure later on. So you’re limited to its usability.

4. Yes we all know this, Excel is massively susceptible to fraud. I can remember working for a organisation where managers in separate departments used the same spreadsheet to compile and edit their own departments expenses, who’s to say that a colleague didn’t change £150 to £15000, we wouldn’t really know and fundamentally this could break your business.

5. Performance issues are a huge thing with Excel, when you start putting in large amounts of data onto your worksheets Excel simply has a nervous breakdown. Accounting software will integrate everything for you.

6. Hello road block, as Excel doesn’t track anything for you. Its down to you to monitor and understand your accounting software.

Why software is a better solution for you

It’s easy! The cloud based super secure network leaves you in control, with real time dashboards and data information, and you’ll wonder why you never have used it before as it’s so simple and puts you in control. 

Have as many or as little users as you’d like, remembering that you are able to control who sees what within the dashboard, giving you the knowledge that your secure information isn’t being viewed by employees whom don’t need to see such sensitive information. You’re guaranteed maximum up time of the software, and backups are done nightly in highly secure, offsite servers, giving you peace of mind. It also takes the pressure off your business to provide adequate storage, which can be costly.

No chance of fraud here, our solution is double SSL encrypted so exactly the same but even more secure then online banking, which is something we do every day and we put our complete trust that we’re never going to get hacked. 

Reporting should be easy, and take you no time at all. From profit and loss, balance sheets, tax returns, reporting for management and much more, it’s all there under one simple click.

Reasons why accounting software is better than Excel

1. Feel confident from the start

With our easy to use dashboard, you’ll feel confident in the knowledge that you are on the right track with your business straight from the word go!

2. The data is always correct
    Real-time financials are always kept in one central place, no longer do you need to worry about being glued to your desk, access our solution anywhere as we’re fully mobile integrated whilst maintaining the highest level of security.

3. Live information
   Panic stations over, if you’ve got a big investor coming to visit you, its no problem as you can get all the information you’d require in minutes. Think of how accurate your finances will be, leaving you in control and giving you the time to grow.

4. You’ll have a clean audit trail
   All of the historical information that your investors might need is available at their fingertips. A proper audit trail ensures your data cannot be compromised. It also records a document of every business transaction. This includes sales contracts, payments to employees, and more. Having a complete audit trail reassures investors about the validity of the company and meets the tax department’s needs.

5. Access to data anywhere, anytime
   Give any member of your team access your data online anytime, anywhere (as long as you grant them permission to do so.) Cloud software enables you to share your financial information with your employees, accountant, bookkeeper or financial advisor.

It’s about letting your business grow

I know, it's a tricky one about letting go of something you feel is tried and tested. However fundamentally change is for the positive in this case,  you'll feel in control, and save yourself time, effort and money in the long term. Try clarity365 for free today.