Information Technology Recruitment

IR35 in the Public Sector – still not understood (by the public sector) Many of you may have read a couple of recent articles I wrote titled ‘The (un)intended consequences of Off Payroll changes in the public sector!’ and ‘The Farce that is IR35’. Something I mentioned in these articles was the lack of clarity provided to the public sector by HMRC, with almost zero time for the entire industry to be ready, and thus blanket decisions being taken on contractor statuses. Many of our NHS trust clients pushed out communications something like this: We have already undertaken some work in this respect. Initial assessments of placements have indicated that they are all deemed to be caught under the new IR35 rules. We, therefore, consider the most prudent approach to take post April 2017 would be to treat all engagements/placements as falling within the scope of the new rules. This will significantly reduce the level of administration and communication between us. What I hadn’t mentioned was that most of these communications were based on direct advice from NHS Improvement, the body responsible for overseeing foundation trusts and NHS trusts, telling the trusts to make these blanket decisions and deem ALL contractors inside the legislation. We then had to spend weeks and weeks working with our clients to unravel this misunderstanding and ensure that they took reasonable and proper care in making the decisions on status. Now after battling through the first couple of months of the wrong status, unfair and incorrect taxation, contract rate changes, contractors leaving roles, trusts losing critical contractors etc etc, NHS improvement has now released new advice, completely contradicting what they originally advised (I am pleased to say that this is a necessary and correct contradiction!). This just compounds the frustration felt regarding the handling and implementation of this entire fiasco, the lack of communication across government departments, HMRC, public sector bodies, and the entire contract community, and also highlights that fact that this legislation was clearly ill-conceived from the start and certainly should never have made it to statute. I just pray for those that benefit from the fact that the UK has a tremendous pot of skills in our flexible workforce, that some sense is seen before someone decides that this has worked and it’s time to push it through to the private sector. That will be an even greater disaster. Some simple guidance can be found here.

A blank document in front of you and a CV to write – painful isn’t it? Firstly, recruiters, that’s people like me, will make a snap judgment based on what they see on a word document. Sad, but true Secondly, that CV needs to get past the recruitment team or HR, who, in large organisations, see hundreds of CVs every day and are usually tasked on ensuring every job spec criteria is matched before sending a CV to the hiring manager Thirdly, your CV goes to a hiring manager, and if you are lucky, to your hiring manager’s manager How to write a CV that goes the distance Read your CV back to yourself and be honest: does this reflect me, what I do, what I’m good at, and most importantly, your achievements. The paper round you had when you were 14 is unlikely to get you a CIO job, don’t include it. I am sure you will be proud of your very 1st job but is that job the job you want now? No? Then list it at the back without pages of detail. Make a profile. This is so important for so many reasons, but the main one is that your CV will be put in front of people who don’t know you. They might not phone you about a job as they may assume from something in your CV that you wouldn’t be interested. Tell people who you are, what you do and what you are looking for; nothing as basic as “works well in a team and individually”, but tell people why you are good. Name at the top with your phone number and email address, you would be surprised how many people don’t bother and that can make it incredibly hard to reach out to you. Your profile should come next Then straight into your career summary. Include dates, job title. No Gaps, if you went trekking across the Himalayas then say. In your job summary, list responsibilities and achievements separately and be concise. Repeat for every role that you feel is relevant to your current search. Once you get to a point where you don’t think the role is relevant, just list out in summary At the end, list the systems and software you use in detail. The thing to remember is that everyone has their own idea of how a CV should look and feel, so you won’t please everyone. But if you can make it as readable as possible then you stand a better chance. Your CV will be one of the most important documents you ever create, so spend time on it and get it right.

What is self bill invoicing? With many supply chains being driven by some very slick IT systems, there can still often be delays in payments (a rather key part of any business relationship) due to errors with invoicing. One of the simplest ways to avoid this issue is through self-billing. Simply put, self-billing allows the service/product recipient to raise the invoice on behalf of the provider, rather than the other way round. It is unlikely in this situation, therefore, that the party due to pay the invoice can moan about it being incorrect, as they will be the party who raised it! An example of where self-billing works perfectly is in the recruitment market, specifically, contract recruitment. If an online timesheet system is fully integrated with invoicing, and invoices are generated based on approved timesheets and pay rates contained within that system, then perfectly correct and timely invoices can be raised at the click of a button. There is nothing worse for a contractor than to find there is a delay in payment to them because their invoice does not tally with the timesheets that have been approved. Can one company raise invoices on behalf of another? Yes, as long as a self-billing agreement has been signed. This is a requirement of HMRC and is a very simple and straight forward document. GSA have self-bill agreements in place for over 99% of our contractors ensuring payroll is both accurate and prompt. For more information on self-billing, please visit the HMRC guide here, or GSA’s guide here