Chancellor George Osborne has announced which cities will benefit from a £100m pot of Treasury cash aimed at making them "super-connected".

These are London, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle.

He also announced a further £50m to improve net access in 10 unnamed "smaller cities".

Mr Osborne said that he wanted the UK to become "Europe's technology centre".

The super-connected cities were first announced in Mr Osborne's autumn statement when he pledged £100m to create 100Mbps (megabit per second) citywide networks in 10 urban areas.

Syntax’s Director of IT Permanent Recruitment, Jeremy Gibson, comments, “Whilst it is disappointing that Nottingham’s bid for the Governments funding for super-fast broadband hasn’t been successful, the positive response from the City’s businesses such as Craig Chettle (MD Confetti Media Group) is a sign of the city’s confidence in its creative and digital industry.”

Craig commented: "While today's news is disappointing we will continue to support efforts to secure the infrastructure that will connect creative businesses, already renowned for their creative talent, to the international marketplace, thereby ensuring opportunities for global success are created and maximised".  

"We believe superfast broadband is key to unlocking the city’s economic potential and will continue to work with the private sector and central government to ensure the city is included in the second wave."

External links: www.confettimediagroup.com / www.bbc.com/news  

As every art form takes discipline and practice to look easy, every kind of work takes years of diligence to perfect and recruitment is no different.

Many may regard recruiting as simple – how hard is it to pass along a piece of paper – right? 

It’s also hard to pinpoint the recruiter’s exact role when the end product of the process is ultimately the individual candidate’s ability to interview, and everything else they have that gets them hired.

So what is the recruiter’s role in matching the right person to the right job? Did they….

• Identify the talent?
• Spot them?
• Find them?
• Assess them?
• Understand the job?
• The culture?
• Have the right database?
• The right connections?
• The right insight into the department or hiring manager psychology?
• Make a lot of calls or know some secret strings to search for in Google?

In truth – it is all of these actions – and far more. But in truth, the real magic of a successful recruiter is that they make the job look easy, because they are simply, just good at it.

Being part of a successful agency obviously helps – surrounded by colleagues who have a wealth of experience, in-depth knowledge of their clients and the industries they work in and an enviable database of quality candidates that are true referrals and have the experience to do the job in question.

A recruiter’s value therefore can’t be found within the process of a single hire. It can’t be found in that space that sometimes spans twenty heartbeats between talking to a manager about a job to the identification of a possible talent.

You have to look at everything that comes before that identification to see the value of a good recruiter.

A great recruiter:

• Creates the conditions for a successful appointment.
• Doesn’t talk to a lot of different people. They talk to everyone.
• Don’t want to know their clients or their company’s competitors. They want to know everything that’s happening at every company in their area.

It’s a massive amount of work that requires constant rejection, failure, stress, and is compounded by the minutiae of job offers and the uncertainty of human emotion.

That’s why very few succeed at recruiting. It’s not like there is anything special about that one placement. There is nothing about identifying a candidate and getting them a job offer that requires any particular kind of magic, or even a college degree for that matter.

Unlike a beautiful painting, anyone or any recruiter can luck out and make a placement or two. But the background required for long-term recruiting success is much different.

It involves the deep study of companies, products, markets, assessment, and professions coupled with a kind of brute force stamina to doggedly pursue the talents of other people.

This is the process that forges the recruiter’s talent. And this talent, when functioning at its best, is sometimes hard to find.

A survey of clients by Derby-based engineering and technical recruitment specialists Syntax Consultancy has confirmed widespread opposition to government plans to downgrade vocational qualifications – warning that the move would compound skills shortages faced by engineering and manufacturing companies.

Syntax Engineering division, which works with a wide range of businesses throughout the region to source engineering skills , have contacted key clients to gain their views and to encourage them to sign an online petition against the proposals.

As part of a wide-ranging review into vocational education, the engineering qualification which has been developed by JCB and Rolls-Royce, is set to have its quality status removed – prompting widespread objections from engineering and manufacturing businesses across the UK.

The current Engineering Diploma for 14 to 19-year-olds is valued as being equivalent to five GCSE’s and there are proposals to downgrade this to one.

Syntax Engineering and Technical Recruitment Director Charlotte Coe explained: “As a business passionate about promoting engineering as a valued and worthwhile career – we would totally disagree with this move and I am heartened that the clients we have contacted agree with our objections.

“The skills shortages faced now by engineering and manufacturing businesses across the UK are well documented.  This move, with no plans to replace the Engineering Diploma any time soon with an alternative qualification, will only compound the situation for generations to come.

“The Engineering Diploma gives young people the opportunity to learn practical vocational skills that are vitally needed in the workplace. It has only been established since 2008 and was developed in partnership with two of the region’s most high profile and respected engineering companies. 

“It is widely recognised as a significant route to providing the crucial technical and practical skills that young people will need to enable Britain to compete internationally and should therefore have the value and worth that it deserves.”

Martin Johnson, Senior Recruiter at the Nottingham-based European manufacturing and distribution base of global specialist components manufacturer Greene, Tweed, added: “It is getting harder to find high calibre degree educated mechanical engineers and this move at secondary school level will further exacerbate that situation.

“University entry requirements have been lowered and more diverse degrees introduced which divert talented individuals away from the core engineering skills.

“By reducing vocational options in schools, the route into higher education and the workplace for the kind of engineers that we and other businesses need will be narrowed even further and young people will be given yet another reason not to choose engineering as a career.

“Without high quality vocational qualifications available to young people – we are effectively cementing the out dated view that careers in engineering are not for the bright and ambitious.

“We therefore need to give equal value to qualifications such as this and show young people that engineering is a good career needing well qualified people and dispelling the image of it being a dirty and low paid profession.”

For more information on the campaign, click here

To join the campaign, sign the petition here

"Search and Select"

Engineering and technical recruitment specialists Syntax Consultancy has launched a head hunting service to tackle the mounting skills shortages faced by engineering and manufacturing businesses throughout the UK.

Syntax, which is the Midlands’ leading independent recruitment consultancy for the engineering sector with offices in Derby and more recently London, have expanded their service in response to increasing difficulty by clients to source senior personnel with the right skills and experience.

Engineering and Technical Recruitment Director Charlotte Coe explained: “Skills shortages in engineering and manufacturing have been building up for years now – the culmination of historical cut backs in in-house training by companies and the lack of recognition and promotion throughout the education system of engineering as an exciting and rewarding career."

“This has been exacerbated in more recent years with the economic downturn which has forced companies to pull back even further on training and developing their staff as well as a reluctance amongst established people in this sector to move jobs in such an uncertain climate."

“The upshot is that, as manufacturing and engineering companies are looking to expand and grow out of recession, they are now not able to source the right people for the right, more senior positions in their businesses."

“This is being experienced by companies right across the board in the engineering and manufacturing sector not just in the UK but throughout the world – particularly in Australia."

“The response from clients for this bespoke service has already been extremely positive, particularly amongst those businesses who have specific requirements for an appointment that is crucial to the future of their business and who recognise that going down the ‘search and select’ option for recruitment will yield the best results."

“Using our expertise, industry knowledge and executive level network of contacts, we are able to offer a guaranteed shortlist of candidates to the client’s exact specification with an agreed timetable."

“The fact that businesses are prepared to invest in finding these sought after people is a positive indication that manufacturing and engineering is buoyant with fantastic prospects for the right people."

“We are therefore confident that this specialised service will help our clients stay ahead of the competition to remain competitive and be in the position to take full advantage of the economic upturn as it slowly emerges worldwide.”

For more information on the "Search and Select" service, please contact Charlotte Coe on 01332 287770

Syntax has donated a proportion of its usual Christmas card costs Childline which has offices in the East Midlands and in London.

The company has significantly reduced the scale of its Christmas card distribution this year and has donated the £1,000 difference in spend to Childline.

Managing Director Roger Frost continued: “We obviously still wanted to send cards to our customers and suppliers to thank them for their support this year but have made savings in production and postage which we are donating to Childline which is a charity close to people’s hearts and operates in areas closely aligned to our own business operations.”

www.nspcc.org.uk
 

Staff at Syntax Consultancy raised nearly £2,000 for local and national charities through their individual and joint efforts during 2011.

The company raised £270 for Comic Relief through a variety of ‘mad cap’ activities in March.  This was followed by a brave group of adventurers who abseiled down the neighbouring Cathedral tower, raising £500 for Derbyshire Mountain Rescue. 

In October, staff raised almost £100 for Breast Cancer Campaign by ‘wearing it pink’ and this was closely followed by over £100 donation to Children in Need.

The year finished with the company donating £1,000 to ChildLine in lieu of company Christmas cards.

Marketing Executive Hannah Dimond commented: “I am really proud of everyone at Syntax for digging deep and raising money for these charities. I hope we can go above and beyond £2,000 this year, by getting involved in various activities such as Sport Relief in March.”

Syntax Managing Director Roger Frost said: “Everyone has made a huge effort to raise money for charity this year and I am very proud that these activities have helped to change the lives of people facing all sorts of issues in their lives.”

“Congratulations to everyone at Syntax.”

www.comicrelief.com

www.derbymrt.org.uk

www.wearitpink.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey

www.nspcc.org.uk

Syntax IT services has been delivering quality IT solutions and services to a wide range of clients and industry sectors for over 12 years.

We have a total dedication to customer care and a genuine desire to see our clients companies flourish. Regardless of the size of your organisation; no matter if you need an old system supporting, a new system designing or the upgrading and expansion of an existing one, Syntax IT Services have an intelligent, original and effective solution to your IT needs.  Only by understanding our client’s business issues and how IT can help to overcome these, can we hope to win a client’s good will, confidence and trust.

The goal of Syntax IT Services is to ensure that our clients gain maximum benefit from any investment in Technology and Support. This requires a clear understanding of the business goals in the first instance and subsequently how any investment in IT supports those goals.

We work in partnership with our customers to gain an in-depth understanding of their organisation and create a technology strategy to support transformation, drive operational efficiency and reduce costs.

Syntax Engineering and Technical division is the Midlands largest independent recruitment consultancy, specialising in engineering and technical recruitment throughout the UK with offices in Derby and London.

Established in 1987, Syntax is a founder member of the REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation), APSCo (Association of Professional Staffing Companies) and an accredited supplier of recruitment services to successful companies in the private sector both large and small.

The Syntax Engineering and Technical division is an active member of The Midland Aerospace Alliance and Derbyshire Rail Forum.

The Syntax Engineering and Technical team are specialists in their field and not only have the ability to find perfectly matched applicants, but also provide a discrete, streamlined and efficient recruitment process that will save you time and money

Syntax IT Recruitment provides permanent and contract IT and business professionals to the UK’s leading organisations.

We help to make our clients more successful by providing them with the best specialist IT and business professionals on the market.

Working closely with our clients and candidates, we are a trusted advisor to help source the right candidate for the role, and the right role for the candidate. We pride ourselves on going one step further by spending time to truly understand our client’s specific needs, culture, working environment, ethos and values.

Here at Syntax we have earned an exceptional track record in delivering results, no matter how complex or specialist your recruitment needs – that’s why Syntax IT Recruitment have 99.4 % client retention rate year on year.

The statistics speak for themselves:

• 97.3% of permanent candidates placed by Syntax are still with their employers 12 months after starting
• More than 99% of Syntax contractors complete their initial contract
• 97% of Syntax contractors extend their contracts
• Syntax placed 1,100 contractors and more than 200 permanent candidates in 2010

Our expert business practices are in vertical technology product markets for clients & candidates including:

• Infrastructure
• Digital
• Microsoft Technologies

We regularly meet candidates before being placed to build trusted relationships, and get to understand our candidates and customers’ needs to ensure that we introduce them to positions that fully match both requirements and expectations.