ash-associates.com UK IT Employment Agency

MAC to PC case conversion - Lifestyle Computers PC's built to order for Business & Home.

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:03:00 +0000

MAC to PC case conversion - Lifestyle Computers PC's built to order for Business & Home.

Triumph Stag has been sold

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:17:00 +0000

I cannot believe that I could ever sell the Triumph Stag that I have owned for nearly 20 years but I did.

It's been sitting in my garage for 2 years without turning a wheel and to be honest another summer was coming and I couldn't justify putting it on the road again as my mileage on my main car was well below it's contracted allowance and so I needed to put the miles on it this time.

Now I've put the Stag up for sale before a couple of times and when the calls started to come in I've changed my mind and told them it's been sold, wasting everyones time and money. This time though I decided to put it up for sale without getting it ready for the road so not serviced no mot and untaxed and stored for the last 2 years.

The phone never stopped ringing, the first person to call viewed the car on the same afternoon and bought it without even test driving it, I was amazed! He came back the next day with the full asking price in cash and arranged for a trailer to transport the car to his home the following week.

In the meantime I was fielding a continuous stream of calls from disappointed buyers some of whom even offered more than the asking price when they learned that the car was still in the garage waiting to be collected.

It's been a month since I sold the car and I'm already missing it and have caught myself looking them up again on Autotrader to see if I see one I like, this is daft.

Why I hate buying cars

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:11:00 +0000

As a car enthusiast many of my friends come to me when they are looking for a New car. They dread going into a car dealership and going through the process of specifying a car and then negotiating the price to pay.
Now I'm used to this but I'm still surprised and disappointed that the salesmen still employ all the old tricks to part you from the most cash they can for the car they want to sell you rather than the car that you are really looking for. For instance I called a Mazda dealership as we were interested in the Mazda 6 hatchback. But as soon as the dealer realised that we were cash buyers and looking for a car now he insisted on only talking about the Estate he had in the showroom that he was trying to shift. Ignoring the budget we had he insisted we could have the car on easy terms over a long period which would offset the higher price. Now I'm not stupid and the only thing that buying a car over a longer period means is that you pay more interest and therefore more for the car.

So giving mazda a miss the next car of interest was a used Jaguar S-type. A better experience overall with the Jaguar dealer who didnt have exactly the car we wanted but offered a test drive in a similar car while he searched for a car of our choice. But of course this did not happen instead we came under pressure to buy the car we tested even though yet again it was priced higher than we were willing to pay. The salesman also used the old trick of pretending to see his sales manager to get a better deal for us. Anyway I had a meeting to get to so after spending an extra 30 minutes in the showroom not buying a car I left. Needless to say the phone rang for the next few days asking if we wanted the car.

As it happened we ended up buying a brand new Mercedes A Class, by chance a friend mentioned an offer he'd seen on the Internet for a low rate finance from Mercedes and this made it a bit of a bargain. Unfortunately the first dealer we went to did not admit to there being an offer and tried to sell us the car as some extortionate rate, needless to say we went elsewhere. In fact we bought the car entirely on the phone from another dealer who had the right car in stock, offered us a good discount and the low rate finance, brilliant.

So what's the conclusion? get a friend to try the car you are interested in from a dealer that you do not think you will buy from and go along as the helpful friend then you can enjoy the experience without the pressure although you will not be test driving the car at this stage. Get on the phone and get the best deal you can then test drive the car yourself and all being well buy it after all you've already got a deal that you are happy with on the phone.

Software Engineers in Demand again

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:29:00 +0000

But there are fewer looking. This is no surprise to us here at ash-associates.com I've been saying for years that a lack of graduates entering the IT market will create a future skills shortage and this is where we are now.

Many jobs remain unfilled particularly those using the older (Boring?) technologies which I have to include C++ and Java now. The big demand is for C# .NET and so candidates are keen to work in this environment abandoning the traditional Windows applications development.

As candidates move away from this technology so we follow with many of our newer jobs for C# and .NET developers, we also get many more web technology positions using JavaScript, Ajax and PHP being the keywords of the moment in recent job specs.

What happens now, well we are fortunate that some recent countries entering the EU have excellent engineers looking for work in the UK, those from Poland, Greece and Cyprus being of a high educational standard and with excellent skills. Our successes this year have been with candidates coming from these countries. For the future we expect more excellent candidates to come from Eastern Europe as more countries join the EU which adds the benefit of not requiring a work permit. This may also explain the reduced interest in candidates that require work permits, many of our clients no longer give us the option to consider candidates that require sponsorship now.

We suspect that the relocation of work to India is dropping off as we are contacted almost daily by companies in India seeking work for their development teams and consultants so we assume that new work is going elsewhere or staying in the UK/Europe.

London Motor Show

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 13:23:00 +0000

Just back from attending my first UK Motor Show in over 5 years, shows at the NEC were just too far away and no one really wanted to go to a show in Autumn.

First impressions were good enough for me to get out the digital camera and take some pictures and some of them were of cars. Star of the show was in many ways the venue itself, it was just so much better than the NEC even the food was good and a couple of beers helped make the show go so much more pleasantly.

Ok cars, I liked the 2 seater Mazda concept which they say may be a mini 350Z let's hope they build it, the Jaguar XKR was just perfect but beyond my means and the Aston Martin Rapide I think was the car to have and therefore the star of the show. Did I feel tempted to put my hand in my pocket and buy anything, well no as I know there are some excellent cars to come for instance the New Mini and the Fiat 500.

What else, well the new digital camera worked well an Olympus FE140 which I found very easy to use and the software that came with it is excellent see the picture of my old Triumph Stag which has been cartooned using the Olympus Master Software.

Also next time I will drive there as the change from the air-conditioned comfort of the car to the oven temperature of the underground and DLR was just to much to bear.

Oh and my friend came back from the show and immediately went searching for a new car, which turned out to be a Saab 95 Vector 2.0 t Estate, delivery sometime within the next 10 days.

My Fiat 500

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:41:00 +0000

In case you did not know I'm a car enthusiast, attending as many car shows as I can including the up coming London show. But this one will be different as I am determined to put a deposit down on the New Fiat 500. I first saw an Artists impression almost 2 years ago and I was hooked I decided there and then if they made it I would buy it even though I cannot justify owning another car (2 already in the garage).
I've already designed the car I want and you can find at the following link:-
http://www.fiat500.com/lab/?L=EN&C=KFASFMAHEBL423937664
but if you cant wait for it to download in all it's Flash glory the picture above/right is of my car.
Now on an even sadder note I only manage to do about 6000 miles a year so the chances are the little Fiat will only get used very occasionally and will struggle to see 2000 miles on the clock each year.

Real Time & Public Sector Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:38:00 +0000

Ash Associates has always been known for it's specialisation in real time software engineering jobs so why Public Sector jobs? Well a long standing client of ours a Consultancy company who consult to the UK Government on high profile projects providing expertise on system architecture and managing high value projects 50 million+ has recently asked us to join forces.

We are now able to offer excellent opportunities to both freelance and permanent consultants working for the UK Government in all areas of technology and management (many of our Consultants manage external contractors working on projects for the Government), if you currently work for one of these companies chances are you report to one of our Consultants.

These positions tend to be at senior level either offering a clear career path to Consulting at the highest level or the opportunity to senior managers particularly from major banks and financial institutions to continue working after retirement.

Some of our consultants are able to pick and choose their assignments or enjoy the idea of making themselves available for short term contracts (up to 3 months in any year) just to keep up to date with the latest technology or keep in touch with industry and government while continuing to enjoy their retirement (Best of both Worlds? We think so).

Want to know more then call us: 0845 123 2701 and ask for James or Ron

Racing from your Armchair

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:54:00 +0000

I know nothing to do with Recruitment, but if you call us during our lunch times then you may well hear the roar of engines and the screeching of tyres.

The latest office pastime now is racing on the PC and it's getting serious with the purchase of force feedback steering wheels.

The game? The Need for Speed (Underground) and some of us have already achieved Level 3 performance add ons.

Favourite cars - Peugeot 206 for the majority of Circuit Races and Hyundai Coupe for Drag Racing. Racing is now much more intensive with these Force Feedback wheels and to be honest tiring there is real effort now involved in getting around the tracks.

We bought the Saitek R440 after searching the internet for recommendations and this came highly commended and we can add our own if you are looking for such a device you will not be disappointed with this one.

We've gone all white

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 23:06:00 +0000

If you have viewed our site you will know that not only are we a specialist IT Recruitment Consultants but we also develop software and build computer systems.

Hardware used to be all a boring shade of beige then came the revolution and we went to Black and then Silver now it's all gone White. It's all down to those Apple people, sexy computers and then IPods now it is the turn of the PC.

We have just built our first all White system and I have to say it looks very special sitting on our desks.

The screen is the latest thing in LCD's with an 8ms response, built in speakers and a USB Hub. At last an LCD with the performance to keep up with the latest Games.

We have paired this with some excellent speakers from Altec (also in white) which even have their own remote control.

Finally an all White IDEQ with all the latest features but best of all the size of a shoe box and almost silent even when running Need For Speed (Underground) although you would not notice given the loud soundtrack (I must be getting OLD).

And the point to this Blog is? well just when you were getting comfortable with your old system along comes a change in Fashion and the New Fashion seems to be all WHITE.

End of year - New Job?

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 11:26:00 +0000

It is that time of year when people get to thinking about their future careers (although some are just thinking about the company xmas party) and so we start to see an increase in job applications just as we run out of time to send out CV's and to arrange interviews.

Companies also want to get recruitment moving so they can get their new employees in place ready to start in the New Year (This rarely happens as planned).

What this means is a very busy time for us just as we are looking forward to running down for our end of the year which means working right up to Christmas Eve and on most years coming in or working at home to arrange those last minute details.

Do we mind of course not.

Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year

Jobs Remain Unfilled

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:59:00 +0000

Following on from my last post Re. Skills Shortages Worsen, we are seeing even more evidence that this is the case. "We have jobs that have remained unfilled for over six months and in some cases even longer. "

The feeling now is that employers may have to be more flexible in their recruitment and experience/skills requirements if they are to fill these jobs. For instance a candidate with 5 years experience should be able to make the transition from one language to another very quickly so why not consider a C++ programmer for a Java or a C# position.

Recruiting outside of the UK/EU Market does not seem to be working as well as it did we suspect that the rush to obtain skills quickly has led to shortcuts in training or CV's that do not reflect a candidates true abilities. We have had too many recent examples of this where a candidate looks very good on paper but fails at first interview for technical reasons or who's experience fails to match the CV.

What's the answer? We need to generate more interest in a career as a software developer and then back this up with good University Education and Training. Alternatively I think we should look again at the Apprentice solution (My Preference) with Employers sponsoring a candidate through Education and Training guaranteeing a good job at the end.

Skills shortages worsen

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 10:15:00 +0000

news article first printed November 2004 'The Business Magazine'

Dorset based IT Recruitment Consultants ash-associates.com see a growing problem with skills shortages due to lack of investment and training.

If you are currently struggling to fill those high technology vacancies particularly those in IT then get ready for it to get much harder and costlier. Since 2001 and with the subsequent downturn in the IT market 1000's of highly skilled developers and IT specialists have left or are planning to the leave the industry.

More worryingly Graduates who were encouraged to take IT related Degrees and who in the last two years who have struggled to find a good first position have also made the decision to seek a career elsewhere.

What this all means is a rapidly diminishing labour pool of skilled and experienced IT specialists. We could soon see a return to the escalating salaries and rapid turnover of employees that occurred in the late 90's where demand for skilled employees exceeded supply.

Short Term solutions already involve employing from the expanded European Union or moving work to the Indian continent but this is not without it's own difficulties for example language issues, relocation or just fitting in with an existing team or project. The only long term solution will most probably require a combined government and industry initiative to encourage IT and Training investment but this will not come
in time to solve the upcoming skills gap.

But for now speaking to a local IT specialist agency such as ash-associates.com who has access to candidates across the UK and Europe and who understand your requirements may help solve your immediate recruitment problems. For instance many of our local clients have been pleasantly surprised by the high quality of candidate that we can introduce to them.

ash-associates.com can be reached on tel:
0845 123 2701

Article first appeared in the ‘The Business Magazine’ November 2004 written by James Hunt Senior Recruitment Consultant at ash-associates.com

Download the HTML for this Article as a text file click here

Get a job and get a reward for an Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 14:58:00 +0000

We pay commission to you our candidate for your personal recommendations, if we place another candidate from your recommendation we will pay you a commission for your introduction.

So if you know someone who you think will be ideally suited for one of our advertised positions or who will be of interest to us and they subsequently contact us, (make sure they inform us at the initial contact) we will confirm your introduction. Please note we will not discuss the details of any of the candidates job search but we will inform you when we have successfully placed them and your eligibility for commission.

Now for the small print:- We will pay the introduction fee to the introducer only after the client has paid the invoice and the candidate has completed the initial first 3 months of employment, satisfied the client of their suitability for the position and confirmed their ongoing employment.

Under no circumstances will a fee be paid directly to any candidate as an incentive to accept a position with any of our clients.

Online CV Posting

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 15:41:00 +0000

Should you be concerned about where to post your CV Online - well yes you should.

If the site that you post to makes your CV available to all it's users then you should be wary of posting it just in case your own employer or an unsuitable agent gets hold of it, but if you just upload your CV so that you can control who it is sent to then that should be ok.

A lot of job boards like to collect CV's really for their own marketing benefit so that they can contact agencies and employers saying we have x1000's of CV's on our site.

Posting your CV Online on our site is different we limit who has access to your details and even then your contact details are withheld. So a potential employer can search our database and find basic details but if they want to proceed further they have to go through us and we guarantee to protect your privacy until you give us permission to release your details.

The good news is that employers love this feature and we regularly get requests for further info on a candidate who they found online and several candidates find there new jobs through this every year.

Ready to post your CV Online then use this link http://www.ash-associates.com/cv_search.html

Ups and Downs

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 13:41:00 +0000

Recruitment is a business/profession that is people based and as such as varied and unpredictable as people can be.

One minute you are up the next you are down all in the space of one or two phone calls.

If you have been following our news you will know we were hoping that we'd placed two very good developers last week but life is never easy. One of the candidates was desperate to know if he'd got the job and was under real pressure from another agent to take another job (nail biting stuff) but the client could not be contacted and the deadline for the other job came and went. But our candidate held in there and managed to survive the weekend but the pressure was almost too much to bear. Finally the call came, Good News the job is his.

What can we learn from this?

Well if you as the candidate are sure what it is that you want from your next job then stick to it and hold out for what you are looking for, but saying that be prepared to compromise to get what you want.

As the client try to give a quick decision, candidates can be lost to the competition just by a few days delay.

Recruitment Waste of Time and Money

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:17:00 +0000

Bored time for a change!

A study by academic researchers reported in a National Newspaper that in 2003 British Business had wasted more than £12 Billion on wrong staffing choices.

No suprises here then, we see and hear this all the time especially when companies come to us and say they have been looking for months and have got nowhere trying to fill a specialist IT position using their own in-house resources and local advertising.

Candidates also come to us on a regular basis saying that the job they have is not right for them for whatever reason, our question would be why did you take it and the usual answer is that the job responsibilities/duties are not the same as discussed at interview.

For example a company (which I will not identify and is not a client of ours) always interviews candidates in regard to joining a small team which seems to be doing interesting C++ applications development but they only move existing employees into this team. So new employees always join the main development team which does less interesting work and uses a unique development environment that adds nothing to a candidates skills and CV when looking to move on. We hear of candidates that have waited up to 2 years to move into the C++ team.

Using a Recruitment Consultancy like ourselves with over 15 years experience should avoid this and similar situations. We will know what the development environment is and what a candidate is looking for so we only match candidates to the right jobs and vice versa.

Improve the chances of finding the right person for your job and for the candidate the right job for you and use a professional Recruitment Consultant.

Those awkward interview questions

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 09:17:00 +0000

Preparation is the key, cover the bases and speak to your agent who should be able to provide you with a good idea of the job itself and indeed the sort of questions you may meet beyond the standard questions listed below.

We've picked out some of the standard awkward questions you may get asked at an interview, and possible reasons an employer will be asking these. When you are preparing an answer you should remember to always make it positive.

Why are you leaving your current position (or why did you leave your last position)?

The employer is looking for potential problems you have had in the past that you may bring with you. The best way to deal with this question is to always cite reasons such as career progression, quality of life, reward package (careful with this one talking about money in the early stages of the interview may work against you), etc. and link these to positive aspects of the job you are being interviewed for. NEVER launch into a tirade about how much you disliked your previous company, what a total idiot you thought your boss was and so on. Always be upbeat - it projects a more confident image. (Sounds OK but remember they may have heard the stock answers before (Many times) and are looking for real reasons so be prepared to go into some depth)

What do you think you can offer this company?

The interviewer wants to know how you can solve their problem. By ensuring your CV is focused on matching you to the employer's needs (This is something a good agent should already have done for you, matching you closely to the job on offer), you will have accumulated all the material necessary to answer this question.

You have the opportunity to differentiate yourself in two ways, firstly by emphasising your strengths and secondly by demonstrating that you have researched the employer's business prior to the interview. Give a balanced answer that highlights exactly how your strengths match the job requirements and show an awareness of what the company does.

Where do you hope to be in 5 years time?

Someone thought up this question years ago and it has since become established as a standard interview question. What the employer is hoping to establish is your degree of ambition for career progression. Always answer in general terms and definitely avoid staking a claim for the interviewers job!

This question can also be a double-edged sword. The job may carry little prospect of progression in itself. If you are keen to progress, this may not be the appropriate role for you, so you should establish what opportunities there are - perhaps it is possible (and indeed expected) to progress into other roles (Your agent will have covered this with you - is there progression within this employer or is this a stepping stone to your career ambissions elsewhere say 2 years down the line).

Above all, ensure as part of your interview preparation that you have established what your own job requirements are, as well as those of the employer.

How mobile are you?

There can be a couple of reasons for asking this question. The job may involve a lot of travel. If so, it should have been made clear in the job advert or the details you received. If it wasn't, now is the time to establish the facts, and the expectations of the employer. If regular travel is a problem for you, say so - there's no point in getting the job and then being unhappy.

Another reason for asking this could be to assess your attitude to flexibility in working practices. Again, be honest about your own requirements and expectations. This is the time to make sure that everyone is happy with the proposed working arrangements and to open negotiations on any areas that need to be discussed further.

What are your weaknesses?

This is NOT an attempt to catch you out but an employer is trying to force you to carry out a more critical self-assessment. Have you thought about any weaknesses you may have? If not, do so now before you have to assess these in an interview situation. Once you�ve done this, you can turn them into positive, work-related statements, such as, "I tend to work too long hours." Or "I am a perfectionist and need to make sure my work is 100% accurate." By doing this you can answer the question and portray yourself in a positive light. (Same again here watch out for those stock answers we have heard them before)

Why should we employ you, rather than one of the other candidates?

This is a bit like a tiebreaker question! The interviewer wants to know what your unique quality is that makes you the best person for the job. This gives you a real chance to make the job yours.

To prepare your answer, you need to know what the most important requirement of the job is. What aspect of the job is critical for success? How can you fulfill this requirement? Show an employer that you have the ability to do so and you will gain a real advantage over all other candidates.

This advice on how to tackle some awkward interview questions will help you to prepare strong, positive answers before your interview. If you'd like more detailed and in-depth advice, please contact us.

A few final points to bear in mind when you are at an interview�

Do not be afraid to ask for clarification on any questions.

Remember that the cost to an employer of recruiting the wrong person can be very expensive. The employer is also under a lot of pressure to make the right decision and may be just as nervous as you are!

Try to relax and enjoy the interview. The more relaxed you are, the better you will perform on the day.

CV's getting better

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 13:12:00 +0000

Just recently I have noticed a real improvement in the quality of CV's which arrive in our mailboxes.

To emphasize the importance of the CV I thought it was a good idea to reprint the following extract from one of our webpages. Our website has good example CV for either a Software Engineer or Programmer (The format would fit most IT roles) this can be found here

A CV which fails to answer questions is a CV that fails. So be exact when describing your skills and abilities, confirm the content of a Technical Summary by including the technology in your work experience, be repetitive in regard to technology e.g.. C++ mentioned at the end of each project confirms that you have a lot of C++ experience, mention it just once and we assume you have just some C++ experience, this should be the same for all technology.

It's amazing how many times we talk to candidates that have the skills and technology that we seek but have not mentioned them on their CV's.

Be sure to achieve a balance in regard to a length of a CV if you have been working for a number of years then your CV length is expected to be longer than a recent graduates. A good CV length is 2 pages, but for an experienced developer we would expect to see 4 to 5 page CV's.

To assist the CV reader remember to summarise your technology and education on the front page, include a skills/personal profile. When summarising technology list in order of most experience e.g. C, C++ if you have 5 years of C you would put this first if you had say 2 years of C++

The design of a CV should be as simple as possible, for example most employers these days expect CV's by email which means that plain text is the only guaranteed format, using unique text formats/fonts/layouts/TABs etc. may be incompatible with the recipients software and they end up with an indecipherable mess (Never use Macro's these are associated with viruses and most will delete a document with Macro's without reading them [We do] )

Finally it is not a good idea to have spelling errors in a CV or covering letter use the spell checker that comes with the word processor, pay particular attention to technology because if you cannot spell it do you really have enough experience of it to add it to your CV.

England win the Ashes

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 16:13:00 +0000

I have to admit that there was not a lot of work done yesterday afternoon as we were all glued to the TV watching England win the Ashes, Well done England.

But some work was done and hopefully we will bear the fruit of our labours in the future with some lucky candidates getting a new job.

Technology forms a major part of what we do here and so today we worked on getting our extended wireless network up and running using an additional internet gateway. It seemed so easy but it was a real pain until I realised that we had in effect two DHCP Servers which were both trying to allocate IP addresses and thereby creating IP conflicts. Turning off the DHCP Server on the internet Gateway solved that problem and all seems to be working ok.

Good news on the offer front one offer definitely accepted and another very positive so could be a double celebration this week.

Time to think about going home now to catch the News and see England's Cricket team get the reward it deserves with a parade in Trafalgar Square.

Weather & Cricket

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 19:55:00 +0000

Weather is making the headlines and is the number 2 topic of conversation what with the Cricket England Vs Australia being the number 1.

I think the weather has had a direct impact on recruitment today, the phones are quiet the emails are few (Except for SPAM) and activity in the office at an all time low.

Talking of SPAM we’ve started using some new software called Mailwasher which really seems to work, not only does it automatically identify most SPAM but you also have the option to bounce the email back to them as undeliverable blocking up their servers with returned emails, you can also add to a blacklist which allows you to get rid of those annoying newletters that you never subscribed to. Get your own FREE copy at http://www.mailwasher.net

OOP’s just as I say the phones are quiet off they go again and even better emails from potential new clients that want to use us. Enquiries via our website are definitely up from clients looking for agents that specialise so remember to keep your website up to date because the business is out there.

Cricket

noreply@blogger.com (Ash Associates) — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 14:23:00 +0000

Phones have gone quiet again and I'm not surprised we are all watching the cricket and no work is being done, but they have gone off for tea so it is time to check the emails and update our blogs.

What a great day 2nd interviews have gone well and at least one offer looks very good so we may well have a double celebration tomorrow.