EMPLOYMENT

OPPORTUNITIES
Andrew Gillespie

Full time employment is what most people go into after education, it involves
around 40 hours of work a week and a whole host of benefits over part time jobs;
the benefits can include bigger bonuses at the end of the tax year than part time
workers and bigger breaks than part time workers, though it does have limitations.
The main limitation is that you barely get any time to spend with family.
An example of full time employment is the Co-op, which requires 39 hours per
week. The organisation gives each full time employee 8 weeks of paid annual
leave, a bonus of 200 at the end of the tax year and a whole host of other
benefits.
As of recently it is now a legal requirement for people aged 25 and up that work in
full time to be offered a workplace pension. The Co-op offers a 2:1 payment ratio
so if you pay in 5 they will pay in 10
At most jobs you are required to clock in and out, this is to make sure that you are
working the correct hours, when working full time, this occurs less as you usually
get set shifts to work.

FULL TIME

Part time employment gets you similar perks to full time employment but you are
required to work less hours and you get a smaller bonus depending on how many
hours of overtime you do. One of the main benefits is that you can get almost as
many holidays in certain companies that a full time employee gets. One of the main
bonus is that you get a lot of time off, however this can be bad if you need a lot of
money.
The Co-op offer various part time contracts the biggest being 20 hours, and the
smallest being 6. Holiday hours start at a minimum of 5.5 weeks for the smaller
contracts but if you do lots of overtime you can get up to 8 weeks of paid holiday. You
also still get the benefits that full time employees get regarding the discount card.
Quite o lot of companies only allow the national minimum of holiday pay, this is
because they usually have a massive work force and cannot support their employees
past the minimum threshold.
When working part time, your shifts usually change from week to week, but on rare
occasions you do get given set days to work; this is most commonly seen at Asda.

PART TIME

A freelancer or freelance worker is a person who is self employed but offers their
services to companies, often multiple at a time. Because they choose who they
work for (usually the highest bidder), they choose their hours and weather they
are part time or full time.
The benefits of being a freelance worker is that if they are unhappy with their
employer they can just walk out as they are not tied into a contract of any sort.
Freelance workers that work for a certain company for a long time i.e. a year, are
known as permalancers or permanent freelancers. The downside of being a
permalancers is that you may not get all of the benefits your employer provides
to its contracted employees and you can be dismissed without cause.
Though you dont hear of many Freelance workers, it is the quickest, cheapest
and easiest way to start working for yourself but as mentioned before employers
are not obligated to give you any benefits at all, unlike contracted employees.

FREELANCE

Shift work is usually involved in businesses or services that have to be open 24/7
hence its nickname 24/7 work though it is illegal to work for 24 hours straight.
The most likely place to find shift work is in hospitals as patients need 24/7 care.
In hospitals the standard shift duration is 12 hours and you usually would do 2 12
hour days, 2 12 hour nights then 4 days off. Therefore it will require 4 shift teams.
After you have done 4 on 4 off 3 or 4 times you then get 18 days off. The large
gap in-between is to allow you to recover from doing such long shifts in a small
space of time and it is also to allow your body clock to return to normal.
A local example of shift work is the paper mill in new mills, they have to do the
shifts that are mentioned above. It is a very hard job as it often requires fighting
fires and preventing chemical leaks.
Below is an example of a paper
machine

SHIFT WORK

A permanent contract is an agreement with the company that has employed you.
It is when they state in your contract that you can work for them indefinitely. This
is useful as it secures a job for you and you dont have to worry about finding a
job again after a stated amount of time
Though the contract is permanent there are still several cases where you can be
dismissed: redundancy and misconduct. At the Co-op there arte certain offences
that can get you dismissed immediately such as drinking alcoholic drinks; coming
in to work intoxicated and theft. There are many more offenses but those are the
main ones.

PERMANENT CONTRACT

A temporary contract is an agreement with the company that has employed you. It is
when they state in your contract that you can work for them for a certain amount of
time. This is useful as it allows you to change jobs after a couple of years when the
contract expires. Though the contract is Temporary, your employer can choose to
renew it of both you and your employee want you to stay in the company. Usually
when the contract is renewed it can be for the same amount of time or it can even
become a permanent contract.
As the contract is temporary the employer may choose not to continue your
employment but they may renew it or even draw a new permanent contract up for
you.

TEMPORARY CONTRACT

A zero hour contract is a contract that can be permanent or temporary but you
dont have to work ant hours, you only get work when there is overtime going.
Though these are a good idea for students, they are not a good idea to provide to
single parents as they wont know if they are getting many hours that month.
They most likely wont get enough money to provide for their children.
Some companies dont give simple hour contracts as they are not a viable source
for income. Some of these companies include the Co-op, Asda and Morrison's;
however Tesco and Aldi do offer zero hour contracts.

ZERO HOUR CONTRACT

Multi-skilled workers are very rare but they do exist, a good example of a multiskilled worker is someone who speaks 6 languages, has many different previous
jobs in different fields i.e. teacher and cab driver. A lot of employers love multiskilled workers as they see them as an opportunity to hire less people as they
may be able to fit multiple roles at once, i.e. translator and editor.
Some employees choose only to hire Multi-skilled employees as they think that it
is a way to get away with paying a minimum amount of staff.

MULTI-SKILLED WORKER

There is a wide range of voluntary work and it can be paid and unpaid, though
most likely unpaid it can range from manning a soup kitchen to working abroad
helping charities like the British Red Cross and Water Aid.
Voluntary work is highly sought after as not many people like the idea of working
for free, but it is necessary for the economy as respective governments arent
going to pay companies to hire voluntary workers in places like Africa.
A good example of voluntary work is Children in need. Usually every year
celebrities complete voluntary work to improve the lives of countless children in
foreign countries and even here in Britain. One of the most charitable celebrities
is Amanda Holden, who every year goes to Africa to help less fortunate families
improve their quality of life.

VOLUNTARY WORK

Casual work is usually just helping out a friend or family member and does not
have a contract, It is also usually paid via direct bank transfers or cash in hand. A
good example of this would be if you were helping a friend out as his builders
yard you will most likely be paid cash in hand.

CASUAL WORK

Hourly paid jobs are most commonly found in retail and are very good for
clocking up overtime. When you get to work, you are required to clock in which
is telling the rota system (usually Kronos) that you have arrived and started work,
once your shift is over you would then clock out telling Kronos that you are
leaving the premises and no longer need paying.
The good thing about hourly pay is that companies pay you more at certain times
i.e. public holidays and after a certain time of night usually 10 PM. For the Co-op
you get time and a half on public holidays and time and a third after 10 PM.

HOURLY PAID

Piecework is a type of job that pays you by the amount of products you produce.
This can be a good thing and a bad thing. The good side is that if you are fast you
will get a good pay, but the bad side is if you are new or just slow at the job you
will not get as much money until you are trained properly.
A good example of piecework is at senior aerospace as they pay their employees
per piece they complete. Depending on what the piece is it can take anything
from 10 minutes to 4 hours to complete. At senior aerospace the pieces can be
anything from plain air conditioning to Kevlar reinforced vests for law
enforcement and even the military.

PIECEWORK

Most colleges provide careers advice. The main function of careers advice is to
ensure that each student progresses to something either work, apprenticeships or
higher education. The careers advice service is standard in most collages and is
free to use.
If careers advice is needed after college, you will have to pay for an appointment
from a private firm. They are quite hard to come across and often quite expensive
so it is best to get advice whilst at college.

CAREERS ADVICE

NATIONAL PRESS
The national press is a union for journalists that allows them to easily find a job if
they need one, it is a way of keeping them in work as long as possible. This is a
good group to be part of if you are considering going onto journalism as it pretty
much guarantees you a job for a newspaper or journalism company.

PERSONAL CONTACTS

You can get some very good jobs by going through people you know. One of the
best places to form links is with the Freemasons as you are introduced to some
pretty powerful people across the UK in several different grand lodges. It is good
to have many different contacts in different fields as you may end up phoning
round to see if they have any jobs at their business or store.

NETWORKING
Networking is a way of finding out information on the inside before its publicly
released. I.e. getting told there are going to be jobs going soon at company x
before it is made public by a friend inside the business. Having friends in high
places can be very useful as you will be one of the first applicants and you would
be in the interviewers mind throughout the course of the interviews.

WORD OF MOUTH
Word of mouth is an old method of finding jobs, it involves going through
somebody who has heard from another person that a job might be going, it is
kind of like Chinese whispers. Though old, it is still one of the best methods of
finding a job as there is always job vacancies in every field.

INTERNET
The internet is another good way of finding jobs as there are many sites that
allow you to search for job vacancies in many different fields. One of the best
sites to find jobs is reed. They allow you to search for jobs by distance, what job
they are and their salary so you can really refine the results of the search.

Further education training can get you some of the best training but it isnt
always the best way in to a desired job. When going through further education
you can do many different types of courses:

Full time degrees- these are like a full time job as you will be in university most
of the time learning in lectures

Part time degrees- these are good courses that still get you the same outcome
as a full time degree but they usually take longer to complete as you spend
less time in university

Foundation degrees- these are the first year of any degree i.e. you can do 1
year in BSc maths and come out with a foundation degree.

Bachelor degrees- these degrees are only usually given in science and arts and
the degrees are titled with either a BSc or a BA on the front.

Master degrees- master degrees are a more advanced degree and upon
completion you will get rights to be called a doctor. Typically you will earn
more than 100000 a year

FURTHER EDUCATION TRAINING

WORK EXPERIENCE
Work experience is good for hunting for jobs as it shows you have used initiative
and done a week or so in the field, so you are sure that that is what you want to
do. This is very useful to have on your CV as employers are more than likely to
employ somebody who has got work experience behind them.

TRAINING ON THE JOB

Some jobs require training on the job. A good example of training on the job is a
personal one, I have been trained to become a team leader for the Co-op whilst
on the job. I have been trained how to cash up, how to do gap and price checks
and also how to perform a fire test. This is an essential part of the job and it
requires training on the job to fully understand the process behind it.

To find out what jobs are good for you, you need to perform a skills analysis,
sometimes employers do a separate one. This is something that lets you know
what you are capable of and gives you the drive and the edge against other
candidates who dont know their own skills.
When analysing your skills you need to look at several crucial areas;

personal skills- what you are good at i.e. playing the piano or brick laying.

Technology skills- how competent you are with computers ranging from not a
clue to building your own.

Once you have assessed yourself you will then need to draw up a personal
development plan. This is a method of making your skills better and even gaining
new skills to allow you to get even more jobs.

SKILLS ANALYSIS

A good method of gaining information is via several sources, one of the best
sources for information is a trade union i.e. usdaw or NUT. These trade unions
allow you to find insider information on possible jobs and opportunities in your
local area.
Careers service is a good source for information as they may have a list of jobs
provided by certain companies that allow them to see all of the current vacant
jobs in a certain field across the country.

INFORMATION SOURCES

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES
Some personal attributes are transferable between jobs i.e. your personality
follows you everywhere. There are some attributes that some companies dont
desire and ask that you try to drop them before starting i.e. bad habits. Some are
good attributes that is sometimes the basis on which that you get the job.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

There is a famous saying; knowledge is power this means that the more you
learn the better jobs you can get. Some jobs in retail are very similar and some of
the knowledge can transfer from one job to another i.e. customer service and
knowledge of the internal running's of a store.

Commitment is a highly sought after quality in most jobs but is very rare, a good
example of commitment is someone who comes into work to help out on charity
events and doesnt expect being payed. Another example is somebody who goes
into work to help their colleagues out in their own time.
Efficiency is another sought after skill in employment. If there are 2 tasks that
require certain aspects of the same thing then you can get both of the tasks done
by using the similarities in them to allow you to complete the jobs quicker but to
a good standard. This is how most efficient workers do their jobs.

COMMITMENT AND EFFICIENCY

Reliability is one of the best traits to have when working as if people know youre a
reliable person they are more likely to come to you to get a certain job done, also it
helps you progress in your job as people will trust you to get the job done.
Attendance is important, if you dont turn up half the time then you are most likely
to get fired, this is why it is important to phone in if you are ill so that your
attendance is not wrecked.
Punctuality is also important, especially when it comes to shift work. If you are late
to a store shift then the manager could have to close the shop until you arrive as
there may not be enough staff in to serve customers and carry out other
responsibilities.

RELIABILITY, ATTENDANCE AND PUNCTUALITY

SELF PRESENTATION
Self presentation is vital when you are the face of a business. This is because
you dont want to make the business look bad by wearing inappropriate clothing,
in some cases this has led to dismissal but in most cases it only leads to a
disciplinary.

FUNCTIONAL SKILLS
Functional skills are important for you to get a good job and for you to function properly
in society. These skills can be found in every job and require basic knowledge in maths
and English, usually a grade C in both. If you struggle with English and maths then
there is an alternative course that you can do called functional skills that teaches you
the necessities in both of the subjects.

TIME MANAGEMENT
Time management is key when looking for jobs that time is a big factor in, some
tasks can require other jobs to be completed first for example you cant do the
wiring of a house without the roof on as there will be electrical faults if it rains.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Personal responsibility is a good trait to have when job hunting as it shows that
you are mature enough to take responsibility for a poorly done job and you can
take the flak. It helps you when in jobs that require time management as it shows
that you are good at the job if you say yes that was my fault.