What do people who “fall into recruitment” study?

The following article was published on Square Mile

“Education, education education”. These were the words of war monger Jonathan Powell, conveyed to the nation through the lips of the ever coy Tony Blair- the channeler of right wing ventriloquism. Unfortunately these words were not intended to mean we’d become a nation of Chinese or Indian-esque super efficient geniuses. Rather, they meant we’d become so thick we’d conflate the word polytechnic with university.

So now, consultants, risk specialists and investment bankers with PHDs in econometrics and quantitative analysis are subjected to brutal cold calls from those who would have been (happily) decorating their houses and unblocking their drains had the three evil E’s never been implemented in such a grotesque manner.

Recruitment Rehab has discovered the most popular undergraduate courses for recruiters who would have been manual labourers (had the past 14 years of education policy been different).

To end up in recruitment it seems you should (passively) “study” one of the following:

5. Real Estate Management at Oxford Brookes University

4. Administration at South Bank University

3. Fashion Marketing at London Metropolitan University

2. “Business Management” at Brunel University

And the most popular of all...

Employment for Dummies (self taught over 6 years from your bedroom).

You will certainly deserve the letters B.A. after your name and most likely the letters S.T.A.R.D too.

What's going on in the middle office?

HSBC, Barcap and any other major bank you can think of are shedding staff be it in IBD, retail or boring old back office. Essentially, to reduce costs banks need more technology to replace humans who are accountable for unpredictable performance and gross operational risk.(Computers don't take 5 minute cigarette breaks every 10 minutes nor do they need 30 days off every 12 months do they)? But remember MR CEO they do break down when you least expect them to (much like your libido).

Despite Credit Suisse announcing cuts in finance, most recruiters are optimistic about middle office hiring. But then most recruiters in London are thick. Very few possess market insight let alone foresight.

As finance change projects are being updated and re-implemented left right and centre in the mad rush for 2012 global ledger convergence it makes sense to think contractors and their recruiters are in the money.

That may be the case now but come 2013 (allow at least 12 months for major delays in implementations) when global general ledgers have been put into place (shoddily) processes will become leaner. Thus there will be less need  for product controllers, regulatory reporters and financial accountants. The machines that are creating the jobs now will take all the jobs in two years time. Unless of course recruiters are encouraging contractors to deliberately jeopardise implementations with unknown "disruptive occurrences" in order to lengthen the number of days at which they can charge £800 per day. No never. The chances of that happening are like the Murdoch empire crumbling, right?!

However, if that is true banks will have to make redundancies and invent computers that can implement computers. But who will implement the implementers? And what will us recruiters do?

Troubled times ahead indeed.

In other news- I've found out some pretty interesting things about some corrupt recruiters and there dodgy dealings with certain banks. WATCH THIS SPACE. If you are reading this and are worried better call your lawyers and get that defamation claim written up!

Until tomorrow...

Why being a lefty liberal might leave you on the wrong side of right!

I finally got through to a candidate who picked up his phone. I wish I hadn’t. This poor confused liberal has had his head screwed worse than me.

What better summer could one have than my candidate? First he had to cancel his very expensive holiday to Norway because some nutter (who looks like Julian Assange’s bloated evil twin) after probably just being served a few too many bad curries gets annoyed with Muslims (despite probably being served by Hindus but they all look the same don't they?) and takes things a bit too far (right) out of hand by massacring some innocent kids. (Somebody should have told him they were NOT aspiring to become recruitment consultants)!

On top of that my candidate found out his wife was sleeping with the Nigerian refugee who collects the rubbish ( apparently “out of sympathy”- he must have left too many Guardian newspapers lying around the house for her to read). It turns out she now has some strange STD which has left her infertile. This is not good news for more reasons than you think. You see on the wedding night she lovingly looked him in the eyes and said: “no matter what happens to us we must stay together for our kids”. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. To save his marriage he’ll  now have to adopt some children; probably the cousins of her Nigerian lover. The elderly couple down the road who have the Daily Mail delivered won’t be pleased.

Anyway, desperate to take out his sexual frustration this normally very rational citizen bought a copy of the The Sun for some page 3 frolics. (His internet connection was down you see and the guy behind the counter knows his boss so that left the top shelf out of reach). With the hurt of betrayal overpowering any chance of arousal he began reading the words instead and with all the events going on in the background he dangerously found the right wing racist ranting resonating within him!!! Shocked at this out of body like experience he zipped up his trousers and quickly logged onto http://www.libdems.org.uk/ to revive his lenient liberal tendencies. Needless to say when he saw Nick Clegg’s face he witnessed more betrayal, more disappointment and like the limp piece of flesh between his legs his liberalism never rose to the occasion.

He turned up to work the next day to discover New Labour’s theme tune echoing in his head. Indeed things could only get better. He was told via email his job would be offshored to a computer in India. This, he says, is only mildly better than it being offshored to a curly haired Indian called Nigel who uses cockney slang with an Indian accent.

All his hopes were ultimately dashed however when he realised this meant he’d have to take cold calls from dim witted recruiters like me. We are the residue of further left wing betrayal- New Labour. Had it not been for their brilliant plan to send every dyslexic 18 year old and his ADHD suffering sister to “university”, we may have become plumbers and joiners servicing his desperate house...and housewife. Instead, forced to find “graduate” work we find ourselves, hair gelled with pointy shoes in George shirts and Primark underwear, climbing the same steps outside Bank station as Saville Row pin striped Masters of the Universe...and confused liberal accountants, punting everything under the sun as “an exciting new opportunity”.

My candidate is losing his wife to a Nigerian, his job to India, his children to Nigerians again, he now reads The Sun instead of The Guardian and finds the only person he can confide in is a recruitment consultant...(who was raised by Pakistani foster parents after a stint with Nick Griffin's parents). Then, looking for a new job he logs onto efinancialcareers and finds this.

I asked him to meet me for a coffee at the Nero next to Liverpool Street station this morning to talk to him about a “fantastic opportunity” at Barclays Capital (that doesn’t exist).He turned up with an EDL banner to tell me he’d “found a new calling in life”.

I called the police but they were too busy being outsourced to Bangladesh to do anything about it. Should I be worried about my new racist candidate?