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Am I too old for an internship?

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jun/05/work-and-careers-advice

Problems at work? Our agony uncle has the answer


How will it look if I become an intern after a seven-year career?

A couple of months ago my company closed some offices and departments to cut costs, including my department. I have had a few interviews for similar roles since then, but no offer has been made yet. All feedback points to the same problem: I lack commercial experience. I have never worked with external clients – my old role was about providing services for internal stakeholders – and I now understand this is valuable experience that I need if I?want to open up my job options.

When I realised this, I identified the best companies in my sector and knocked on their doors asking for an ­internship. I have been offered an eight-week stint at a reputable company working with big-name clients. It has promised I will be involved in projects and meetings with clients. I?have no doubt this will give me experience of client-focused environments, and the confidence to perform better in job interviews.

This is an important investment of time and money (I will earn nothing in this position) so I really want to make the most of it. My concern is, how can I fit this internship into my CV? After a professional career of more than seven years, it will look odd if I place my internship as the most recent position I have held. Will this deter any potential employers from shortlisting me?

You’ve shown admirable resilience and initiative. To apply for an internship after seven years of a professional career displayed an optimism bordering on the unrealistic: yet it worked. There’s no question you must snap it up, and I’m sure that’s what you intend to do.

As far as your CV goes, you need to construct it in a slightly unorthodox way. Rather than listing your internship as your most recent experience (which I agree could look a bit curious), you should highlight it at the start with an explanation of why it was necessary, very much as you’ve explained it to me. I don’t know your age, but a paragraph headed along the lines of Why Did a 30-Year-Old Professional Welcome an Internship? tackles the issue head on and presents it positively. All other things being equal, this should get you through to the interview stage. Indeed, some employers will mentally give you high marks for having shown such determination and enterprise.

It’s worth wondering, too, just why this reputable company with important clients agreed to take on such an unconventional intern. It’s unlikely to be pure philanthropy. They must be at least a little intrigued by your background and character. Those eight weeks present you with a golden opportunity to show that you could be of more permanent value to them.

I’m not suggesting that you should be pushy; just that you should leap at any chance to show your usefulness, which could involve calling on your experience as a provider of internal services. A promising, client-facing executive with a good understanding of internal administration could be an attractive prospect for the company.

All that may be a little too much to hope for. But there’s no doubt at all that, if you make the most of your internship, it will greatly increase your confidence and your chances; and it will provide potentially telling evidence of your strength of character.


Demand for bonus fee from business advisers is hard to justify

I run a small design consultancy. At the start of the year I decided to streamline our business practices, knowing we needed more work. I was approached by a group of business specialists who claimed to be able to improve my business exponentially in return for a fixed monthly amount plus a “bonus fee” paid on achieving the increase.

I didn’t believe the “exponential” part but we were pretty desperate for work so I signed up for a two-month trial. Most of the business advice was useful and imaginative. As luck would have it, two of our existing clients had new projects so the need for other work was not quite so desperate – just as well, because my business advisers manifested neither the introductions nor additional business they claimed.

Then the “bonus fee” contract was presented. Above an amount of turnover defined as “more than I would have generated without their advice”, I would be required to pay 25%. There was no mention of affordability – supposing my profit margin on the extra turnover was 20%, I would still be required to pay the 25%, resulting in a loss. On this basis I cancelled the contract. Currently it looks like my business is going to survive – the exponential increase isn’t going to happen but I have saved the monthly fees and potentially massive bonus fees. Is such a high percentage common with business interventionists?

You’re well out of this. They expected to be paid for two services: the introduction of new leads or new business and the provision of professional advice. The trouble is, while it’s reasonably easy to calculate the value of the first, it’s quite impossible to do so with the second.

The successful introduction of a new bit of business has a fee attached and it’s customary for whoever introduces it to claim a commission: either a single finder’s fee or a proportion of the additional revenue. No new business, no fee. But nobody knows – and nobody can know – the precise effect on incremental income of professional advice. You found most of it useful and imaginative and it was therefore probably worth the monthly fee. But to demand 25% of some notional gain over what you would have generated without such advice is clearly ludicrous.

With the best will in the world, you couldn’t possibly agree a figure that would make sense to you both.

For Jeremy Bullmore’s advice on a work issue, send a brief email to work@guardian.co.uk. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or reply personally

Readers’ advice

To add to the answer given to the fashion sales manager about whether looking after children full time will damage her career (Dear Jeremy, 23 May). Your situation is very common, and I agree completely with Jeremy’s advice.

Don’t take a lower-scale job unless you need the income. Enjoy your kids, and before you’re ready to go back to work, do a course related to your career. It’s a great way to improve your skills, will look good on your CV, and will demonstrate to employers that you’re serious about what you do.

I took a long break myself and started a part-time MA while still at home. The break and the course have given me a new perspective on work I didn’t have before, and have really helped make me work more effectively. Fabienne Pagnier

Did Jeremy get it right? Email us at work@guardian.co.uk and we’ll print the best reply

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Insurance: Cover up those excesses

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Now you can ‘insure’ all the initial charges payable when claiming on a policy. But do the sums add up?

UK householders can insure all their policy excesses with one low-cost annual payment. Insure4excess, which made its name offering car hire users cheap excess insurance, will now cover all the excesses payable on the five main policies: home, car, health, travel and pet insurance. It is also offering standalone car excess cover for the UK, and claims that it can pay for itself immediately.

What is it?

The basic cover – bronze – costs £49 a year. Householders can get back the excesses on any claims during the year up to £250. So, if your dog required surgery and you had to pay the first £50 of the pet insurance, it would refund that. If you were burgled and forked out a £100 excess it would return that too.

Can you insure more?

The silver policy costs £75, covering all excesses paid on claims made in one year up to £500. Gold costs £99 and covers up to £750. Payouts are triggered when a claim is made to the principle insurer. Policyholders have to be 25 or older.

How do the savings work?

The company says the policies will pay for themselves in reduced premiums, achieved by increasing the excesses on their main policies. Insure4excess says travel cover typically carries a £50 excess, while home and motor policies feature excesses (the first portion of a claim, paid by the customer) of up to £250. Generally, the higher the excess, the lower the premium.

These policies make particular sense if you have made a claim and are facing increased premiums as a result.

Insure4excess.com managing director Simon Vella, says: “People purchasing standard motor, home and pet policies will collectively save between £48 and £120 by tweaking their excess liabilities – and this is just for basic policies, before other cover amendments are made to further cut premiums. Our annual policy is much cheaper than the savings that can be made, so consumers will be quids in even if they don’t have to claim back excesses.”

Any downsides?

The problem of high excesses is that you effectively end up paying any small claims yourself, as Insure4excess only pays out once you make a claim to your main insurer. If you raised the car policy excess to £750, and bought its gold policy, you would only be able to make a claim costing more than £750. This can work for car drivers who would always pay any small claims themselves because the cost of claiming would be more than outweighed by the following year’s rise in premium.

Can I insure only my car excess?

Yes, and it will appeal to newly qualified car drivers who are aged over 25.

The company’s gold annual excess cover is £79 – many new drivers will save more than this by increasing the excess on their car insurance to £750.

Insure4excess would meet the first £750 of a claim with the insurer picking up the rest. Again, to buy the policy, you have to be 25 or over, making it a no-brainer for newly qualified drivers facing a huge first car insurance premium. Insure4excess allows two claims a year up to £750 each.

It also offers bronze cover for £39 which solely covers motor excesses of up to £250 while the silver policy costs £59 and covers excess of up to £500 – both will offer some older drivers savings, particularly if they have made , but it looks as though 25-year-olds will save the most.

Can it work for me?

Go to the insurance comparison websites (the likes of Confused.com or Moneysupermarket.com) or ask your existing insurers how much you will save if you increase the excesses. Car insurers will typically cut premiums by £20-£40 a year if you lift the excess from £100 to £300 – more for younger drivers. Home insurers will do the same. Make a £10-£20 saving on each of the five main policies and you’ll be in the money – and better insured.

  • Insurance
  • Home insurance
  • Motor insurance
  • Consumer affairs
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Five ways to save on … Current accounts

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Bank charges getting you down? Follow our five steps to happiness

1 Ditch your packaged or ‘premium’ account

Most banks offer one or more “added value” accounts that charge a monthly fee. Lloyds TSB has four, starting with Silver – £95.49 a year (£85.50 in year one) which includes mobile phone insurance,­ card protection and European­ travel insurance – and going up to Premier at £300 a year (£284 in year one), which throws in worldwide travel insurance, a £500 interest-free overdraft and home emergency cover.

Maybe you could buy the benefits cheaper elsewhere. If you’re paying more than £80 for an account­ mainly for its free travel insurance­, bear in mind annual comprehensive worldwide policies, with winter sports cover, can be found for around £40 per person or £60 for the family if you check any major price comparison website.

It’s easy to cancel an account­ – contact your bank, ignore its protestations and insist staff make the change.

2 Clean up your direct debits

Ask your bank for a full list of standing orders, direct debits and recurring payments and go through it. Many people carry on paying direct debits for items they no longer need.

Beware “recurring” or “continuous authority” payments (used by some mobile phone companies, broadband providers and many pornography websites) where a subscription is taken from your credit card. These are ­extraordinarily difficult to cancel.

3 Switch accounts to get a better deal

Shopping around for value has become second nature for credit cards, motor insurance and home contents cover but not, it seems, when it comes to current accounts. Despite the perceived­ hassle, switching is relatively­ easy. Take a look at the best-buy current account tables at Moneyfacts.co.uk and gauge how your account measures up.

If you rarely – if ever – go overdrawn, the best-buy in-credit interest accounts include Alliance & Leicester’s Premier Direct account, requiring monthly funding of at least £500, and Abbey’s Preferred In-Credit Rate account,­ requiring funding of £1,000 a month, both of which pay 4.89% gross on balances up to £2,500 for the first 12 months, dropping to 1% after a year.

Also competitive is Lloyds TSB’s Classic Plus, requiring funding of £1,000 a month, which pays 2.47%. And worth considering, particularly if you tend to deplete your account within days of bunging in your pay cheque, is Bank of Scotland’s Reward account which, instead of paying interest based on a daily calculation of how much is in your account, gives you £5 every month you put in £1,000.

If you regularly spend more than you earn, you’ll want an account with a?low rate for authorised overdrafts. Best is Alliance & Leicester’s Premier Direct which offers an interest and fee-free overdraft for the first 12 months after which, instead of interest, it charges 50p per day – maximum £5 per month – on authorised overdrafts. Other low authorised overdraft rates include 9.74% on Norwich & Peterborough’s Gold account and the 11.8% imposed by Cahoot’s current account.

4 Get £100 for moving

You’ve just missed the chance of £100 to switch to Alliance & Leicester – the deal expired on 28 May. But First Direct’s offer of £100 to move to its current account, plus £100 if you decide it’s not up to scratch and close it after 12 months, is still up for grabs. It pays no credit interest and has an authorised overdraft rate of 15.9%. You need to be a new customer to the bank and to transfer a salary or income of at least £1,500 per month into the account within three months of opening it, upon which First Direct will add £100. If you are not satisfied after 12 months then, provided you’ve paid in at least £1,500 a month for six months, the bank says it will give you another £100 and help you move your account.


5 Don’t go into the red without asking permission

The vast majority of current accounts charge a lot more interest and/or fees for going overdrawn without authorisation than they do if you’ve arranged an overdraft facility. On the Abbey current account, you can choose a preferred in-credit rate or a preferred overdraft rate. If you opt for the latter, the rate is 12.9% (0% for the first year if you’ve switched from another bank). If, however, you go into the red and exceed your authorised limit, the rate rockets to 28.7%, on top of which you’ll have to pay £25 per month.

  • Current accounts
  • Banks and building societies
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Ethical investments: Profits or principles?

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Twenty-five years ago Britain’s first ethical fund was launched. Patrick Collinson examines whether mixing money and morals works

It was 1967 and America was a nation divided by the Vietnam war. Peace campaigners, such as the Rev Dr Luther Tyson of Washington’s United Methodist Church, wanted nothing to do with companies profiting from the conflict. Could he invest his savings free from any connection to the war?

Tyson searched in vain for an ­”ethical” financial institution. So, along with another church official, Jack Corbett – and with little knowledge of high finance – they set up the world’s first ethical fund. Pax World came to the market in 1971 and attracted just £40,000 from socially concerned investors. ­In the early years, it was scorned by the highly conservative fund management­ industry. Corbett was co-founder of the US’s first handgun control organisation, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, while Tyson was concerned with peace issues. Wall Street had nothing to fear from liberal churchgoers whose tiny fund meant nothing to billion-dollar corporations.

Tyson died last year. But during his lifetime, Pax World grew from £40,000 to more than £1bn in assets spread over seven funds. It spawned an industry of ethical and socially responsible­ funds now worth around £7bn in the UK.

Ethical investing didn’t catch on in Britain until 13 years after the launch of Pax World. Twenty-five years ago this week Friends Provident, then a mutual insurance company with a strong Quaker heritage, unveiled its “Stewardship” fund, which promised to invest in the shares of UK companies “of long-term benefit to the community”.

Like Pax World, it struggled in the early days. In October 1984, five months after­ its launch, The Guardian’s business pages reported that its performance was trailing the FTSE All Share index and that it had pulled in just £760,000. Our report concluded that “you will generally find that ethical investment­ involves sacrificing some return on your money that a?purely commercially based investment strategy would produce”.

For more information about ethical investment you were directed­ to the one source then available: a booklet called “Alternative Investment Opportunities for Quakers”. There were, we added, a few copies left at Friends House on Euston Road, London.

Today, Stewardship has £450m in assets, and since Friends Provident demutualised, is now run by F&C Investments. But some things remain the same: the fund has fallen by 25% over the past year, and marginally trails the FTSE All Share index.

So is this long-term proof that ethical­ investing means you pay for your principles? Can you find better-performing ethical funds? And does investing really make any difference to the way corporates behave?


Does ethical investing have an impact?

There are few examples of ethical investment affecting corporate ­behaviour much before the mid-1990s. Ethical investors claim to have orchestrated­ the 1995 shareholder revolt against the then-British Gas chief executive Cedric Smith, but this was part of a wider concern at pay levels in denationalised companies.

The first major victory claimed by ethical investors – led by CalPers, the Californian pension scheme – was GlaxoSmithKline’s­ decision in 2003 to slash the cost of anti-Aids drugs in Africa.

Giant pension schemes have been better at arm-twisting corporates than smaller unit trusts. Norway’s $325bn (£200m) government pension fund, whose duty it is to preserve the country’s oil wealth for the future, is the biggest investor in shares in Europe. That gives it real financial clout – and, after adopting an ethical investing stance, it has made several high-profile “disinvestments” from companies where it has ethical concerns.

In 2005 it pulled out of Wal-Mart, citing concerns about labour practices, and in 2007 disinvested from British mining group Rio Tinto, worried about environmental damage. It has also excluded arms company BAE Systems and Serco, which maintains British nuclear weapons through the Atomic Weapons Establishment.


Do you pay for your principles?

Yes, says Mark Dampier at investment advisers Hargreaves Lansdown. “Why bother unless you are a paid-up member of the sandal brigade? Ethical investment has its moment in the sun from time to time, especially when small and mid-caps do well, but I can see little, if any, evidence of superior investment performance by investing ethically. Why restrict your investment universe?”

Dampier says that since Friends Provident Stewardship was launched in 1984, it has given investors a total return of 666%. That sounds good – until you compare it to the 3,901% return on Fidelity Special Situations and 1,465% on M&G Recovery over the same period.

No, says Mark Robertson of Ethical Investment Research Services (Eiris). “Some ethical funds have outperformed their non-ethical peers. As in any sector, there are good and bad performers.” He adds that ethical funds are no longer just restricted to equities and may now include other asset classes, including bonds.

Mark Hoskin of Holden & Partners, advisers specialising in ethical investing, acknowledges that over the past year ethical funds, as a group, have struggled more than their market-leading conventional peers in outperforming the FTSE 100. “But performance has not been too far from the market over this period. And those in the conventional market, who have misunderstood the finance crisis, have suffered badly.” Ethical funds, as a group, cannot go into defensive stocks such as tobacco, which have performed well during the recession.


Should I go for a green or ethical fund?

At first, ethical funds were about avoiding alcohol, gambling and munitions companies. Some just “screen out” stocks; others “engage” with management to root out poor practice. More recently, asset management groups have focused on the launch of climate change funds.

Hoskin says: “It is the environmental agenda which investors need to focus on over the next 10 years, and we can see already that climate change funds are outperforming the markets. To give two examples, Schroder Global Climate Change and Hendersons Industries­ of the Future have fallen over 11% less than the FTSE 100 in the last year. We believe this is, in part, because the companies these funds invest in are better protected from the downturn by legislation which is forcing­ consumers to change their purchasing­ behaviour.”


Would I make more money investing in ’sin’ stocks?

It’s the favourite taunt from the anti-ethical brigade: buy guns and liquor, and you’ll be in the money. One American group even set up the Vice Fund to do precisely that. And anybody who invested in it a year ago has lost 42.8% of their money. Swap guns for butter!


Where do I find advice on ethical investing?

Eiris has a financial adviser directory that will put you in contact with advisers­ specialising in ethical investment. If you are new to investing, read our guide.

  • Ethical money
  • Investments
  • Investment funds
  • Ethical living
  • Corporate social responsibility
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Battle looms over right to return goods

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Don’t assume the worst if you’ve got faulty items just out of warranty, says Miles Brignall

Thousands of Britons are being denied their consumer rights every day as store staff hide behind “ridiculously overcomplicated” laws, a lawyer has warned. The Money postbag has been bulging with letters from people complaining they have been fobbed off in stores when trying to return items that are just out of warranty. It has also emerged staff are breaking the law when they wrongly tell consumers they have no rights once the item is more than a year old.

Two weeks ago we featured the case of retired teacher Peter Ward, who persuaded Tesco to replace a flat-screen TV that had broken down a few months outside its one-year warranty. He cited EU directive 1999/44/EC: this appears to give consumers a minimum of two years to take items back to the retailer for a repair or replacement. After a long stand-off, during which he was threatened with being ejected from the store, Tesco agreed to replace his TV.

The article struck a chord with readers, many of whom contacted Money to say staff would not listen when they had tried to return goods more than a year old. We were also contacted by one of the UK’s leading consumer law specialists, Christian Twigg-Flesner from the University of Hull. He somewhat contradicted what European Commission staff told us two weeks ago (that EU law gave consumers a two-year guarantee), but confirmed consumer rights did not end after a year.

“This whole area is complicated and in desperate need of reform,” Twigg-Flesner says. “The two-year directive on consumer sales and guarantees seeks to ensure a minimum standard of protection across the EU.”

Because the UK’s Sale of Goods Act (SOGA) meets or exceeds most of the directive’s requirements, except for a right to repair or replacement from 2003, he says consumers should rely on this when returning items.

“All EU countries have to ensure a retailer could be held liable for all ‘non-conformities’ which manifest within two years from delivery. However, this is not a two-year guarantee (although eurospeak does not help by describing this as the ‘legal guarantee’), because goods are not required, in law, to last for those two years.” He says the SOGA requires three things: the goods must be as described; they must be of satisfactory quality, which is determined by description, price, durability, freedom from minor defects and fitness for common purpose; and they must be fit for that purpose.

Anyone trying to return electronic goods 13 months after purchase and who is told the item is out of warranty, should stand firm, adds Twigg-Flesner.

“I generally find that if you stick to your guns and quote the SOGA, store staff will eventually ring head office and you should receive your rights. It is a criminal offence for them to tell you that, because the goods are out of warranty, you have no rights,” he says.

“If goods break down sooner than expected, there is a strong argument they were not of satisfactory quality when delivered. A consumer who seeks repair or replacement, but not a full refund, during the first six months has the benefit of a presumption the goods were not satisfactory when delivered.”

He says that, after six months, the consumer has to provide evidence the goods were not satisfactory, which will require expert opinion, and advises anyone who feels the item should have been reasonably expected to last longer to go to court if necessary.


Action stations: What to do if you are rebuffed

• If the retailer says you have no rights because the item is more than a year old, this is not only nonsense – it is a criminal offence.

• Assuming the item has failed through no fault of yours and it was “reasonable” to expect it to last longer – given its cost/quality – you should demand, under the Sale of Goods Act, that it be replaced or repaired by the retailer, not the manufacturer.

• After the item is six months old, retailers can demand evidence that it failed as a result of a manufacturing fault. Try the Yellow Pages for an independent repairer. Most stores will reimburse the cost of an independent examination if the breakdown is the result of an inherent fault.

• Presented with the evidence, most stores will back down and replace or repair the item. If that would prove ‘disproportionately costly’ the store can offer a cash sum that would reflect the benefit that you got from the item until it broke.

• If you don’t achieve a satisfactory outcome, the small claims court will happily hear cases of up to £5,000 in value, and it is possible to recover your costs.

Your stories: ‘They said Britain isn’t in the EU’

Xboxes, iPods, fridges and computers are the main items failing just outside the one-year manufacturer’s warranty. Several readers told us their Xbox games consoles had gone wrong just after 12 months. Mary Aspden, from London, complained to Microsoft after her son’s Xbox stopped working 14 days outside warranty. The company demanded £68 to clear the error codes.

Jonathan Sadler is in dispute with Amazon after it refused to replace a shaver it sold him 14 months ago. “It seems they are attempting to get around the legislation and fob people off by saying that it only applies to products that have become faulty in the first six months – so even less time than the one-year guarantee they originally stated,” he wrote.

Michael Ireland told us PC World refused his claim when his laptop failed after 14 months. “The symptoms indicate it is a motherboard failure but unless I have an assessment by an independent expert at my expense (typically £40), they are not interested.”

Several readers said they had been denied replacements or free repairs by Apple UK when they tried to take back iPods that had failed at between one and two years old. In each case they were told they would have to pay for repairs even though the problem appeared to be the internal hard drive, which the consumer cannot control.

Ann Lawson says she was almost thrown out of a Hull branch of Currys when complaining about a washing machine that failed after 18 months. “I was told that the Sale of Goods Act did not apply as the goods were more than six months old and that EU law did not apply as Britain was not in the EU!” She has complained to Currys’ HQ.

Meanwhile, Shirly Mew proves you can take on big companies and win. Her £320 gas cooker from Sainsbury’s went rusty after 14 months. “When I complained, Sainsbury’s response was that the cooker was out of guarantee, and that as I had chosen not to take out insurance there was nothing they could do about it. They referred me to the manufacturer and I got nowhere.

“I was helped to draft a letter to head office. Within days, an engineer called and replaced the components free. My advice to anyone is, don’t give up. If necessary, go to the top.”

m.brignall@guardian.co.uk

  • Consumer affairs
  • Shopping
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‘Your CV is exceptional … exceptionally bad, that is’

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Last night’s Apprentice interviews were cringeworthy for many reasons, not least the interviewers’ performances. Have you ever endured a grilling from hell, asks Huma Qureshi

Oh dear, where on earth do we start when it comes to last night’s interview-round Apprentice? The penultimate episode of the series showed the candidates facing a grilling from Surallun’s cronies: Claude Littner (the bald cruel one), Bordan Tkachuk (the one with the spiky beard), Karren “nobody-calls-me-a-bitch” Brady, and Alan Watts (some lawyer we know nothing about).

It had it all: lies, profanities, bitchiness, tears and, well, just plain silliness (poor James. Still, he sort of had it coming, what with his Willy Wonka comment and all that).

Yet, despite their blips and blunders, you still had to feel sorry for this year’s lot. Lets face it, who would want to be interviewed by someone like cruel Claude? And who wouldn’t be rattled by an interviewer waving your finances in front of your face telling you your accounts are wrong?

Granted, an interview is not meant to be easy and you’re not there to make friends, but Claude is still one tough man to impress. “Your CV is exceptional,” he told James, who was so visibly relieved he actually closed his mouth. “Exceptionally bad, that is.” (James’s jaw promptly dropped again). Talk about leading you up the garden path.

Ditto with Karren. There she is one minute amiably chatting away with each of the girls, luring them in with her smiles, and then bang! The killer question disguised as a nicety. She caught out Lorraine’s CV lie and even managed to fluster head girl-material Kate.

But never mind the candidates, how did The Apprentice interviewers do in assessing the candidates? Not very well according to our in-house HR team:

“Interviews should be conducted to give people the best chance to showcase their skills and experience. Starting an interview [Lorraine's] by saying ‘you are clearly delusional’ is not only an assumption but it is offensive – the interviewer started the candidate off completely on the wrong foot.

“The best interviewers do not make assumptions, they collect evidence. And last night’s interviews were riddled with people making assumptions based on very little information.?

“As for ‘catching out candidates’, yes an interviewer has a responsibility to check the facts but there is no excuse to do this by interrogation and rudeness.?Any company who wants to attract talent should ensure their interviewers are professional, precise and also represent the company (would anyone want to work for a company who values Claude’s interpersonal skills?).”

What do you think? Have you ever thought an interview was going well only for the interviewer to turn around and tell you otherwise? Or have you been let down by an interviewer who didn’t give you a chance to explain yourself?

  • Work & careers
  • The Apprentice
  • Reality TV
  • Television
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Car sales slump for 13th month in a row

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Motor industry says it will take time for government’s scrappage scheme to make an impact

New car sales fell sharply last month, with the motor industry saying that it would take time for the government’s “cash for bangers” scrappage scheme to take effect.

A total of 134,858 new vehicles were registered in May 2009 – 24.8% down on the May 2008 total, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reported today.

This was the 13th successive month that sales had dropped and registrations for the first five months of this year were down 27.9% compared with January-May 2008.

Also today, a survey by the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMIF) showed that more than 92% of car dealers have reported an increase in inquiries about new vehicles following the launch of the scrappage scheme.

The survey showed:

• 48.5% of the vehicles being bought under the scheme are priced £6,000-£8,000, with 22.1% priced £8,000-£10,000.

• 66.9% of the vehicles being purchased in the initiative have 1.0-1.3 litre engines and 19.1% have 1.3 -1.6 litre engines.

• 63.7% of those buying under the scheme are aged 45-60 and 27.1% are aged 31-45.

RMIF director Sue Robinson said: “Car sales should see a significant increase in the coming months as a result of the scrappage scheme. This will go a long way towards helping to revive consumer confidence and the UK car market.”

  • Automotive industry
  • Recession
  • Car scrappage
  • Motoring
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House prices rise by 2.6%

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

• House prices rise for first time since January
• Halifax says there are ‘tentative indications’ of stabilisation

House prices rose by 2.6% in May after three months of successive falls, according to figures published today by the UK’s largest lender.

Halifax’s latest snapshot of the housing market showed the annual rate of price deflation fell from a high of 17.7% in April to 16.3%. On its index the average price of a property stands at £158,565, around £4,000 more than in April but £25,000 less than last May.

The monthly rise, which follows three months of falls of between 1.8% and 2.3%, is even bigger than the 1.2% reported last week by Nationwide building society.

Halifax said there were “some tentative indications” that activity in the housing market was stabilising, but stressed it was important not to place too much weight on one month’s figures.

Nitesh Patel, the bank’s housing economist, said: “Historically, house prices have not moved in the same direction month after month even during a pronounced downturn.?

“For example, prices fell by 11% nationally during 1991 and 1992, but there were five monthly price rises in this period.”

The three-month figures, which are a better indicator of the underlying trend, continued to show a fall with prices dropping by 3.1% in the quarter to May. However, the rate on this measure has slowed since January when it was above 5%.

Patel said months of house price falls and low interest rates had made homes more affordable and boosted the number of first-time buyers entering the market.

Halifax’s house prices-to-earning ratio has declined from a peak of 5.84 to 4.36 in May, a level last seen in January 2003, while the proportion of disposable income a buyer needs to meet typical mortgage repayments had fallen to 31% by the end of last year – below the average of 37% recorded over the past 25 years.

Figures for March from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed first-time buyers accounted for 40% of borrowers taking a mortgage for a house purchase – the highest percentage since April 2005 – while more recent figures from the Bank of England showed buyer numbers rose in April.

Buyers still struggling

However, although some lenders have increased the amount they are willing to lend in recent weeks, many buyers are still struggling to get loans and the numbers entering the housing market remain historically low, with the Bank’s figures showing mortgage approval figures down by 22% year-on-year.

Patel said: “House sales remain substantially below their long-term average and market conditions are expected to remain difficult with housing activity continuing at low levels over the coming months.”

Until demand for property increases, house prices are likely to remain volatile.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said the figures were “an eye opener”, but he was sceptical that house prices have bottomed out.

“Significantly, it is not uncommon for there to be months of rising prices when house prices are still trending down,” he said. “Despite the robust Halifax and Nationwide data for May, we are sticking for now to our forecast that house prices will fall by another 10% from current levels to trough around mid-2010.

“However, we accept that this could turn out to be too pessimistic, particularly if the economy does start to grow in the near term and unemployment rises less than we fear.”

David Smith, senior partner at property firm Carter Jonas, said Halifax’s figures were “encouraging, but let’s not get carried away”.

“The economy is still far too fragile to talk of a sustained recovery in the housing market, but the hope is that we are past the worst,” he added.

  • House prices
  • Property
  • Housing market
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Mobility aid sales under fire

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Consumer body says complaints are up 8% on same period last year

The government body Consumer Direct today issued a fresh warning about the “sharp practices” of some companies and operators selling mobility scooters and orthopaedic aids, following a sharp rise in consumer complaints.

The advice service, managed by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), received more than 1,500 complaints about mobility aid purchases in the first four months of this year, up 8% on the same period last year. Many complaints related to defective products and customer service issues, while almost a quarter were about sales and business practices. The latter included allegations that traders have duped consumers by making misleading claims.

Callers complained about salespeople engaging in high-pressure sales tactics, spending several hours in their homes, and in some cases falsely claiming to be working for social services, the Department for Work and Pensions or the NHS.

Michele Shambrook, operations manager for Consumer Direct, said: “Mobility aids like these can provide welcome independence and relief to the sick, elderly and disabled, but prospective buyers need to guard against the tactics of some rogue operators.”

She said many of these products were sold to people in their own homes where they could be particularly vulnerable to high-pressure selling techniques. “It’s worth remembering that if you agree to buy something in the home that you later regret, you will have cancellation rights,” she added.

A spokesman for Consumer Direct said the rise in complaints was probably linked to a corresponding surge in sales.

New laws that came into force in October 2008 in most cases give consumers seven days to cancel contracts entered into in the home. Other regulations introduced in May last year prohibit traders from treating consumers unfairly, misleading them through acts or omissions, or subjecting them to aggressive practices such as high-pressure selling techniques. Traders are also required to leave premises when asked. Breach of the new regulations is an offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.

A number of mobility aid companies are being investigated by local authority Trading Standards services.

Prospective buyers are advised to consider using companies that are members of the British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA), a trade body working towards official OFT approval of its consumer code of practice. BHTA member companies offer consumers safeguards that go beyond those required by consumer protection law, including access to a free independent redress scheme should things go wrong.

  • Consumer affairs
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Ethical investment comes of age

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Twenty-five years after the first ethical fund was launched, Jill Insley and Peter Davy take the temperature of the sector amid a global downturn

The UK’s first ethical investment fund, Foreign & Colonial’s Stewardship fund, was launched 25 years ago this week, aimed at investors who wanted to make money without compromising their beliefs.

Its success led to the launch of a large range of funds with similar principles, now collectively managing £4bn. Proponents of the ethical ideal claimed that investing in companies with a strong social and environmental ethos would result in stronger performance over the longer term.

But quarter of a century on investors are asking whether Stewardship, and the ethical sector in general, is living up to that initial promise.

In 1984, Stewardship was known in the City as the Brazil fund, because “you had to be nuts to invest in it”. Despite the scepticism it has outlived many mainstream funds, and the ethical investments market it helped to spawn has been attracting money from investors despite the downturn.

“Investors might question whether they want to be in equities at all, but I don’t think they’ll just drop their ethical funds. In fact, I can’t see demand trailing off – it is a growing market,” says Simon Brett, head of investments at Parmenion, which launched three ethical funds last October.

According to Eiris (the Ethical Investment Research Service), ethical investors tend to be a bit more “sticky” during downturns than others. Their connection with the values the funds reflect means they are less ready to abandon them when performance flags. “It is not just a fiscal relationship,” Eiris spokesman Mark Robertson says.

Whether this loyalty is deserved is another question. According to a survey last September by the magazine Investment, Life & Pensions Moneyfacts, ethical investments posted lower than average returns, with some suffering particularly big falls. Sovereign Ethical, the worst performing of the 57 surveyed, fell 33% – even before the crisis sparked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers – and several others had fallen by 20% or more.

Struggling funds

Figures produced this week by Morningstar, a financial data provider, show 27 out of the 40 ethical and environmental funds it lists are in the third or fourth quartile of their sector (funds with a similar investment outlook) for the year to date. The original Stewardship fund is among the strugglers, languishing in the fourth quartile of the UK All Companies sector.

One of the reasons for this lacklustre performance is “negative screening” – refusing to invest in certain companies or sectors on moral grounds. Ethical funds might boycott companies involved in tobacco, arms and oil, nuclear power, pesticides, animal testing, dubious labour practices, alcohol, gambling, pornography, GM crops, and even meat processing and production. Airlines joined the list last year when Standard Life Investments announced the industry would be excluded from its ethical funds.

The sectors ethical funds avoid are often those that weather stock market slumps better. And ethical funds often favour smaller companies, which do less well in downturns than their bigger rivals. The result is that, as a whole, ethical funds suffer more than most when markets are falling.

“I’ve always been the unethical IFA,” Mark Dampier at brokers Hargreaves Lansdown says. “If I wasn’t coming at it from an ethical angle, I’d ask why I would want to limit the universe my fund manager can invest in.

“I’ve been around so long now I can remember the launch of Stewardship, and I can remember the argument that because you were buying ethical companies, the performance would be superior over time. But while Stewardship has turned in returns of 666% over 25 years, which is OK, you could have invested in Anthony Bolton’s unethical Special Situations fund, which has produced returns of 3,901%.”

Even those that support ethical investment accept negative screening has an effect. Jonathan Clark, director at Barchester Green, the longest established dedicated ethical IFA, says: “Ethical funds do tend to be a little more volatile. In bad markets they tend to come down rather more quickly; but in good markets they tend to go higher.”

Ethical investors have been prepared to accept the extra volatility in return for making sure their principles were not compromised. But F&C recently came under fire for changing the criteria it uses to select shares to allow the inclusion of banks, just when the banks tanked.

Jason Hollands, a spokesman for F&C, says the fund was always able to invest in some financials, but was restricted to mortgage banks, in particular former building societies. However, research into investment criteria conducted in 2004 placed the exclusion of financials at the bottom in terms of importance as far as investors were concerned, and the policy was changed in 2007.

Hollands says: “In the last quarter of last year, which was our worst in terms of performance, we had just 4.3% in financials, whereas mainstream funds would have had more than 20%.

“The reason Stewardship suffered in 2008 is that for ethical reasons it cannot invest in key defensive parts of the market such as tobacco, most oil stocks and most pharmaceuticals, which were among the best performing parts of the market during the extreme events of 2008 – but this is what its investors want from the fund.”

  • Ethical money
  • Investment funds
  • Investments
  • Ethical living
  • Corporate social responsibility
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