My blog

Category: Opinion

  • Dinesh Dhamija reacts to Rishi Sunak’s appointment as PM

    Finito World

    Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister has focused attention on the rising influence of British Asians.

    Yesterday, British-Indian entrepreneurs were reacting to the news. But on in particular caught our attention: entrepreneur and politician Dinesh Dhamija. Dhamija came to Britain aged 17 in 1968. He founded online travel agency ebookers in 1997, and sold it for £247 million in 2004, before serving as a Lib Dem Member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2020.

    It’s worth remembering that Dhamija’s autobiography ‘Book It!’ was published earlier this year. Readers might remember that in that brilliant book, he comments on Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law Narayana Murthy. One relevant passage reads:

    “Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law Narayana Murthy stands head and shoulders above other Indian businesspeople in my view,” he continues. “He pioneered the current generation of Indian software companies, taking Infosys to global leadership – it was the first Indian company listed on the Nasdaq – and introducing the Global Delivery Model of software development.”

    Dhamija also puts the magnitude of Murthy’s achievements in context: “Basically, Murthy popularised tech outsourcing from Western economies to India, where he recruited thousands of highly qualified software engineers to work on the problems of American banks and multinational corporations,” he writes.

    For Dhamija, Murthy’s work must be viewed in the round – not just as a money-making enterprise. Another passage reads: “What I most admire about Murthy is that he combines commercial genius with a human regard for employees and a strong customer focus. Infosys isn’t just about making money, but about making the world a better place. These qualities have won him many friends, along with the Legion d’Honneur from France, the Padma Vibhushan from India and countless other awards and honours.”

    Yesterday, Finito World got in touch with Dhamija to get his views on the appointment of Murthy’s son-in-law as the UK’s first Asian Prime Minister. His reaction was typically forthright and illuminating: “I’m very pleased to see Rishi become the first British Prime Minister of Indian heritage. I believe he has many of the qualities needed to rescue the country from its current crises – even if he played a role in getting us here! Among other things, it opens a potential window of opportunity for closer economic ties between the UK and India, something that I’ve urged the government to pursue for many years,” he told us.

    And did Dhamija have any advice for the incoming PM? “The best thing for the UK would be to get 10,000 Indian software engineers to come to Britain, that would be gold for us. If Rishi can face down the anti-immigrant factions in his own party and act in Britain’s best interest, he could achieve something that his recent predecessors have failed to do and create a new era of Anglo-Indian cooperation.”

     

    For more information about Book It!: How Dinesh Dhamija built and sold online travel agency ebookers for £247 million, go to:

     

  • Robert Halfon on poetry and the national curriculum: “We don’t want a society of Mr Spocks”

    Robert Halfon reacts to the government’s decision to make poetry optional at GCSE on the national curriculum

    I’ve been asked lately about the Department for Education’s decision to make poetry optional on the national curriculum. I don’t think poetry has as much prominence in parts of our education system as it should – in some ways that’s understandable because of all that’s gone on during Covid-19.

    I understand the government’s concerns – that children are being left behind and not learning. I also understand those who worry about the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the predictions that 28 per cent of jobs might be lost to young people by 2030. There’s a natural recognition that the curriculum has to adapt and change. 

    But what the government doesn’t understand is that poetry and literature are one and the same. In my view, you can’t promote one subject over another: literature is actually just as much about learning poetry as reading books. I hope this is just a temporary thing – though it’s undeniably becoming a more widespread assumption in our society that poetry isn’t seen as important.

    “Of course, the Department for Education will say that it’s a temporary measure, and designed to take the strain off pupils, but the danger is that a temporary measure becomes precedent. “

    It’s a good time then to remind ourselves of the value of poetry – sometimes it can almost be like a puzzle. You have to think more, and it trains your mind in a very different way. If this changes suddenly became permanent, I think that would be very worrying.

    And of course, culture – and I include poetry in this – has an absolutely important role, not just in the economy but in our society. It shapes our lives. It’s not just good for our learning; it’s good for our mental health, and expanding our horizons. We don’t want a society where everyone is Mr Spock. 

    At the same time I do firmly believe that whatever degree or study people do they should do work experience alongside. If you’re a poet, why wouldn’t you do a placement at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum? There should be practical work experience alongside the process of expanding your intellect. 

    The reason I mentioned Robbie Burns is because I had to learn him for a school competition. I have these bad legs and I didn’t lean on anything at that time. I remember standing up and my knee cap would always shake up and down. But I remember learning the first two or three verses of A Red, Red Rose by Robbie Burns – and my kneecaps just shaking in front of the whole school. 

    I’m sometimes asked if my reading has affected my career in politics. What I read goes into my subconscious. It helps me when I’m writing articles – I may think of things and quote things, or use metaphors. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily directed me towards change of policy. It infuses my thoughts and permeates like a kind of beautiful stew in cooking for a long time – and it always tastes much nicer on the second or third day of eating it.

    But mainly I read to relax – and I’m happy at the moment as I’ve just read some very early stuff from Tolkein – not just The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but also The Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion, which his son, Christopher Tolkein gathered together after his father’s death. Tolkein was not just a great author but also a great poet: if you read Beren and Luthien, you’ll see what I mean. 

    “There’s an unwritten story: the importance of Conservatism in 20th century art”

    But if I’m honest I don’t read enough poetry. I tend to read books more than verse. But when I do read it I like it. I particularly like poetry that tells stories and also poetry which rhymes – especially Philip Larkin, though I won’t quote my favourite poem, This Be The Verse, since this is a family publication. He was a Conservative of course, as was my other hero, the painter LS Lowry. That’s an unwritten story – the importance of conservatism in 20th century British art.

    And again work was important Lowry actually began doing pictures when he was collecting rents in Manchester. Thinking about it, Lowry and Larkin, working in the library in Hull, might almost be the embodiments of my apprenticeships agenda.

  • Amazon’s next prey: the hairdressing industry

    Amazon’s next prey: the hairdressing industry

    Georgia Heneage

    The ubiquity of the tech giant Amazon has been the melody of the past decade – a thumping tune which industries have had reluctantly to begin playing to. In its infancy, Amazon monopolised the book market, food retailers, clothing stores and homeware shops (or almost anything you can think of which they sell on the website).

    Then the company, founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, began reaching further afield: by 2005, Amazon Prime has drowned out shipping companies and trodden on Hollywood film studios; meanwhile, Amazon Web Services, founded in the early 2000s, is now used by the likes of Netflix, Slack, Dropbox and Pinterest. The corporation also has its own broadband services, home security and prescription-drug distribution. For good measure, it also designs clothes and manufactures hardware.  

    Amazon has gone far beyond its original vision as an online retailer. It has now become an economic eco-system in its own right, and has in the process made it difficult for smaller companies to have a foothold in their relative markets. It’s a process of business manipulation: independent merchants are forced to sell on Amazon’s platform at competitive prices – competing against Amazon products which are cheap to make and cheap to sell.

    In February, Bezos announced that third-party businesses in the US had sold ¢1bn products through Amazon’s marketplace. They currently have around a 50% share in the US Ecommerce market, 350 million products across its marketplace and an annual net revenue of around $400 billion.

    It’s actually pretty difficult to think of an area which Amazon hasn’t infiltrated. Perhaps it’s those sectors which haven’t yet been touched by the digital world – such as walk-in shops. But even there, Amazon has set its sights in recent months on grocery stores and have opened up a few in London already. Amazon Go convenience stores are the very definition of contactless: the goods you pick from the shelves are billed directly to your Amazon account without even needing to queue for a till.

    But perhaps the most surprising sector which Amazon is edging towards is hairdressing. The tech titan announced the opening of its very first salon in Spitalfields market in east London; at the moment it’s open for use for Amazon employees only, but in the coming weeks customers will be able to enter the tech haven that it promises.

    True to its name and nature, the 1,500 sq ft Amazon Salon is a case in technology experimentation: machine-learning will analyse what products customers would prefer, and augmented reality technology will allow them to see what they would look like with different colours or hair styles before the fatal cut. Sensors on products – “point-and-learn” systems – will be able to detect when someone points at an item, and they’ll show example videos on a screen above the shelf. Like the Amazon Go stores, people will be able to order beauty products via a QR code on their phone. And, during the cut, customers are offered entertainment provided by Amazon Fire tablets. It’s the full Amazon experience, you might say. All that’s missing is an Amazon drone taking birds-eye pictures of your hair-do.

    Amazon Salon strips away the bespoke element of many independent hairdressers:  it’s coupled with Amazon Professional Beauty Store, which gives at “wholesale pricing and invoicing, no minimum order value, fast delivery and more”. Well, we know how that story spins out.

    The amalgamation of technology with hairdressing is a curious mix – but one which was, perhaps, inevitable. Yet hairdressing is one of those industries which thrives off human-to-human contact, and the worry may be that it’s a slippery slope from sensors and screens to fully automated hairdressers, which in turn raises ethical questions over what it will do to the industry and the workers in it at large.

    But taking a few steps back, the current state of play is that Amazon Salon has partnered with a real-life salon and real-life hairdressers, so these fears may be yet misplaced. What do hairdressers on the ground think about these developments?

    Ola Goldsmith, who runs her own salon and hair extension training academy Naked Weave, sees the introduction of the tech giant into the hairdressing space – “which isn’t even their specialist area” – as a “catch-22”.

    “It does feel like they are trying to take over,” says Goldsmith. “The technology is obviously really exciting and we all want the industry to develop, but it would be nice if it developed in a way that was accessible to independent businesses.”

    For Goldsmith the real “worry” would come if Amazon were to open a franchise and swamp smaller salons who can’t afford to get access to the kinds of technology they were adopting.

    Goldsmith is also optimistic, however, that the Amazon Salon won’t spread past being a “tourist attraction” which people visit once (“like the Harry Potter world”) then tick off their bucket-list.

    “Hairdressing is a really personal thing,” says Goldsmith. “It’s all about your relationship with your stylist, not the technology. It feels like Amazon are opening up a museum for hair, and I think people will crave that.”

    Perhaps then, this is the experiment that might finally show Amazon up to be not quite so invincible. But if the past ten years is anything to go by, there are fears that this Covid-wrecked industry is about to be hit again.

  • Robert Golding on the profession of literary agent

    Robert Golding on the profession of literary agent

    Robert Golding

    Whenever someone finds out that you are a writer, one of the first questions you’ll be asked is whether you have an agent. I remember when I first started out asking the historian D.R. Thorpe, who combined his writing with teaching at Charterhouse, what his advice was and he said without missing a beat: “Get an agent.”

    For writers, this advice is still regularly proffered though it might be that the business has moved on quicker than people realise. Many publishers I know prefer agentless writers – who are less hassle to deal with – and there are also many writers who prefer to deal directly with publishers themselves.

    At the outset of my career, I thought it would be a good idea to do some work experience in a literary agency – I imagined myself a sort of mole, checking out the lay of the land for when my own books landed on their desks. In those days – as today – the focal point of the office was the dreaded slush pile which all writers dread – a pile of manuscripts about a mile high, where soon-to-be-rejected writers queue up to be read.

    I was directed to that pile on the first day, and did indeed reject several novels, always trying to offer advice, and always with a heavy heart. It was a strangely moving experience, and testament to the sheer amount of creativity out there.

    Of course, to would-be writers the literary agent is invested with the almost awesome power of getting you published or not. But the reality of a typical agency brings you very swiftly down to earth, for this is a profession which is struggling and should only be entered into with care. The business model of taking a cut of authors plainly only works in those small handful of writers – JK Rowling springs to mind – when sales are considerable. But nowadays, with enough space in the public consciousness for a handful of hit books per year, the take home pay isn’t likely to do much more than keep the wolf from the door, and sometimes not even that.

    The business has also suffered reputational damage. A few years back, The Times conducted a sting, when it sent out the opening lines of Nobel-winner VS Naipaul’s In A Free State with the character names changed to most of the leading literary agencies and received numerous rejections, with only one of them noticing what had been submitted.

    These worries pertain today. The novelist Jayne Watson whose brilliant novel The Anarchist’s Exchange is published by Northside Press in 2022, experienced numerous frustrating knockbacks for her novel: “I’ve got so used to agents’ praise of the writing, the characters…..BUT (fill in as required from the usual responses re ‘didn’t fall IN LOVE with it’/‘not wasn’t PASSIONATE enough about it to offer representation’ and, slightly oddly: ‘I don’t have the right brain for it.) You can feel her frustration hasn’t been entirely alleviated by the fact of being published.

    That’s partly because there’s a suspicion that the rejection process isn’t particularly rigorous or fair, and can simply be vaulted by ‘knowing someone’. The literary agent accordingly is a profession that appears to have lost some of its glamour – beyond the more general glamour of being a part of the literary scene, which in any case is increasingly depleted as people read less and less.

    One sign of the times is the number of side-hustles which have grown up with the clear purpose of making sure the agencies, even the bigger ones, remaining solvent. There are the writing courses conducted by Curtis Brown, for instance, where the model is take money off would-be writers, usually on the back of advertising (limited) exposure to big name writers on the agency’s list. 

    Similarly, an agency like Northbank Talent has pursued a hybrid model and is now as much a speaker’s agency as it is a literary agent. This business, invested in by Luke Johnson and run by Diane Banks, has attracted Sir Anthony Seldon and Iain Dale, both friends of this magazine, to its books.

    But most of all you just have to visit the offices of these places to feel that it’s not exactly an industry with the wind in its sails. Curtis Brown, for instance, though it has a certain power within the industry, feels like a rundown solicitor’s office. Its star agent, Jonny Geller, who represents the likes of William Boyd and the late John Le Carré, can sometimes give the impression that he, and not Boyd and Le Carré, wrote their respective oeuvres.

    The problem we appear to face is that our literary culture is antithetical to the creation of serious literature. This has made the main commercial houses extremely vulnerable to the rise of independents such as Fitzcarraldo Editions, Black Spring Publishing, Galley Beggar and many others. Part of the strength of these lists is that they’ve lost faith in the literary agents’ handling of the slush pile and have sought to cut them out.

    And writers are beginning to catch on. The American novelist John Updike famously got by without an agent and there are many writers today who wonder aloud whether the 20% on everything sold is really earned. So while the profession has its attractive aspects – not least the possibility of reading a lot, and spending time with some interesting people – it’s now a profession to be entered into with the utmost caution. 

  • Ronel Lehmann on Maison Francois: ‘Fabulous French without tears’

    Ronel Lehmann on Maison Francois: ‘Fabulous French without tears’

    Maison Francois: ‘French without tears’, Ronel Lehmann

    I stumbled across Maison Francois quite by chance whilst en route to St James’s Square – but then I never expected to become a publisher either. I wondered when I booked a table whether French cuisine was really coming home during the delayed Euro football championships, and whether the chef would prove a real striker.

    The first thing that captivates your view on entering the restaurant is the incredible expanse of space, more Danish in design with high ceilings, minimalist clean lines and bright natural lighting. The receptionist took my coat, I thought to myself he resembled a stricken player, limping and sporting crutches, following an ankle injury.

    I had asked for a corner table so that I could hear my colleague properly after the solitude of remote-working during the pandemic. Surprisingly, I was shown to a great quiet table without drama. As I sat down to some sparkling water, I noticed that there was no blaring music. I liked this place already.

    My thoughts turned to old friends who had recently departed, including Jeff Katz who once wrote to me: “I read your restaurant reviews over the weekend and I don’t think Jay Rayner has anything to fear.” I also recalled Jonathan Evans who felt crestfallen when I referred to Carol Leonard as “the doyenne of headhunting,” when he felt that this honour was his alone. Jonathan and Jeff will always be doyens to me.

    I always like to make my choices quickly, to get on with the business of the day

    I could see that my companion had arrived and was liking the ambience and feel of the restaurant. Before we launched into our own agenda, we both declined the breadbasket and wine in favour of remaining healthy and studied the menu. I always like to make my choices quickly, to get on with the business of the day, rather than salivate endlessly over the specials. 

    Our waitress was extremely attentive and friendly. I remembered Terence Rattigan’s play French Without Tears. The action revolves around a group of male friends who have been sent to a ‘cram school’ in France to help prepare them for their exams. But the boys are more interested in chasing girls than learning French. After a few exchanges and extended pleasantries including about how long the restaurant had been open, she took our orders.

    We both elected for celeriac remoulade, served in the traditional style, the tanginess of the Dijon mustard mayonnaise offset by lashings of watercress and capers. Even though I had some cold leftover chicken in my fridge at home, I ordered Poulet Rôti, fines herbes with mashed potato and a salade verde maison. I had a choice between breast or leg and elected for the latter. My guest selected the halibut, haricot blancs, sauce aux moules. Presumably, it was really the best catch of the day, and I did not need to enquire about whether it was enjoyed, as both our plates had been fully devoured. 

    Puddings were proffered and because we had been good and not taken the bread, both of us felt obliged to at least look. It was a supremely difficult choice between baba au rhum tarte tatin, tarte aux fruits de saison gâteau à la cerise, crème caramel, Paris-Brest aux noisettes, éclair au chocolat, tarte au citron vert et noix de coco, macaron à la vanille et caramel, truffes aux cacahuètes, madeleines à la pistache, dark chocolate shards, so we requested a scoop of sorbet each, white peach and strawberry.

    I then asked for an extra scoop of chocolate ice cream with my white peach. I was not being greedy, just seeking contrast in the taste. Three iced bowls arrived on the table; the chocolate scoop was shared. 

    A small mix up in the coffee order resulted in an expresso being dispensed and then hastily taken away in favour of a filter coffee. I could not fathom a decent excuse to order a glass of Château Villefranche Sauternes, before leaving.

    On the way out, we agreed this should be our new meeting place as we bade farewell to the receptionist and hoped that it would not be too long before he is off the bench. 

  • Dana James-Edwards on what Obama can tell us about diversity and inclusion

    Dana James-Edwards on what Obama can tell us about diversity and inclusion

    When I was growing up, I heard the words, “You can be whatever and whoever you want to be” all the time. But a part of me never truly believed it until the moment Barack Obama won the US election. Here was someone who while highly educated, was not from a particularly wealthy background and had the same colour skin as me, holding the highest office in the United States of America. Some might even say the most powerful position in the world. I was elated. However, my feelings of achievement and pride were coloured by some of the media and social media coverage and commentary at the time. 

    I watched aghast as he was called a Nazi, a monkey, and depicted as an African witch doctor complete with grass skirt. I remember deactivating my Facebook account to take some time off social media in the wake of his election, because every time I logged in I would see something about the desperate need to pray for America in the hands of Obama and how the country was going to be ruined under his leadership. I got angry at those making the comments and false assertions, but will admit that a part of me was also cross with Obama himself.

    “Why isn’t he fighting back?”, I thought. “He has all of this power and all of this reach and access to resources. Why isn’t he using it to quash all these aspersions!”, I grumbled to anyone who would listen. I watched the mudslinging happen again and again across his first term, and a myriad of indignities and injustices unleashed not just against him but against his entire family, and it made me more and more enraged. 

    Then, during his re-election campaign I remember Michelle Obama saying, “When they go low, we go high”. And I heard her. Because she was right. Going low is easy. It’s what you do when you feel pain and rage and want revenge. Looking back, every time I wished the Obamas would go low, I was coming from a place of fury. I wanted the people taking away my sense of pride and spreading misinformation couched as fact, to be punished. I wasn’t thinking about what the effects of the Obamas unleashing that anger would be in the future and what message it would send. I just wanted someone to pay in that moment, and no good action starts in that space. 

    The Obamas, I think, knew that while a temporary release of anger in public might feel good in the moment it would overall do more harm than good. They had to think longer-term. In addition, they had the eyes of the world on them. Some, just waiting for a misstep that they could spin and amplify. They also had a generation looking toward them as role-models, just as I was. By taking the high road they maintained their dignity while in office and protected their legacy in a way that still enables them to be seen as exemplars today.Had they gone low it would have just been more fuel to the fire, and they would have played into the trope of the ‘angry black man’ and ‘angry black woman’ that still exists and continues to surface negatively today.

    What is important to note is that Michelle Obama never said that taking the high road is easy, and exempts you from the pain and anger that arises when others are hurtful. But she did say that you feel the pain and hurt, and rise above it, which I think is something that we can all continue to learn from. 

  • The Industry 2.0: Journalist aspirants rival bankers for drama and drive

    The Industry 2.0: Journalist aspirants rival bankers for drama and drive

    Daphne Phillips

    I recently enjoyed the BBC’s new drama Industry, in which we follow five graduates that vie for a permanent job at the fictional investment bank, Pierpoint. The clashes, the deceit, the egos and the excess draw you into their storm in a teacup. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that none of this rivals the tempest that gathers around graduates trying to break into the world of journalism.  

    Being one of them myself, and on one of the most competitive and well-respected journalism courses in the country, I can say with confidence that they’re a maverick and driven bunch. Since we spent last semester enjoying in-person teaching but with very little social life outside of the course, the long days, intensity of work and shared dream have led to a sense of village community. 

    But as with any village, there is also drama and intrigue. There has been suspected ‘ideas stealing’ and the reckonings to follow. Meanwhile, the psychological warfare of group chats reveals how many grad schemes and jobs people have applied for. 

    Some want to infiltrate, investigate, and expose terrorist organisations, whilst others are fiends at trawling through suspicious MPs’ expense record. Others just want to write about cricket. There is depth and there is range to their pursuit to make a living out of words. 

    Then there is the world of freelancing – like banking, one with its own quirky words and rules. Freelancing can be very rewarding and is an excellent way to introduce yourself to publications you one day hope to work at full-time. It is also another way of quantifiably comparing yourself to your journalist peers. Some will already be working on documentaries; others are writing features for national outlets; and the relentless Twitter stream can all seem a bit much sometimes. 

    Investment banking may be competitive, but it’s got nothing on journalism. More graduates than ever are interested in journalism as a career-path, and unfortunately there are fewer jobs waiting for them. The result is a highly competitive but undoubtedly exciting atmosphere.  

    Photo credit: Austine Distel on Unsplash

  • Douglas Pryde on how mentoring helped him find success in the pensions industry

    Douglas Pryde on how mentoring helped him find success in the pensions industry

    The pensions industry is very similar to the thoroughbred horse breeding industry in that both businesses are long term industries which tie up a lot of long-term capital.

    With the thoroughbred horse you breed the best with the best, and hope for the best.

    When I started my business life as a trainee inspector (salesman) with Scottish Equitable in 1974, I was hoping for the best. The Edinburgh-based insurer had an excellent pensions pedigree and a long-term goal to breed their own sales force to acquire business levels to support their ambitions to be a major player in the pensions industry.

    The Scottish Equitable had developed a structure, a training manual and programme with a training manager in situ to recruit and develop staff replacements for staff who left from a pool of trainees.

    Aiden O’Brien operates a similar programme so that when a Galileo son retires to stud, he is replaced by another son of Galileo.

    Aiden’s strategy works because looking at past performance Aiden has won eight Derbys and countless numbers of group one races including the Prix de L’arc de Triomphe.

    I was recruited with others and sent into training with John M McKay, the Glasgow manager who was an Edinburgh man and like Prince Philip, a Royal Navy man.

    McKay treated all his sales staff as officers and for four years guided me through my apprenticeship.

    McKay sent me on sorties to friendly insurance brokers to deliver quotations and collect new business for me to see what was involved.

    Please remember that senior officials wore bowler hats in these days to appointments and there was no such thing as a dress down Friday. McKay insisted that our appearance was appropriate for the job consisting of a pressed dark suit, shirt and dark tie and black polished shoes.

    McKay would tell us all at branch sales meetings to get our hair cut once a week and polish our shoes every day. Shoe polish with a brush and duster was available in the gents’ toilets.

    The discipline and organisation of being in the right hotel worked for me just as it does for racehorses. A coordinated training programme works for the young trainee inspector, so this inspector has much to thank his mentor John M McKay for.

    Four years in Glasgow under McKay tutelage was essential and rewarding for me and Glasgow was a nursery for the big branches in the South of England and London.

    McKay would organise training days on a regular basis and extra days if needed. McKay’s training days were conducted jointly where he would accompany me to see banks, building societies, CAs, lawyers and insurance brokers.

    After each call a kerb side sales debriefing would follow, a bit like when a horse trainer speaks to a jockey after a race to establish what can be learned from a race.

    My senior colleagues in Glasgow branch thought it was fun because I kept Mr McKay out of the office all day and out of their way. 

    After leaving Glasgow branch, I was promoted to Liverpool and returned to Edinburgh before joining Scottish Widows as assistant marketing manager for pensions. I left Scottish Widows to set up as an IFA in 1987 just before October ’87 financial collapse when equities fell by around 33%. My timing might have been better.

    My IFA business grew using organisational skills and by relying on people and not computers, just as McKay had taught me, to expand the business.

    When the business was sold in 2018, funds under management were about £200 million, not bad from a standing start. It is said that this could not be achieved today because of the obstacles to business with Government obstacles imposed on the financial service business.

    I do not dress down Fridays when on business because to be part, you must look the part.

    Mentors work in all types of business. I was lucky and as my golf partners would say, it is better to be lucky than good and you need to bounce over bankers and not into the sand, and a good pedigree helps.

    Douglas Pryde is a Finito mentor

  • Chloe Ward: the publishing sector is now the preserve of a ‘privileged few’

    Chloe Ward: the publishing sector is now the preserve of a ‘privileged few’

    Chloe Ward

    The publishing industry is crucial to society. It gives us new perspectives, encouraging much-needed understanding of the world around us. The content being published has the power to change perspectives and narratives in real life. However, what the industry publishes is a reflection on who is purchasing that content. 

    Currently, the core audience for publishers in the UK is white and middle-class. The whole industry is essentially set up to cater to this one particular audience.

    Being mixed-raced means subjects or content in contemporary publishing that relate to my own lived experience feel few and far between.   

    I have always loved books and stories, finding it easy to be whisked away by dragons or follow heroes into battle. However, it has always felt to me like someone else’s adventure, someone else’s journey. To this day the content I consume, though wonderful, has very little to do with me or the cultures I am familiar with.

    When I started studying publishing at university, it was originally because I wanted to be the one to discover stories like those I’d loved before first-hand. However, throughout my studies, it became clear that this lack of diversity in both industry staffing and output was an issue – and not just my issue, but an issue for publishing as a whole. How much of an audience is this current industry reaching? I knew I wanted to make a change for others like me. 

    When I handed in my dissertation and final major project back in May 2020, despite the global pandemic raging on, I entered the real world with a sense of naivete about how easy finding a job would be.

    At any given time, it is difficult to get a toe in the door of the publishing industry due to its competitiveness. One role at a Big Five publisher can have over 1,000 applicants. But what made it worse was that during the uncertainty of the pandemic no one was hiring.

    I became frantic, spending hours writing and re-writing my CV. Cover letter after cover letter. Adhering to the advice of tutors to just keep on trying… and trying. Tailoring everything for each new role. Endless optimism…only to find hundreds of job rejections in my email.

    It is evident that publishing companies have put some useful initiatives in place for potential graduates, however if the industry wants to transform and diversify, it needs to make far greater and more fundamental changes. Putting more support in place for potential graduate employees is a must. Having a BAME internship available is all well and good, but when only 13%[1]of the workforce identifies as minority ethnic, this leaves a lot to be desired. The goal should be recruiting in a balanced way from all backgrounds, reflecting the demographics of real-life, to prevent gatekeeping of our published output becoming the preserve of a privileged few.

    More needs to be done by the industry once the pandemic is over to ensure that minority groups have a chance to gain employment and in turn make the change needed for a more diverse workforce. It is our job as the young voice driving the next generation to find these solutions and drive for them to be implemented; I have so many ideas and such a thirst to get going – what a difference we can make for our future. I’m excited to see the view from the other side.

    The writer is a graduate, seeking her first job in publishing

    [1]https://www.publishers.org.uk/publications/diversity-survey-of-the-publishing-workforce-2019/#:~:text=13.0%25%20of%20respondents%20identified%20as,yet%20reached%20the%2015%25%20target.

  • #Hiring: LinkedIn Expert Amanda Brown on the Rise of Social Recruitment

    Amanda Brown

     

    The term ‘social recruitment’ has gradually seeped into business language as recruitment and HR departments take advantage of social media platforms and online forums for sharing career opportunities. According to research from Cybercrew, the average amount of time spent on social media is 102 minutes a day. Sharing job opportunities on platforms where potential candidates are already active makes good business sense.

     

    Recruiting via social media helps reach a younger audience who expect a strong online presence from companies. In addition, a company may attract passive candidates who are not actively seeking new opportunities and also sharing career-related posts helps to improve the reputation a company has as an employer – their employer brand.

     

    In a hard-pressed labour market, with shortages across many sectors, from professional services through to hospitality, employers are keen to use every avenue possible to attract high quality candidates, and social media adds to the mix.

     

    Organic social recruitment

     

    The term ‘organic’ social media refers to the posting of updates to company pages and personal profiles free of charge. Simply post a description of the vacancy, accompanied by an image or video, and a link to the careers page on the website. LinkedIn and Twitter are the platforms of choice for B2B organisations, whereas Facebook pages and groups are invaluable for local jobs, and for the B2C market, Instagram may be the social media site of choice.

     

    These job-related posts can be amplified using social media advocacy whereby current employees reshare them with their own personal, online networks. According to LinkedIn, the network of a company’s workforce is 10 times that of the LinkedIn company page, and some employees may have several thousand connections.

     

    If the manager of the company’s LinkedIn page uses the ‘Notify employees’ function, employees are notified of the post the HR or recruitment department wants to share. Regular communications between the marketing department and those responsible for recruitment will ensure the jobs posts are timely.

     

    Having a current employee record a short video about their experience of working in a company is a very powerful draw for applicants and a cleverly scripted video can be reused in multiple situations.The video taken on a smartphone or, if budget allows, one that is professionally produced.

     

    #Hiring

     

    For active LinkedIn users involved in the recruitment process, adding the #Hiring outer ring to their profile picture is a simple way to indicate that there are career openings.

     

    Adding hashtags to posts is also advisable as candidates frequently use them as search terms when looking for job opportunities. It is therefore worthwhile spending time researching which ones are most popular in specific industry sectors and for different roles.

     

    Paid social recruitment

    In addition to sharing posts in the usual way, launching an advertising campaign, where adverts are listed in the news feeds of social media users, is another alternative. Using the targeting and filters available on the social media advertising platforms means that adverts are only shown to highly relevant audiences. ‘Stopping the scroll’ by using eye-catching images or video helps the advert to shine out on the screen.

     

    Another ‘paid-for’ route is LinkedIn’s jobs’ listing function which allows candidates to search for and apply directly on the platform.

     

    In conclusion, whether the organic or paid route is chosen, having up-to-date, enticing company profiles on all social media platforms is an essential part of being a successful social recruiter. Regular posting of content which demonstrates the company values their employees will help attract high-quality candidates, reduce the cost of recruitment and speed up the hiring process.