7 astute steps to successful cash flow management collaboration by an expert!

Cash is King! Having an accurate measure of your company’s cash is always critical, now more than ever. Here at Astute, as part of a new series of articles, we are sharing 7 simple steps to guide you, in collaboration with a fully qualified accountant and expert in providing cash flow advice and more to SME businesses and larger organisations.

David Thorley is an experienced, fully qualified Finance Director with a proven career in managing the financial tillers of several businesses. Together, we wanted to share his 7 steps to achieve successful cash flow management.

Over to David….

“We need a 13-week cash flow!

An all too familiar phrase that I have heard over the years from banks and finance providers and in these uncertain times an especially challenging request even for experienced number crunchers!

You can, however, meet this challenge using the following simple tips: –

1. Communication with your finance provider is crucial – whatever the reason, DO NOT make promises you know you cannot keep and DEFINITELY DO NOT say it can’t be done!

2. Very few businesses can accurately predict cash flows, but everyone can make an informed forecast.

3. The past may not be an accurate predictor of the future, but it can be an indicator! Summarise the cash flows over the previous 6 – 12 months over key headings and use for forecasting future trends.

4. All forecasting relies heavily on assumptions that identify the key sensitivities (e.g. you could be predicting quarterly rent payments being agreed to be deferred or moved to monthly).

5. Look for seasonal fluctuations in income or expenses – right now this could be forecasting recovery of previous levels of sales over a 3 to 6-month period.

6. It’s not unusual for the balancing number (to keep within the facility), to be payments to creditors and, in times of extreme cash pressure, this is inevitable; but again, communication is vital to avoid going on stop with crucial suppliers.

7. You may need to prepare more than one forecast – based on different assumptions. Again communicate the basis of the chosen forecast when it is shared.

The most important point is to always try to anticipate potential issues. Banks particularly appreciate early warnings especially if it is a potential breach of facility as it indicates a degree of control.”

Great tips so thank you David!

If you need a cash flow expert in your team, call Astute and we would be delighted to assist you.

We will be issuing more articles and tips on a wide range of accountancy, finance, HR and recruitment issues in collaboration with experts in these fields.

If you have found this article informative and helpful, please let Mary Maguire at Astute Recruitment know as feedback is always welcome. Feel free to share this article with others who you feel could find this useful.

#cashflow #CashIsKing #accountancy #finance #financedirector #cfo #financetips #BeAstute

All of us at Astute Recruitment Ltd are delighted to have been formally included as one of Derby’s top three recruitment agencies on the prestigious search website Three Best Rated!

With over 15 business awards and successful recruitment across the Derbyshire region, its great to be in our 10th year and receive this recognition.

Astute Recruitment was set up by our two founders – Sarah Stevenson and Mary Maguire, back in 2009.

Sarah had this to say, “Mary and I are thrilled to be ranked in the top three recruitment firms in Derby by Three Best Rated. To have our business featured as one of the top 3 firms cements our status as the ‘go-to’ recruitment agency specialising in jobs across finance and back office. This is brilliant news!”

Mary went onto say, “We have grown a lot – our team is expanding and we have an exciting new office move planned to further allow our team of experienced recruiters to grow. As Sarah said, to be included by leading search website Three Best Rated is amazing news and both of us and our team are delighted!”

You can view our listing on the link below: –

Three Best Rated – Astute Recrhttps://threebestrated.co.uk/recruitment-agencies-in-derbyuitment Ltd

A heartfelt message from one of our candidates during the lockdown!

“Thanks Mary for your words of support and inspiration over the past two months whilst I have been searching for a new role. Our phone conversations and your posts on LinkedIn have helped me remain positive, inspired me to reach out to others and post more on LinkedIn, they have also helped me identify my strengths and also my weaknesses.

Your fantastic webinar by Richard McCann also inspired me to build my resilience, believe in myself and also show a more caring attitude towards others. Times are tough for all of us, we need to support each other and I wish you and all at Astute all the best for the future.”

Thank you Nick, this is why our team tries so hard to offer the personal touch and genuinely tries to help people by offering support and constructive advice to help them in their job search.

A great way to end a great week!

Mental Health Week Can Your Business Afford to Ignore Mental Health?

We investigate the key impacts, costs, AND savings to companies of mental health at work.

Mental health has increasingly been highlighted as a key factor in business and employee performance, success and productivity.

This year’s Mental Health Week has special importance with the global fight against covid sars 2. Millions of workers, everywhere, across the world have been impacted.

Some working remotely, some furloughed. Some facing redundancy. Some already recently made redundant.

People’s work suroundings and working conditions have been turned upside down in just a few, short months, and whilst efforts to crank up the wheels of industry are in motion, the working landscape is likely to have been changed forever.

Nearly 1 in 7 people, almost 15% suffer some degree of mental health problems at work.

Men in full time employment are half as likely as women to experience mental health problems.

Nearly 13% of all staff absences in the UK can be attributed directly to mental health conditions.

According to research, improvements to mental health frameworks at work could equate to over £8bn in savings for UK businesses alone!

In today’s uncertain ecconomy, business owners, Finance Directors and senior management are more conscious than ever to seek good returns on investment and save money and more importantly improve staff engagement, morale and resilience.

What better way than to invest in staff?

But what are the cost benefits? How can this improve my balance sheet and company performance?

According to The Mental Health Foundation, workplace interventions including employee screening and care management strategies for those living with (or at risk of) depression was estimated to cost £30.90 per employee for assessment, and a further £240.00 for the use of CBT to manage the problem, way back in 2009 alone.

An economic model conducted in a company of 500 employees where two thirds are offered and accept the treatment, an investment of £20,676 will result in a net profit of approximately £83,278 over a two year period.

So, how can employers, HR teams, business leaders put in place policies to effectively improve employee wellbeing and mental health in their workforce?

Make it personal.

Employ personalised, tailored information for staff

Create bespoke advice specific to your staff, your business and working environment

Create risk assessment questionaires

Encourage staff to watch online seminars

Implement online workshops using experts

Use experts. You don’t have to do this alone. Use businesses like Precise HR Ltd, who can give honest, tailored advice specific to your company, workforce, industry and importantly, your budget!

The cost?

Approximately £80 for every employee, for 12 months.

The saving?

According to the Mental Health Foundation, for a company with 500 employees, where all employees undergo interventions, it is estimated that an initial investment of £40,000 will yield a net return of £347,722 in savings. Mostly due to reduced presenteeism (lost productivity caused by an employee working while ill) and absenteeism (work hours missed due to ill health).

In another article by Michael Parsonage and Geena Saini, their report highlights that mental health problems in the UK workforce cost employers almost £35 billion just 3 years ago.

They broke down the overall costs as follows: –

£10.6 billion in sickness absence;
£21.2 billion in reduced productivity at work, or ‘presenteeism’
£3.1 billion in replacing staff who leave their jobs because of their mental health.

So, conclusively, the costs of ignoring mental health for your employees, simply can’t be ignored.

More useful links for detailed reports, information and advice on Mental Health issues: –

The Mental Health Foundation

Precise Hr Ltd

The Centre For Mental Health

The UK Government’s Latest Advice on Mental Health and Wellbeing

…………. Below 2b curated…….

References

Lelliott, P., Tulloch, S., Boardman, J., Harvey, S., & Henderson, H. (2008). Mental health and work. Retrieved from gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212266/hwwb-mental-health-and-work.pdf

Stansfeld, S., Clark, C., Bebbington, P., King, M., Jenkins, R., & Hinchliffe, S. (2016). Chapter 2: Common mental disorders. In S. McManus, P. Bebbington, R. Jenkins, & T.Brugha (Eds.), Mental health and wellbeing in England: Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2014. Leeds: NHS Digital.

ONS. (2014). Full Report: Sickness Absence on the Labour Market, February 2014. Retrieved from webarchive. nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_353899.pdf [Accessed 28/07/16].

Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. (2009). Briefing 40: Removing Barriers. The facts about mental health and employment. Retrieved from ohrn.nhs.uk/resource/policy/TheFactsaboutMentalHealth.pdf

Knapp, M., McDaid, D., & Parsonage, M. (2011). Mental Health Promotion and Mental Illness Prevention: The Economic Case. Retrieved from gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/215626/dh_126386.pdf [Accessed 02/07/16].

Temporary Workers & Covid-19. We answer your FAQs

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

We have put together the most frequently asked questions by temporary workers to help you keep safe, healthy and take the best precautions in the current lockdown.

Q: What protective measures can I take to prevent possible contraction of COVID-19?

Follow the guidelines outlined on the UK Government’s website HERE.

In summary, the advice is to do the following.
· Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

· Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

· Stay home when you are sick.

· Cover your cough or sneeze by either sneezing into your elbow or with a tissue, then immediately throw the tissue securely away in a covered bin.

· Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.

· Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing. It does not matter if the water is hot or cold. The most important thing is to ensure you wash your hands for at least 20 seconds thoroughly. About the length of time it takes to hum ‘Happy Birthday’ twice.

· If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser with at least 60% alcohol. Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty. For further guidance on handwashing: https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/

· It is also a good idea to avoid close contact with people in a business setting, e.g., shaking hands. You may inform the individual that while you respect business protocol, you think it is a good idea to avoid handshaking while this outbreak is happening.

What should you do if you are currently a temporary worker for Astute Recruitment Ltd, on a temporary assignment and the following happens? Your FAQs answered.

Q: What if I test positive for Coronavirus (COVID-19)?

Do not report to work if you are on an assignment or project. Call your consultant at Astute Recruitment Ltd as soon as you practically can and let us know you have tested positive for COVID-19, and we will give you further guidance.

Your Recruitment Consultant will contact the client straightaway for you.

Q: What if I may have been exposed at my worksite to someone who tested positive for COVID-19?

Please contact the Astute Recruitment office immediately and tell your Recruitment Consultant that you believe you have been exposed at your work to someone who tested positive for COVID-19. You’ll be given further guidance. If your normal recruitment consultant is not available – please contact Mary Maguire on 07717 412 911 who will deal with this immediately for you.

Q: What if I feel sick? What should I do?

Your health and wellbeing are of the utmost importance. Contact our Astute Recruitment Head Office or your Astute Recruitment Consultant if you are sick.

Importantly;

DO NOT REPORT TO WORK
IF AT WORK, GO HOME IMMEDIATELY.
SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (Call 911)

If you are diagnosed with COVID-19, please follow all medical advice and stay home until you have recovered and have been medically cleared to return to work. Your Recruitment Consultant at Astute Recruitment will inform the client about your availability and when you are able to return to work. For the Government’s latest advice and information, click HERE.

Q: What if the client’s worksite where I work closes?

Contact our team at Astute Recruitment straight away to let them know the client has decided to close their office(s) for a ‘period of time’.

Your Recruitment Consultant at Astute Recruitment will work with the client directly to determine if your work can be done remotely and if you can do so. If remote working is not possible, your assignment or project could come to an end. This is likely to be at the client’s discretion. If your temporary assignment should be ended, our team at Astute Recruitment will do our very best to secure another opportunity for you to continue working.

Q: Will I get paid if I am home ‘sick?’

You could be entitled to statutory sick pay. Please contact our office at Astute Recruitment or your consultant direct, who will then communicate with the client directly and provide you with more information.

Q: What if I am asked to travel internationally for my assignment?

Travel is suspended to all countries noted on World Health Organization and UK Government restricted lists, which are based on the very latest government advice and alerts. This is a changing situation and countries with travel notices change often. Astute Recruitment Ltd is monitoring these notices and you are encouraged to check these too.

If you are comfortable travelling, follow the travel guidelines on the Government website. If you are not comfortable travelling, you are not required to go. Contact your Astute Recruitment Office or your consultant, and let them know that you have been requested to travel and you do not feel comfortable doing so. We will work with the client regarding your concern(s).

Q: What if the client asks me to travel domestically for my assignment?

If a business trip requires you to travel well beyond your regular daily commute, requires air-travel, an overnight stay or extended travel, and you are not comfortable doing so, please contact us. Inform your Astute Recruitment office or your consultant at Astute. Inform us that you have been asked to travel and you do not feel comfortable doing so. We will work with the client regarding your concerns.

Q: What if my child’s nursery/ school is closed due to potential Coronavirus exposure or I am unable to leave my home to go to my assignment as I have no-one to look after my child?

Currently here in the UK, the Government has instructed that only children of critical workers may be allowed to go to school/ nursery. If you are not a critical worker, your child or ward will be required to be looked after by you at home. You can see the Government’s full guidance HERE.

Explore if you have alternate childcare options. For instance, a partner, or relative, as part of your household, who could look after your child/ children while you are at work. If no one is available, contact Astute Recruitment or your consultant at Astute Recruitment, and they will work with the client to find out if any of the work can be done remotely. If not, your assignment could be ended. This will often be at the client’s discretion. Again, your consultant and the team at Astute will work with you to find another temporary assignment, based on your availability.

Q: What if I have taken a personal trip or vacation and travelled to or from another country, should I tell Astute or the client myself?

Currently, the instruction from the UK Government is that all non-essential foreign travel is forbidden.

If due to an emergency, you travelled to a country without WHO (World Health Organisation) travel restrictions, and you are not experiencing any illness or symptoms, you are not required to communicate information about your travel.

If you’ve recently visited a country or area under travel restriction from the World Health Organisation or UK Government contact Astute Recruitment or your consultant at Astute for further guidance before returning to work.

If we fail to believe we believe in failure.

Whilst Sarah Stevenson and I set up in ’09, clearly a very difficult time, we knew we were great at what we do, confident to carry this through with just Sarah’s redundancy and ultimately we believed.

In ourselves and our ability to source talented accountants for local clients.

We believed in our relationships.

We believed in our loyal clients and believed in our trusted candidates.

Here we are again. Facing a seismic shift in global wealth. But hey, ho. Confidence favours the brave!

We have not made any of our talented family of recruitment consultants redundant.

We have not shut down operations.

We have adapted to the current circumstances, found new ways of working and retained our team spirit and strength.

We continue to work with amazing people and businesses who are also finding new ways of working. New ways to ‘onboard’ new staff.

We have said we will carry on. We believe in our staff, and our clients are working with us to carry on and recruit talented people for their teams even in the current crisis.

Yes, things are different.

Yes, things are difficult.

BUT, if we accept failure is an option, failure becomes a guarantee.

Now is the time for ingenuity, bravery and spirited belief by business owners leading from the front.

If we fail to believe, we are believing in failure.

#believe #belief #BePositive #business #Strength #recruitment #accountancy #accountancyrecruitment #derby #derbyshire #nottinghamshire #eastmidlands #motivationalmondays

Remote Working. Why your team can thrive and how you can make this happen.

In the current crisis, discover how remote workers can add value in your business & how to make this happen
Change is different, but together we can adapt to new ways of working

In the current crisis, businesses across the land are struggling to keep apace with developments. Here at Astute Recruitment Ltd, we have been working on scenarios to help both clients and candidates at this unique time.

Remote working is a working style that allows professionals to work outside of a traditional office environment. It is based on the concept that work does not need to be done in a specific place to be executed successfully.

We can provide candidates for temporary and permanent work who can work remotely from home. Using Microsoft Teams, Skype and other platforms, our interim candidates can attend virtual meetings and online training sessions to enable them to pick up quickly what needs to be done.

Currently, we are working with several clients to overcome the social distancing guidelines and still enable a business to carry on.

Contact our Interim Specialists Sarah-Louise Wykes & Richard Bowe to learn more about how we can help you find smarter ways to find the staff to work remotely in interim assignments.

Why remote workers add value to your business and how to make this happen!

Remote working doesn’t lend itself to every role and business, but a lot of companies and employers are acknowledging that there are clear opportunities for working remotely to improve their flexibility and enable their staff to enjoy greater working autonomy. Less experienced, more junior employees, will benefit from more traditional hands-on supervision, training, and support. Similarly, employees whose work is highly sensitive and confidential should perhaps be required to keep their work in the office. However having partnered with several local Derby and Derbyshire businesses on key talent acquisition projects, we are delighted that large and small firms have embraced ‘on-demand, online training’. These empower their employees to access the training and development they need when they need it.

Remote working is conducive to business efficiencies and there can be significant benefits in offering employees the opportunity to find their ‘second desk’, wherever that might be!

Staff morale

No commute! Cutting out the commute can offer a huge boost to employee productivity. Without office distractions or extended coffee-break chats, staff can become a lot more efficient. It can also provide them with a greater sense of autonomy if they feel less monitored at work, which encourages job satisfaction and loyalty.

Instead of monitoring time spent at work, consider changing to alternative models where your employees’ output can be measured instead. Providing the work is being done, and their deadlines are met, should it really matter where the work is carried out, or what time of day or night it gets done?

Increased talent pool

Remote working completely transforms your talent pool when your people no longer need to live within commuting distance to the office, and can even live on the other side of the world. Recruitment suddenly just got a lot more interesting. The flip side of this benefit, of course, is being mindful of local employment laws, payroll and taxes for the country in which your new employee is based.

Bigger cost savings

Depending on how easily your business lends itself to a remote working model, you could be looking at potentially huge cost savings. If more and more of your desks are empty on a regular basis, you should consider moving to a smaller office space, or even doing away with it altogether.

Beware the loneliness trap!

A common frustration employees tend to experience with remote working is a feeling of isolation, loneliness or lack of team camaraderie. Employers would be well-served to be mindful of this, encouraging team get-togethers and frequent interaction, either in person or via face-to-face technology. Microsoft Office Teams is an excellent way of teams getting together online to share better work practices and engage socially and enjoy some team ‘banter’.

Accept there will be teething problems

As with the introduction of any new policy or business model, you should expect some teething problems. However, once things settle down and your team becomes more familiar with virtual meetings than physical ones, your business, and your staff can start to enjoy the numerous benefits remote working has to offer.

Dos and don’ts

Companies and businesses thinking of implementing remote working should:

Ensure the appropriate technological tools are in place. This includes rigid data security measures and confidentiality procedures;
Update employment contracts if needed and create a new remote working policy to help set boundaries, manage employee expectations and support all-important team culture;
Risk Management: Think about whether remote workers will need to complete short health and safety assessments for their chosen work location. Always remember that employers will continue to have some responsibility for employees’ work environments, even outside the office;
Insurances: Ensure an Employer’s Liability insurance policy is updated to cover remote working.

The ‘don’ts’:

Don’t forget to check national & international employment laws and payroll laws as relevant. (Full compliance with the employment laws in the remote worker’s location is essential);
Don’t expose the company to data breaches. Remote workers should be educated about inadvertent disclosure when working in public spaces, and the implications of taking work abroad and unintentionally transferring confidential data across borders;
Don’t treat remote workers and onsite workers differently. All staff, whether office-based or remotely working must be treated equally otherwise this could put the company in breach of discrimination laws and leave remote workers feeling isolated;
AND FINALLY, Don’t expect remote workers to be constantly logged in. Remote working culture risks blurring the line between work life and home life and could breach employees’ rights under working time laws.

Originally published on LinkedIn, March 17th, 2020 by Mary Maguire

You can view Mary’s other LinkedIn Articles HERE.

PS: Thank You!

The inspiration for this piece came from Sarah-Louise Wykes, so huge thanks to you and your husband!

In the current crisis, how to utilise remote working in your business? One of my team – Sarah-Louise discussed this idea with me and this article was born.

At Astute we constantly seek to educate and highlight the very latest recruitment trends and issues for our clients and candidates.

In the current climate – tips on how to set-up and keep an engaged workforce working remotely will be high in the minds of employers everywhere seeking to ensure their teams can and are working. I hope this article is useful and provides some inspiration to teams, employers and businesses in what are clearly difficult and unprecedented circumstances.

To survive and thrive, we need to make sure that businesses keep doing business and staff can do their jobs.

At Astute, our teams are fully briefed with candidates able to jump in and help support your team.

Your CV Profile –

Increasingly for candidates, anything that can flag a CV to a potential employer is great.

But what to include? What to specifically cite? How to keep things concise but genuinely show you have made a difference and why you stand out?

Below is part of the profile for an experienced Finance Director who Astute Recruitment has worked with for a number of years.

Experienced SME Finance Director with a proven track record of success, supporting strategic objectives with financial acumen and operational pragmatism.
Facilitated ‘fundraise’ with PE – pre and post-acquisition
Pro-active manager and influencer, empowering staff to take ownership
Providing coaching, training and mentoring to build cohesive teams and business partnering senior management.
Proven experience working alongside MDs and Senior management teams driving businesses forward
Focussed on achieving individual targets and company objectives and offering excellent relationship management skills.
Experienced in financial and corporate management to ensure the achievement of commercial goals within budget.
Extensive SME experience and management of external relationships with banks, insurers, suppliers and investors.

“Driving business projects to deliver business strategy”.

This is someone who one of our Directors has personally known for a while and who has sat on both sides of the client/ candidate fence. Their words and the way they succinctly covered their key attributes was great and we wanted to share this.

The candidate identifies specific, key deliverables and specific, defined savings they have made to the business and specific ways they have delivered success in their previous roles. They did this citing in percentage terms, the differences to the profit and balance sheet of their company. Where they had saved time – they cited the exact amount of time. They were clear that they had taken ownership of the improvements cited.

Another key part of this is to ensure that all the Job Boards you are registered with and your LinkedIn profile also all reflect accurately the most up to date version of your CV. Often we discover a candidate’s online profile varies to the latest CV they forward to us. Consistency in all things applies – especially in terms of your own candidate CV, personal profile and branding online.

For obvious reasons – we cannot state the identity of this eloquent person, as they are still in a permanent role!

Nor can we cite specific deliverables or critical success factors for confidentiality, but if you are reading this and your business needs someone like this – let our Qualified Team know and we will gladly facilitate an introduction!

We hope the above provides some inspiration for those struggling to write up / update their own profiles/ CVs.

Astute’s Team!

Richard Bowe – Senior Consultant Interim Qualified Accountancy

Tom Norton – Senior Consultant Permanent Qualified

Andy Lilliman – Recruitment Business Development Manager

Sarah-Louise Wykes – Manager, Interim Transactional Finance Staff, Part-Qualified to Qualified Accountants

Charlotte Sproat – Permanent Transactional Finance Staff, Part-Qualified to Qualified Accountants (Derby, South Derbyshire, North Leicestershire, Staffordshire, South Notts)

Debbie Jackson – Permanent Transactional Finance Staff, Part-Qualified to Qualified Accountants (Derby, North Derbyshire, North Nottinghamshire)

Astute Recruitment’s Top CV Tips To Make YOUR CV Stand Out

Here are some of the latest top tips and suggestions to help ensure your CV is destined to help steer you to the job of your dreams.

1/ Highlight your affinity with technology.

Nearly all jobs now require some interface with IT, especially jobs in accountancy, where there are myriad CRMs, ERPs and other systems which need to have their data migrated to Excel to produce the best financial reporting and analysis. One of the Big 4 firms recently stated that nearly 80% of CEO’s regard abilities around AI to be THE number one asset of a business.

2/ Showcase your SOFT SKILLS. Nearly 60% of senior leaders state soft skills as being more important than ‘hard skills’.

Examples of soft skills: –

Ability to adapt i.e. How can you embrace change?
- Think of examples where you have successfully adapted to change and include these on your CV.

Your ability to be creative in thought & deed.
- AI is only as good as the programming it has been given. It cannot ‘think ahead’. People can. The ideas of tomorrow are what the bosses of today need from their teams and employees. Highlight how you are an ‘ideas’ person and how your creativity has: –

“made positive changes in your work/ or for your team/ or in your business to the company’s performance”

Talking for Success – Ability to communicate;
- Employers now need employees who can collaborate better, build stronger relationships, motivate more effectively to ultimately drive increased productivity and performance. SO, in your CV you need to showcase your verbal dexterity across negotiation, collaboration, and presentation. Just don’t forget to listen!
- Don’t forget to include your latest Skills Learned! In your second job, you may have mastered world-class skills in the IT package of the day, but the employee of tomorrow needs their CV to show an affinity with the current and emerging technologies and software. Always showcase new skills learned over the last couple of years or even in the last few months! These new skills may be the very ones that make you stand out from the crowd and secure an interview.!

So, now you have an idea of the content for your CV – you now need to hotwire it with the ‘keywords’ that many search firms program their algorithms to pick out. Yep – your CV won’t be picked out by a human being – more likely, if you are applying to one of the larger, national and international recruitment agencies – your CV will need to stand out in a sea of applicants screened by non-human eyes.

Increasingly, even smaller search and recruitment agencies are turning to algorithms to ‘sift’ through CVs. However, at Astute Recruitment, we offer the human touch and always will, to pick up the nuances of individuals. But this point in general about larger recruitment agencies is key.

How can you ‘proof’ your CV and application to overcome these algorithms?

1/ Keywords all the way!

Not just any keywords, but the ones that are specific for the targeted jobs that you are applying for. So, if you are an accountant, make sure you include keywords relevant. So for example, if you are looking for a role as a financial accountant – keywords like Balance Sheet, Consolidations, Audit, Group Accounts may well be worth you including in your skillset! Equally, if you are a Management Accountant, keywords including Variance Analysis, Profit & Loss, Cost Centres, Cost of Sales, Gross Margin Reporting, Stakeholder Engagement may be wise to include!

2/ Softskills

Again think about the soft skills that your potential boss will be looking for… “Communication” “within budget and “deadlines”. Now for the big tip. Most people include the former – but don’t qualify what they mean. i.e. “OK – you completed X, Y, Z but how much did you bring this in less than budget?” or “How much faster did you achieve your project than the original deadline? 10% faster? 30% faster?” Define your achievements with definite numbers and percentages. Make your achievements quantifiable. Show how they are continuous and year on year rather than just something achieved several years ago in a role since which you have received several promotions.

3/ Check your profile is good on social media. (Hint: This doesn’t mean having a great photo of you at the trendiest wine bar on Instagram (unless you are going for a bar job! 😊)

Instead – LinkedIn is now one of THE main online spaces for any professional employee to showcase their skills. Use the summary field, for short, succinct snippets to showcase your key attributes in work. And to do this – again use our new friends, ‘keywords’. Keep job titles straightforward. In-house recruitment specialists, HR professionals, and recruitment agencies and search firms will conduct ‘keyword’ searches on LinkedIn to identify as narrow a shortlist with the most relevant profiles for their roles. You need to try and make sure your profile is the one that appears in their searches. Avoid glitzy, busy icons, anything too ‘random’ and ‘out there’.

Yes, you want to come across as someone with ideas and creativity of thought, but you need to also come across as someone who can fit into the professional, flexible, 21st century working world.

For personal, one on one advice about your CV, or anything to help you take the next step in your career, contact our team for

confidential and tailored advice on 01332 346 100

or by email to Mary Maguire

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Mike

16:04 13 Mar 23

Highly recommended! Josh and Sarah have been fantastic at Astute. They've found and placed me in 2 jobs now between them, both really responsive and excellent at keeping you up to speed with things. Very knowledgable about the roles and happy to talk to companies with any queries you have.

C R.

10:45 27 Jan 23

Great agency one of the best ones I've worked with! Liz has been a great help and support in helping me towards a new direction in my career life. She is very attentive and keeps me in the loop at all times! She makes the extra effort to work with my preferred requirements for work and even if it isn't completely attainable she meets me in the middle and does as much as she can to help! Also Liz is very funny might I add 😂 and I'm happy that I can now put a face to the name after all these years! Thank you again Liz for all your help and support! 😊

Christine

10:32 20 Dec 22

Josh and the Astute team was very swift to help me to find roles that matched my profile. They are really reliable and will help through every step of the recruitment process going out of their way to assist and follow up when needed. Could not find a better recruitment agency!

Helen Pinegar

16:19 18 Dec 22

Fantastic recruitment agency.. Josh was extremely enthusiastic, encouraging and clearly knowledgeable about what was needed from both the employee and the employers point of view. Extremely supportive especially in regards to interview preparation and endeavoured to procure feedback promptly. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Astute in the future to both candidates and recruiting businesses particularly for the right fit for the role!!!

Lisa Leigh

11:56 30 Nov 22

I have worked as a candidate for Astute and they have been excellent. Super friendly service and professional agents keen to fit the right person to the right job. It has been a pleasure dealing with them and I would happily work for them again in the future. Highly recommend this agency.