Congratulations to Sophie Paterson of Jenrick Commercial who is the latest winner of The Jenrick Experience, a popular wellbeing initiative at Jenrick.

For a long time, Sophie has loved wakeboarding but has always wanted to brush up on her skills and learn some new extreme tricks that she can show off to all her family and friends.

Sophie entered the Jenrick Experience asking if she could get some secret professional wakeboarding lessons to help her become a pro! And now that her name has been picked out of the hat she can now make this dream a reality.

Here’s what Sophie wrote for her entry:

To set the scene…..nearly every week-end in the summer I spend my days at a lake in Yateley, Hampshire where Chris (boyfriend) and his brother (Phil) own a jet ski and where we all wakeboard.

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Jenrick Engineering, the specialist engineering recruitment agency, is pleased to report that Toyota has announced plans for up to 1,500 new automotive manufacturing jobs in Derby.

Jenrick, from its office in Burton on Trent, has a strong presence in the automotive engineering job market, added this commentary:

“This is excellent news for the area. We’ve seen an amazing resurgence in the automotive engineering sector and this investment by Toyota will further add the long-term confidence of those skilled engineers within this industry.”

The carmaker has designated its factory, in nearby Burnaston, as the European centre for its new generation of hatchback vehicles.

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The government has pledged to invest £1.7M in the UK food and drink manufacturing sector to fund strategic skills projects designed to support competitiveness, growth and jobs.

Julie Alton, Managing Director of Jenrick Engineering, which has a specific Food and Drink Recruitment Division, commented:

“This is an excellent boost for the Food and Drink manufacturing sector. It is a part of the FMCG industry that has the potential for substantial growth, and has proved incredibly resilient throughout the current economic uncertainty.

These grants will only improve the growth prospects and employment opportunities within this sector.”

If you’d like to read the full article on Food Manufacture, please click on the following link: foodmanufacture.co.uk

If you are an engineer who wishes to explore job opportunities in the Food and Drink industry, please contact our Food and Drink career specialists, Karen Stilgoe and her team, at the Jenrick Engineering Crick Office on 01788 824 555.

ARTICLE SOURCE:

• foodmanufacture.co.uk

Jenrick Engineering, a leading recruitment agency in the Food and Drink Sector, is very pleased to report that Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), a marketer, producer and distributor of Coca-Cola products, has invested £50m in its Wakefield, East Kilbride and Sidcup manufacturing facilities, with an aim to strengthen its business while reducing the impact of its operations on the environment.

The investment includes introduction of a new £30m automated warehouse at the Wakefield bottling facility in Yorkshire.

The company said the new facility will increase the Wakefield unit’s storage capacity by 102%. The products manufactured at the site will be delivered directly to customers.

An investment of £5.4m at its East Kilbride site includes introduction of a SIDEL SB0 20, a new energy-efficient bottle blowing facility that will produce lightweight PET bottles.

The CCE has also invested in a ACMI Fenix 165 packaging machine, which removes the need to use cardboard in the packaging of multi-pack products.

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Jenrick IT is pleased to report that demand for permanent IT staff continues to grow healthily despite a slowdown in the wider jobs market, the REC’s monthly Report on Jobs has revealed.

On an index where a score above 50 denotes growth, demand for permanent IT staff was measured at 57.2 in October, the highest of any sector.

In addition, demand for IT contractors was measured at 52.1.

Responding to the research, REC Technology Chair Jeff Brooks said:

“It is striking that demand for qualified IT professionals remains healthy. It has long been clear that the jobs of the future will be in technical, highly-skilled areas such as IT.”

Further information:

If you are an IT professional seeking to advance your career, then please contact the Jenrick IT consultant team directly on (01932) 245 500 or view our current IT job opportunities and apply online.

ARTICLE SOURCE:

• rec.uk.com – The Recruitment & Emploment Confederation
  

We’ve just received some more encouraging news regarding employment and the economy, reported in the latest CBI study which surveyed almost 500 companies within the UK:

Only seven per cent of firms are operating a recruitment freeze, compared with 61 per cent during the depths of the recession in 2009.

47 per cent of employers are predicting their workforces will be larger in a year and 19 per cent predict they will be smaller, giving a balance of +28 per cent. This rises to +35 per cent in firms with fewer than 250 employees.

The CBI survey shows that jobs are being created across the private sector, led by small and medium-sized companies.

Dr Neil Bentley, CBI Deputy Director-General, said,

“It is encouraging that firms right across the UK are growing their workforces, especially smaller companies.”

ARTICLE SOURCE:

• CMI – Chartered Management Institute

We received this great little article via Linked IN, showcasing a range of cool, different and sometimes bizarre CVs and Resumes.

I appreciate that some of them may have gone too far, in order to differentiate themselves, however I do applaude the innovative approach each of these people have taken to make them stand out in, what is, an extremely crowded job hunting market.

They are great examples of people thinking outside of the norm, and genuinely seeking a way to showcase their specific skills.

Have a browse through and see if any ideas spring to mind that you can apply within your own CV and Resume:

• 14 of the coolest resumes ever

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 marks the third National Freelancers Day, organised by PCG.

Freelancers provide flexible solutions and are working hard with their clients to assist economic recovery.  In a drive to gain wider recognition for the contribution that freelancers, consultants and contractors make to the UK economy, PCG has declared 23rd November as National Freelancers Day.

National Freelancers Day will:

• Highlight this flexible, agile and expert community to UK businesses, educating on how to engage and work with freelancers to help beat the credit crunch

• Celebrate Freelancing as a valid career choice, highlighting the community and support network

• Underpin that to unlock the full potential of freelancing, Government must recognise that freelancers are in business and entitled to clear and fair taxation laws

Jenrick IT appreciates the value of freelancing and would like to show their support by sharing the following links to spread the word.

Are you fit to freelance? Why not find out in the ‘Fit to Freelance’ quiz to test your freelancing knowledge! Simply click on the link below.

• Try the ‘Fit to Freelance’ quiz

FURTHER INFORMATION

For more information on National Freelancers Day (NFD) please click on the link below.

• nationalfreelancersday.org

Jenrick IT, the award-winning IT recruitment agency, is considering a new scheme to help IT workers that have been made redundant or have lost their contract due to budget cuts.

Many such IT professionals are being told that “they have become de-skilled,” possibly due to the fact that they were supporting legacy systems.

There is nothing more frustrating both for a good agency and hard working candidates than finding no suitable roles in this current market place.

As such, Jenrick IT is currently considering an initiative to launch its very own grant programme, which would enable a limited number of IT professionals to be partially or totally funded to attend re-training programmes, to up-skill their knowledge in order to find new work opportunities.

I (Jane Stevens, specialist IT recruitment consultant)  wondered what the market thought of this proposal, whether there was a view on what amount of funding would be appropriate and whether it should be a question of candidates applying to us and then selection either by “first name out of the hat” method or whether some other criteria could be used.

Any ideas on the above would be warmly received.

Please contact Jane Stevens, Jenrick IT: 01932 245 500 – jane.stevens@jenrick.co.uk with your thoughts.

I (Jane Stevens, Specialist IT Recruiter) have written a few Blog articles recently regarding AWR (the Agency Workers Regulations) which came into affect from 1 October 2011. The Regulations have brought firmly into the spotlight the need for contractors, agencies and clients to work closely together to ensure employment legislation compliance. Often within this mix will sit umbrella companies and the need to choose the right one.

Having worked within IT recruitment for fifteen years now, I often find that contractors (especially those new to the contracting market but sometimes even more established ones) are not always fully aware of whether they are better off working through their own limited company or through a third party umbrella company and if an umbrella, which company to use.

As in any sector, you will find the good, the bad and the ugly. The challenge the contractor has is to establish the bonafide players who are able to run their contracts as compliantly as possible and therefore minimise the risk to the contractor.

To re-cap, before AWR hit, the clients were less likely to be aware of how each contractor ran their own business. Post AWR clients need to know how the contractor is operating in order to make sure they and/or the agency supplying the contractor on site are operating AWR compliantly. (more…)