The Fastlaners scheme backed by the Gov aims to give graduates from working class background a two week crash course in ‘life skills’. Based at Canary Wharf, it will cover voice training, interviews and work etiquette.

Find out more here : Fastlaners

The bank says all recruits receive formal and on-the-job training and are also invited to take part in Santander’s community programme, which uses charity challenges to develop team building and organisational skills.

Applications will run throughout 2010. Visit www.santanderukgraduates.com.

The Dartmouth Apprentice is an “apprentice restaurant” run by charity Training For Life, which aims to give diners great meals while helping young people get their careers in hospitality back on track.

The charity also runs the Hoxton Apprentice in London and opens a third, the Barking Apprentice, this spring.

Call 01803 356 229 or visit www.dartmouthapprentice.com and www.trainingforlife-city.org for more details.

Another consideration for Contractors with a high level of savings is that it may now be a good time to consider an offset mortgage to make best use of your capital.

Taj Kang, Associate Director at Contractor Mortgages Made Easy commented “If you want to consider your mortgage options as a contractor then utilising the services of a Contractor Mortgage Specialist will ensure that you are speaking to experts that understand the different ways that contractors are paid.”

In other news, Nationwide have published figures that reveal house prices fell by 1% in February compared to January, ending a strong run of nine consecutive monthly increases, and bringing the average price of a typical property during February to £161,320.
The building society said the drop in demand in January caused by the end of the Stamp Duty holiday and the icy weather seemed to have fed into February’s price drop.

Jonathan Cornell, communications manager at First Action Finance, said he believed that prices would enter a steady period before picking up in the second half of the year.

However, he added: “The end of the Stamp Duty holiday and the normal slowdown around the Christmas period led to less market activity and a lack of demand. I doubt that house prices will fall off a cliff and a slight drop means the market will be better off. It is also good news for first-time buyers because properties are cheaper.”

Turning to recruitment, the resurgence in the UK economy is creating more lucrative IT recruitment opportunities for the most highly skilled of IT Contractors.

With IT investment now once again on many businesses agendas, companies are looking to hire quickly to support their objectives, which can only be good news for contractors.

This is further backed up by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation reporting that there had been an increase in the availability of IT and technology jobs last month.

This article has been published with permission of Contractor Mortgages Made Easy - www.contractormortgagesuk.com
Contractor Mortgages Made Easy are a whole of market mortgage broker who specialise in securing bespoke mortgages for contractors

In Skegness, Lincolnshire the four-storey building will include an ice rink, bars, cafes and even a erotic gentlemen’s club.

East Lindsey District Council has approved the project which will cost £7 million pounds. The jobs will be created by summer 2011. Many other contracting jobs will be available to the construction businesses involved in the project. The business responsible for the project is as yet unknown.

Playfair 2012 is co-ordinated by the TUC and Labour Behind the Label (LBL) and involves unions and various campaigning organisations. The coalition wants the organisers of the London Olympics to ensure that workers making sportswear for the 2012 Games won’t be working in appalling and degrading conditions, and that all Olympic-branded goods will be ethically produced.

The campaign website - www.playfair2012.org.uk - sets out the standards the coalition expects from the London 2012 Games organisers, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and sportswear brands, and explains how individuals can get involved in the campaign. There is also a resources section with reports and video clips.

Millions of people are employed in the global supply chains that produce kits for Olympic teams, and the sportswear and souvenirs available on our high streets. Evidence shows that the sportswear industry and Olympic movement have a poor track record on workers’ rights, says the campaign.

Playfair 2008 research published before the Beijing Games found workers employed by Adidas suppliers in China were making sports shoes that retail for upwards of £50 a pair for just £20 per month, and others working 80 hours a week stitching footballs. In another factory producing stationery, children as young as 12 years old were being forced to work 15 hours a day.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘Delivering a legacy for London was at the heart of the Government’s successful Olympic bid. And what better legacy than a commitment to end the exploitation and abuse involved in the sportswear and athletic footwear industries?

‘We want London 2012 to raise the bar on worker’s rights throughout Olympic supply chains.’

Back in October last year the FSA announced plans to ban self-certification mortgages in an attempt to ensure that all borrowers prove their ability to repay in advance.

This week, industry trade body The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) spoke out on behalf of lenders claiming that a ban on so-called “liar loans” and other controversial mortgage lending practices would backfire and have harmful long-term consequences.

The CML is asking the FSA to hold fire on plans to clamp down, arguing that the home loans market had “corrected itself” and there would be no return to the excesses of the past.
Self-certification mortgages were originally aimed at the self-employed and freelance/contract workers who had trouble proving their income.

In its response to the FSA, the CML said many of the problems of the past had been corrected by mortgage firms anyway following a rise in losses and fraud, while self-cert deals had disappeared in response to public criticism. Borrowers, too, were taking a more responsible approach.

The CML have admitted that the case for self-cert mortgages is weak, given the higher level of arrears associated with them and the scale of past abuses.

CML argue that borrowers who might be perfectly capable of running a mortgage but may find it difficult to prove their income could include self-employed people who had recently launched a business but had yet to submit formal accounts; sole traders, contractors, and freelance workers.

Taj Kang, Associate Director at Contractor Mortgages Made Easy (CMME) commented “The fact that so many self-cert mortgages were granted to employed workers who could prove their income, and the high level of arrears associated with these types of loans shows that self-certification mortgages were being abused by both individuals and brokers. At CMME, we wouldn’t advise a professional Contractor or Freelancer to go down the self-certification route; if you approach a specialist contractor mortgage broker then they should be able to secure you a competitive mortgage that is based upon appropriate evidence of income”
“It is the opinion of CMME that the FSA should stand by their proposals to tighten up the lending criteria, as any contractor or freelancer that can adequately afford a mortgage should have no need to go down the more expensive self-cert route to secure borrowing”

More likely than not, your future interviewer will adhere to the following 10 step guide:

1. Make the interviewee feel at ease on entering the room. Give a firm, warm handshake and a friendly smile. A relaxed candidate is essential if you are to get the best out of them.

2. Take notice of the body language. Does the applicant sit with crossed legs or arms, fidget or have poor eye contact? If so they may not be good for a customer facing job.

3. Is the interviewee enthusiastic? When all attributes are equal, the candidate demonstrating the most desire is the best hire.

4. When questioning the candidate, use open questions such as ‘What attributes do you think you could bring to the job’. Using closed questions with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers will teach you little.

5. Pick a general opener – very often “tell me a little about yourself” or “walk me through your CV”. This allows you to assess a range of communications skills, ability to follow instructions and the opportunity to learn about their background.

6. Identify accomplishments – find out where the candidate over-achieved or contributed something valuable to their previous employer. Keep asking until you are satisfied you have a fair reflection of their previous successes.

7. Self appraisal – ask candidates to evaluate their performance in a previous role. Learn about their ability to self-analyse, do they know their strengths and weaknesses?

8. Situational question – find out how they deal with typical situations to understand their core skills, for example ‘What would you do if the work of a colleague was not up to standard?’

9. Direct probe – assess the skills needed for the job with direct questions asking for evidence of each skill.

10. Their questions – the questions a candidate asks reveals insight to their values, goals, analytical ability and business knowledge. Watch out for those with no or weak questions (about salary, benefits, number of employees, year founded).

The good news for us is most interviewers are average. Knowing the 10 step interviewer training plan gives you a clear idea of what’s to come.

The Future Jobs Fund aims to create jobs for the long term unemployed and brings really positive news to north wales which has been hit hard recently by numerous job losses.