CONTENTS

• Weekly Tips (My Favourites by Richard Edgerton)
• Article One (Directors, What is Your Position if Your Company is in Trouble? By John Toppin)
• Article Two (How to Switch Desk Specialties by Bill Radin)
• Online Recruitment Update (Hitwise Top 10 Recruitment Sites - Louise's UK Recruiter Blog - Discussion Board Summary - Vacancies from UKRecruiterJobs - PR: Launch a Job Board In One Day)
• Don't Miss This (PR: £99 per month recruiter training programme)
• Subscribe/Unsubscribe
• Feedback & Advertising Information

Visit http://www.ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk for the latest recruitment industry jobs.

Weekly Tips

My Favourites: 

http://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/ - great site for contractor information

http://www.xe.com/ucc/ - Universal Currency Converter

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk - good place to find contractor trends/salaries

Provided by Richard Edgerton of TLP Consultancy Ltd (www.tlpco.com)

Why not submit your 3 favourite web sites. See the guidelines at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/articles.htm

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Article One:  Directors, What is Your Position if Your Company is in Trouble? By John Toppin

Most businesses in the recruitment sector, and particularly certain elements of it (e.g. property and financial) are under intense pressure right now and this will increasingly be so. If you are a director or shadow director of a limited company and your business is in financial difficulties you need to be aware of your responsibilities and the consequences of not fulfilling them.

The potential difficulties you may find yourself in personally can be drastic so the first thing you should do is to plan for your business to avoid financial problems (see my article in ukrecruiter newsletter 341 – “Is your cash flow keeping you awake at night?”)

If you think your business might be in financial difficulties or if it already is in difficulties, then read this overview and importantly, take specific advice from a professionally qualified lawyer, accountant or licensed insolvency practitioner. An initial meeting is often free. 

If your company is solvent, your legal duties as a director are owed to the present and future shareholders; however, if the company is insolvent or may be insolvent then your primary legal duties are to the creditors. This is because upon insolvency the shareholders are unlikely to have any economic interest in the company.

The offences it is possible for a director to commit under the Insolvency Act 1986 include:

Wrongful Trading
This happens where a company has gone into insolvent liquidation and before that point the directors had concluded, or ought to have concluded, that there was no reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation and they fail to take every step with a view to minimising the potential loss to the creditors. 

If directors fail in this duty they may be required by a court to contribute on an unlimited basis to the company’s assets and face disqualification as directors.

Preference
No creditor should be put in a better position than any other creditor with intent to improve that particular creditor’s position in the event of formal insolvency occurring.

The liquidator can go back up to 2 years in some cases and challenge the payment and the directors may be ordered to refund the company.

Misfeasance
A director may become liable if it is found that he has misapplied, retained or become accountable for any monies or property of the company.

Transactions at undervalue 
The directors should not allow an asset to be given away or sold at significantly less than value. A liquidator can challenge a transaction at undervalue where it is made with the intention of defrauding creditors without time limit.

Fraudulent trading
A director of a company in liquidation may face both civil and criminal liability where the business of the company has been carried on with intent to defraud creditors of the company.

This includes incurring credit knowing that the resultant debt cannot be repaid. 

What can you do as a director?

• Do not just resign; you could be making your position worse.

• Take professional advice as soon as possible. The sooner you do this, the more options are likely to be available and the lower will be the risk of personal liability. 

• Keep good, accurate, and up-to-date financial records so you can monitor exactly how the company is performing. 

• Is the problem short term or long term? Is it a large bad debt? Do you have a legal claim against someone you have not pursued? Is someone making a claim against you? Is it bad financial management although you basically have a good company? 

• Consider a financial strategy for your company. You should identify how you can reduce costs and overheads, what aspects of your business are profitable and what are not. You should consider obtaining additional finance as part of a package of other measures but only if you can be reasonably sure that you can repay it. 

• Do not continue to trade when your company is insolvent or you think it might be, unless you are certain, following proper consideration that there is a strong possibility that your company will be able to avoid insolvent liquidation and unless you can prove that you took every step to minimise the potential loss to creditors

• Do not incur further credit when there is little prospect that you can repay it. 

• Do not write cheques if you believe they will bounce. 

• Do not take deposits for orders you know the company cannot fulfil. 

•  Do not pay certain creditors in preference to others. 

• If the other directors do not agree with you, make your views plain at a board meeting or in writing. If at a board meeting, make sure your views are adequately minuted. Resigning from the board is unlikely to safeguard your position. 

John Toppin MA FCA has been involved with professional services and creative businesses for over 25 years and was formerly Finance Director at Saatchi & Saatchi and FT Knowledge. He now runs Nomizon Associates and advises the owner managers of SME professional services businesses on enhancing the value of their companies. www.nomizon.co.uk © Nomizon Associates 2008/2009

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Article Two: How to Switch Desk Specialties by Bill Radin 

If you’re recruiting in an industry that’s at death’s door and nothing you do seems to revive it, a change in desk specialties may be in order. 

You don’t necessarily have to drop your existing specialty altogether; you can keep your “core” constituency active while mining for gold in other areas. However, to get the most out of your efforts, the more concentrated time you spend on your prospective market, the better. 

As you begin the exploration process, look for a niche that draws on your existing assets, such as your database of candidates and companies, plus your industry knowledge and technical expertise. For example, if software developers are no longer in demand, there may be a market for software sales managers. If no linkage to your assets can be found, then you may be forced to rebuild your desk from scratch. 

To increase the odds of a successful transition, consider the following tips:

1. Find a niche that’s in demand, not only now, but promises to be in the future. The last thing you want to do is reinvent yourself all over again in two or three years.

2. Make sure you have some degree of affinity for the population you’ll be mingling with, and at least a modicum of interest in the new field’s technology, skill set or culture. It’s hard to be an advocate on behalf of an industry—or a candidate population—that leaves you cold or makes you feel uncomfortable.

3. Don’t expect instant success. It takes time to learn the nuances of a new desk specialty and reach the point when the pieces begin to fit together. It’s been said that a prospect needs to be contacted six or seven times before any sort of name recognition or rapport can be built. 

4. Remember the basics. Your primary objective is to arrange sendouts, either by candidate marketing or by writing job orders. The more interviews you set up, the faster you’ll get your production on track.

5. Stay focused. If you wander in too many directions, you’ll end up with a Balkanized desk, comprised of disparate candidate and company populations that have no common language. The trick to desk specialty management is to keep your nose to the scent of new business, without taking too many forks in the road.

Bear in mind that the fundamentals of the business will remain constant, even if you switch your desk specialty. If your technique is sound, you’ll make progress quickly, provided there’s business to be found in your new area of interest. However, you might want to brush up on (or rehearse) your marketing presentations and recruiting calls before you start making calls to new prospects. Your seniority in the old specialty may have masked weaknesses in technique, and if you’re starting fresh, you’ll want to make a good first impression, even if you have many years of recruiting under your belt. 

Bill Radin is a top-producing recruiter whose innovative books, tapes, CDs and training seminars have helped thousands of recruiting professionals and search consultants achieve peak performance and career satisfaction. Please visit Bill online at www.billradin.com.  

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Online Recruitment Update  (This section is sponsored by http://www.1Job.co.uk; "the leading UK job search engine")

UKRecruiterJobs: Traditional, On-line and Corporate HR Recruitment Job Board 
For the latest job opportunities in recruitment or to find recruiting professionals, go to www.UKRecruiterJobs.co.uk.  Here is a selection of the latest vacancies on the site:
- Recruitment Consultant for Secretarial Desk
- Accountancy Recruitment Consultant
- Recruitment Consultant - Procurement, Supply Chain and Logistics 
- Compliance Recruiter into Industry
- Recruitment Consultant - Digital Desk
These are just a few of the jobs on the site.  Visit www.ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk to browse or search the database.  For information on posting vacancies to the site email info@ukrecruiterjobs.co.uk or call us on 0845 004 1717.

Hitwise top 10 Recruitment Sites, week ending 17th January 2009
The most visited UK recruitment sites last week, starting with the most popular, were www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk, www.reed.co.uk, www.jobs.nhs.uk, www.totaljobs.com, www.jobsite.co.uk, www.linkedin.com, www.monster.co.uk, jobs.guardian.co.uk, www.tes.co.uk and www.jobrapido.co.uk. For more information about Hitwise, visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk

Louise's UK Recruiter blog
Since the last newsletter Louise has posted the following: 
- Innovantage - Enabling Intelligent Recruiting
- Forty Per Cent of Workers Lacking Loyalty
- Victim of CV identity fraud gets locked up
- Recruiter Poll - Reminder
You can read Louise's UK Recruiter blog at http://ukrecruiter.typepad.com  You can keep up to date with other recruitment blogs from the UK via the UK Recruiter blog watch page at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/blogs.htm.  

Discussion Board Summary
Don't forget to visit The Discussion Board. Current topics on the site include:
- Terms - Rebate
- Professional Indemnity
- How is it so far
- Corporate hospitality - What do you do?
You do not need to be registered to post or view messages on the discussion board.  Any postings you or anyone else makes will be included in the weekly digest (sign up for the digest here). Visit the site, ask questions and share your knowledge.  

Press Release: Launch a Job Board In One Day 
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leverage industry contacts, build a proprietary database of contacts that will grow and stay and earn a piece of the £4 billion per year that is spent on on-line recruiting. View Demo: http://demo.jobboardmount.com and packages & pricing info: http://www.jobboardmount.com/cm/pricing" 

This section is sponsored by http://www.1Job.co.uk; "the leading UK job search engine"

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