Shaping Your Success September 2023

Welcome to autumn and the September edition of our monthly newsletter!

This month we explore ways in which you can shine as a new starter in the world of hybrid working and help you hit the ground running.

In our Meet the Team series, it’s time to introduce you to Hannah. Hannah has been part of the VWA team for almost 7 years now and is our incredibly knowledgeable Research Manager. Discover what a typical day as a Research Manager at VWA looks like whilst learning some very important personal facts!

Also this month, having been by turns a VWA temp, a client, and now a VWA consultant, Co-MD, Nick shares his thoughts on the world of temping and the beautifully symbiotic relationship between temps and clients.

Finally, please do check out some of our latest live vacancies – is your next challenge awaiting you there?

Grab a cuppa and read on!

How to Shine as a New Starter in the World of Hybrid Working

Getting started in your career can simultaneously be hugely exciting and extremely daunting! There has been a notable shift in the market post-pandemic with greater flexibility, more hybrid working and changes in the work culture. Whilst this flexibility carries with it so many positives such as enabling a better work/life balance, new starters should be aware of a greater need to be proactive in their communication and work harder to build relationships with their new colleagues.

In this article we catch up with Associate Consultant Abi who began her career during the pandemic, having completed her MA in Anthropology in 2021, via remote learning. After graduating, Abi began her career with a PR firm before joining VWA in May 2022. Drawing on her personal experience and her expertise as a Consultant, Abi has shared some great advice on how to approach those early days to help you get off to a positive start from day one.

Click on the image to take you to the full article:

Meet your VWA Consultants - Research Manager, Hannah

Get to know our experienced and dedicated team of consultants better with our Meet the Team series. Each month, we will be sharing a little Q&A with a member of the team so you can see, we really are a friendly bunch! This month, let’s find out more about Research Manager, Hannah!

Temps: Whose Lifeline Is It Anyway?

Having been by turns a VWA temp, a client, and now a VWA consultant, Co-MD, Nick shares his thoughts on the world of temping and the beautifully symbiotic relationship between temps and clients.

I’ve always had an affection for temps, and not just because in a former life I was one myself. Having decided at the age of 8 that I wanted to be a barrister (precocious I know, but I was seduced by the wigs), and years later realising, after scraping a dubious pass in my GDL, that it wasn’t quite for me (wigs were conspicuous by their absence, and you need a brain the size of Plymouth), I signed up to VWA. I fell into temping to see what was out there, and performed the usual gamut of roles, from facilities, to admin, to reception, to assistant, before landing on my feet as part of a dynamic HR department. Although now in a fixed role, I was responsible for the temps the company used, and so maintained my involvement with that community.

By then I’d realised: temping rocks!

I’d reached that conclusion some months earlier. The support of the VWA Consultants who found me work and pushed me to challenge myself, as well as the outgoing HR Assistant who saw me temping in different departments and encouraged me to apply for his role, cemented my vision of what temping is; it’s a lifeline.

For a long time I thought it was primarily a lifeline for candidates.

If you are a “good soldier”, e.g. prepared, turn up on time and properly dressed, take things in your stride, get on with what’s asked without ruffling any feathers, are proactive etc., it’s breezily meritocratic. You get noticed. People start to see you as capable of more, even as a potential hire. Your experience grows over time, making it progressively easier to get work, and your income rises accordingly. Suddenly you’re not a penniless former law student, or an actor who doesn’t know where next month’s rent is coming from, or a young parent who needs flexible working. You have options.

As my time in HR progressed, I worked out that temps were a lifeline for their clients as well.

It has remained so since I moved inhouse at VWA. Permanent searches, with their fixed candidate profiles, multiple rounds of interviews subordinate to fluctuating schedules, and extra administrative steps, routinely mean needing the easy help of an interim temp. All too often that temp, whose CV might never pass muster as a perm, sets the standard by which the perm candidates are measured. The same goes for temps who make frequent return visits for sickness and holiday covers. It’s not unusual for clients to want to secure them so far in advance it’s impossible to say if they’re free or not!

Each temp has a story.

Many are subsidising their vocations or saving up for a specific purpose. Some have personal commitments which render them unsuitable for permanent roles. Loads, like me, just don’t know what they want to do next. Each temp starts with no experience and grows from there. And each client, regardless of whether they’re inclined to give a temp their first break, or only take them after someone else has, knows a temp who made their lives much easier. It’s a symbiotic relationship. A lifeline that flows two ways. And thanks to temping, I discovered the job I love is making it happen. Shame it doesn’t come with a wig…

Nick Coleridge-Watts

What our clients say…

Latest vacancies

Check out some of our latest vacancies below:

To find out more about these and our many other exciting and varied roles currently live, please click on the image or visit our website:

https://www.vwa.com/jobs

?You can also send us your applications, or reach out to the team at?[email protected] ?- we look forward to hearing from you!