20% of people who responded to a survey from Inventium admitted to lying about their age and qualifications or their previous jobs and why they left them. Some even presented supporting documents that that didn’t belong to them. It’s clearly a commonplace scenario as nearly 70% of those surveyed admitted they had lied, or been tempted to lie, on an application form or in an interview.

And it seems that people in creative industries such as media and design are the most creative with the truth: 28% claim to have used material in their portfolios that wasn’t their own work.

For employers this is a major problem: the cost of recruitment and induction for new people is high – if there’s a prevalent tendency to lie about skills, capacities and experience, that already high cost ends up being doubled as the chosen candidate turns out not to be suitable or unable to cope with the role they’ve lied to get.

GH Smart’s Who: The A Method for Hiring is a way of dealing with this issue. It offers a structured framework within which recruitment works to find and keep the best staff for your organisation. It begins with making a scorecard that outlines key objectives and explains the job.  Then a list of key competencies is created – this is the skill-set necessary for an candidate to be good (not just able but good) at the job. Using these two, a brief screening interview is undertaken by telephone asking four key questions:

1.    What are your career goals?
2.    What are you good at professionally?
3.    What are you not good at or not interested in doing?
4.    Who were your last five bosses and how will they each rate your performance on a 1-10 scale when we talk to them?

Those who pass the call get a face-to-face interview with questioning that unpicks areas of weakness eg asking about high and low points at school and college and in last five jobs or roles, talking about previous bosses and how they would assess the candidate and exploring goals and aims. Questions starting with ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘tell me more’ all open up areas for deep exploration. The responses can then be checked with former employers for reliability of response with demonstrates both integrity and self-awareness if the matches are good and areas of major concern if the match is bad.

Interview image courtesy of voguemarie2010

When employees lie is a post from: On Internet Business

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The recent budget slipped a little sting into its tail with the small print announcement that from 31 January 2011, standard rate VAT will be applied to postal services and goods that Royal Mail is not under a statutory duty to provide.

Competition causes costs to rise

The VAT application has become necessary because of a European Court of Justice ruling on the VAT liability of Royal Mail’s postal services. Traditionally the Royal Mail services have been VAT exempt, with other postal service providers required to charge VAT on similar services.
Now the court has decided that this historic tax break – allowable by the Revenue because Royal Mail was a taxpayer owned operator – damages competition. In a case brought by TNT, it was found that the tax exemption should not apply to items of post that are subject to competition: in other words – business post.
So while standard stamped and franked post delivered by Royal Mail will remain exempt from VAT, other items will bear the Value Added Tax cost.

Silver lining in VAT cloud

But there’s a chance to reclaim that cost. HMRC are prepared to consider any reclaim of VAT involving parcel delivery services from Royal Mail (including Parcel Force) for the previous four years on the basis of the contractual arrangements entered into with the Royal Mail while there was no VAT to pay.

One understanding of this ruling is that delivery contracts that were ‘free of VAT’ will be deemed to have an element of VAT included in the price even if no VAT was included on the invoice. So for a company that spent £1000 on deliveries by Royal Mail or Parcel Force, without being charged VAT, will deemed to have paid £175 to Royal Mail as VAT as part of that overall charge, which can then be reclaimed from HM Revenue and Customs, depending on the invoicing process and contractual arrangements agreed with Royal Mail.

Further information on the ruling and the circumstances that allow a claim can be found here.

How to reclaim VAT on Royal Mail postal charges is a post from: On Internet Business

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What is online storage?

This is exactly what it says on the tin – a facility that stores your data, encrypted, in an online location.

Why is it useful?

• Reduced risk of loss – if you lose data it can be costly to your business and irreplaceable in your personal life: having your data stored in a location separate to your physical location gives you a guarantee that no matter what happens to your home and business premises, your data remains preserved.

• Ease of access – having data stored remotely can make it easier to access it wherever you are in the world, regardless of time-zones etc.

• Storage cost – sometimes, storing large amounts of data can be prohibitively expensive, particularly if your business is growing fast and is a huge data generator.

How much does it cost?

Simple storage accounts like the Dropbox and Mozy ones are free. Each offers 2 gigabytes of space. The cost then rises according to the amount that you store and there are a range of ways to pay from the monthly account:
• (Dropbox = Pro 50 (50 GB) is $9.99 a month or Pro 100 (100 GB) is $19.99 a month
• Mozy = £4.95 per month regardless of storage capacity used.
Through to the annual payment option:
• Carbonite = £41.95 per year per computer, unlimited capacity or 2 years for £75.95.

What are the differences?

Dropbox – allows you to sync files of any size or type. Work on files even if you’re offline. Sharing files and folders lets several people to collaborate. 30 days of undo history, with unlimited undo available as a paid option. Free Dropbox application for iPhone, iPad, and Android.

Mozy automatically backs up the files whenever changes are made and only backs up data that’s not already been backed up.

Carbonite users are given the option to manage their own encryption key and can store as much data as there is on any computer. However, they say that current DSL and cable internet services may make it unfeasibly slow to back up more than a few dozen GB of data.

Free storage without strings – if you’re looking of an effective way of sharing and storing documents and spreadsheets, Google docs is simple, universal and totally free.

Best online storage is a post from: On Internet Business

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Like many people over the past few weeks, I’ve received the following email:

Dear Principal,

Auditing Department

What is the Asia Domain Name scam?

First, nobody has been in touch with Mr Yue, wanting to register a domain name just like mine. These emails are sent out by their hundreds of thousands to businesses across Europe and the USA from addresses in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Second, there’s no need to deal with them if you want to register domain names with suffixes (endings) outside the standard .co.uk or .com. There are reputable domain registration organisations around, and

Third, this is spam, it’s unsolicited email.

Fear = money for domain name scammers

What this scam relies on is a knee-jerk reaction from the business owner. The fear that their internet business might be infringed on by some sharper using a similar name might drive them to register these suggested names with the Domain Name Registration Service at a vastly inflated price.

There is absolutely no system for telling one company that another may be about to register a domain – domain name registration is instantaneous from the moment the registration is accepted as not already being assigned, so there’s just no way that these scammers could do what they claim. You might feel that it’s still worth it to get those domains into your own hands, but more often than not, the company will take money from you and not register the domain names. Even if they do, you’ll find you paid dozens, or sometimes hundreds more than you needed to – and nobody was trying to get them away from you in the first place! And sometimes getting access to your credit card details is all the scammer was after and your card will then be used to try and buy goods or extract cash from other businesses.

Simply google ‘Asia domain name’ to find out just how prevalent this scam is. You’ll see several sites on which you can report receiving the spam email and details of what has happened to others who’ve been unfortunate enough to respond in good faith.

Asia Domain Name Registration scam is a post from: On Internet Business

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It was all going so well. Simple, easy quick and then press the buy button and voila !

What you dont want to see when buying insurance from AXA online. is a post from: On Internet Business

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Recently I posted about Moo cards, and here’s another simple, effective idea that brings the mass-produced greetings card into the 21st century.

Touchnote is a new concept that uses digital photographs to create cards that you can quickly and easily personalise. The cards you create are then mailed out to your chosen recipients.

The system couldn’t be simpler to use, either you upload your own digital photo to the Touchnote site, or use a photo already hosted on Facebook, or pick one from their extensive gallery. Then add a personal message. Touchnote will print and post the card for you, to anywhere in the world. You can even choose to send postcards rather than greetings cards!

Not only is it a great system for the occasions we all want to send cards for: birthday cards, party invites, seasonal greetings – but it’s also a fantastic way to celebrate a one-off event swiftly, so if you have something to commemorate or celebrate you can upload a photo of the occasion and have the cards ready to wing out within a few minutes.

There are other advantages:

1. The cards cost from as little as £1.99 for 1-4 personalised cards, 5-9 personalised cards cost just £1.75 and prices descend according to the number you order, dropping to only 99 pence if you purchase 25 or more. Bearing in mind that a stamp for such a card would cost a minimum of 45 pence alone, plus the cost of the card, the time it took you to choose it, queue up to buy it, then the time to fill it in and take it to a postbox, this could actually be the cheapest, as well as the most personal and thoughtful, way to keep in touch with people.
2. Because Touchnote uses unlaminated and recyclable paper which is 75% from recycled sources and 25% from workshop off-cuts, all Forestry Stewardship Council)Chain of Custody certified, you can feel confident that it’s been responsibly sourced.
3. Touchnote is also working with ‘Excellent Development’, an environmental organisation that ensures Touchnote minimises its impact on the environment.

There’s an iPhone app, of course, so you can send cards when you’re on the move, and it’s a lot more fun than browsing a shop for something close to what you want, when you can sit in comfort and create exactly what you had in mind!

Touchnote – personalising the card industry is a post from: On Internet Business

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Apps, or applications, for mobiles are a fast growing market – the paid-for apps market includes a vast range of services from maps, recipes, clothing size convertors and train times to complex games and powerful business applications. Although iPhone is currently seen as king of apps, there are apps stores for most mobile phones and a range of apps from free, widely applicable apps made on standard shareware through to paid-for apps system-built for a specific phone.

 
Apple

Launched July 2008

Total apps on offer - 122 featured apps but thousands more to be found via search.

At the top level, the apps are divided into ‘feature’ categories like ‘going out’ ‘Moms and Dads’ ‘cooks’. There’s some overlap in categories, so you might find what you want in ‘keeping current’ which has a stock market tracker and rather than ‘work’ which has a call maker ‘idialUdrive’ which seems as useful for recreation as for work. Then there’s a separate dedicated site: Apps for Enterprise &Small Business which contains thousands of business applications.

Very easy to use, in fact it’s almost to easy to download an app! Double-click by mistake and you’re into download mode …

Crisp, well-sized images and bite-sized information make this site a pleasure to browse, and because there’s no issue with compatibility (apps for Apple’s iPhone only) the navigation is clean and swift.
 

Nokia

Launched May 2009

Total apps on offer: over 2000

Offers star ratings for apps and a simple search system but the boxy little images to accompany each app are not as enticing as the Apple site images.  Displaying in list form improves the appearance of this site.

It’s well worth checking out reviews of any apps here as several listed on the site have such awful reports on the app as to make you run away screaming!

Android

Total apps on offer: several hundred, many more free than paid for

Hmmm – no search function. When you hover over an app the full information appears above it, but without either a search function or a way of seeing reviews or how other people have rated the app, you’re buying blind. Nice range of free apps as well as paid for ones, though.
 

Blackberry

Launched April 2009

Total apps on offer: thousands

Really good categories, although there’s some blurring around business and finance, for example. Then there’s a series of sort functions, by popularity and price, that really allow you to refine your search. Massive amounts of text information and screenshots make this the site that gives most information before purchase, but actually, it’s a bit difficult to read through and a simpler system with key features and larger text size would make it more pleasant to browse.
 

Getjar

Total apps on offer: thousands

Surprisingly appealing site, with a good range of apps, although all the business ones are listed under ‘productivity’.  Has a star rating system backed up by a vast number of reviews, making this perhaps the most user-fed site of them all. Not a place for the serious business user but definitely worth browsing for more lightweight apps.

Which is the best mobile app store? is a post from: On Internet Business

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I have received this message from fellow EO member Robin Smith.

“2 years ago I created an icon to represent Dale Vince’s Green Britain campaign, it was used to acknowledge Gordon Brown’s debut as Prime Minister (“I’m all for a change of power” Dale Vince: back page Guardian). It has since developed into an identity for Ecotricity and, very recently, was emblazoned across Greenbird, the craft that broke the land speed record.

EDF, the 85% French Government owned nuclear power company, has ripped it off. They are using a Green union jack to promote Green Britain day, which is also a campaign we came up with for Ecotricity. There are posters and TV ads and even designer dresses all based on the Green Union jack. And it is making me actually feel ill. The longer it goes on the worse it gets, they are going to build and build this masquerade, knowing that they are so rich there is little we can do to stop them. They are not British and they are not green.

So, please, a favour. Complain to the advertising standards authority that this nuclear giant has stolen the identity of an independent British renewable energy company and that this is outrageous, unethical and un-British. It is an attempt to mislead the British public the company is clean, which it is not, that it is British, which it is not, and that it has climate change at heart, which it does not.

Here is the address. http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

Here is a site where you can show your support for the authentic green Britain campaign http://www.gbday.org/

If you are an EDF customer and you have 5 minutes to spare, maybe you would consider switching to Ecotricity https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/switch/step1-your-details/ which matches regional price, is british and is green and is run by a bloke who is fighting climate change.

You could also forward this mail to some friends if you think they’d be willing to help me out here.

You have the power to make change and it lives in the companies you support, and you have the power to stop huge rich political lobbyists take people seriously.

Thanks for reading and extra big thanks for acting”.

EDF pretends to be Green and British is a post from: On Internet Business

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