M Cubed want to transform the IT staffing sector. We aim to
challenge the status quo and deliver a service that puts our clients,
candidates and employees at the heart of every decision we make and every strategy we pursue.
Owned by RDL Corporation, M Cubed is a sister company to SEC Recruitment. Owing to constant growth, the businesses have been separated to give our clients and candidates dedicated brands offering staffing solutions for both IT and Pharmaceutical recruitment respectively.
We spoke to Michele Vinciguerra, M Cubed's Divisional Manager, about recruiting within the technology market in 2019.Give us a brief overview of the types of positions that you work on and the types of individuals you work with. My team and I deal with the consulting community and end user clients in the technology space. We work across a variety of different industry verticals, such as SAP, JD Edwards, Analytics and Big Data. The individuals we place are both technical and functional specialists; with an emphasis on customer satisfaction but also stakeholder engagement skills, because they are figures who will interact with their clients at chief executive level or more. So the types of people that we work with have both a technical profile as well as having developed themselves within a consultancy environment. Our clients are constantly searching for candidates who are able to propose solutions and to put them in to practise and who are able to work with a commercially-oriented approach. Where do you see demand from employers you currently work with? There is always demand for experienced people (the sweet spot is anything more than four or five years) who have worked in different industries and on infrastructure projects in different countries. Our clients look for people with a problem solving mindset as well as candidates who take a more macro-level and global perspective to their work. A lot of the employers we work with are international organisations, but the specific areas of the business that they require our candidates to work on are with quite niche products, so when we place somebody in to a role, it is about getting the quality of the individual to fit the company culture above all else. For example, we work with global fast-moving consumer goods end users on multi-country projects and the opportunities are vast, but because of that you need to be able to fit within the organisations culture. Project work at a multinational is very different than the experience of a similar project but working for a smaller company. The project can be the same but the experience is different. What does the perfect candidate look like to a lot of the employers you work with? The ideal candidate should be passionate not only about technology but also about business; they should be able to find technological solutions to improve the company’s business - and we’re talking about global businesses that we work with - so having that commercial acumen is important but also means finding the right candidate can be more complex. At the moment it is very difficult finding people who are able to combine business and technical knowledge; there is a real candidate shortage when you are looking for people who have international experience, technical and commercial acumen and who are also willing to relocate where they’ll be working on multiple projects and will have to travel. But we have a great team who are good at selling some of the very lucrative benefits on offer so we always find a way to deliver to our customers. The bigger challenge for the Information Technology market is finding people that - in addition to technical skills - have face-to-face and relationship development skills, that are able to relate to their employer and be solution oriented. What is the best working relationship you can have with a candidate? For my part good candidates are people who are transparent, honest, focused, know exactly what they want and are clear when communicating that to us, because that sets out clear guidance for both myself and the team to be able to deliver the best possible service for them and the employer. Communication is key and providing the entire chain has it then the recruitment process can be a positive one for all involved. As the candidates representative honesty and clarity from a communication point of view help me to be a perfect spokesperson for their ambitions. It is about professionalism, focus, transparency, honesty and clarity. If all parties have that then success usually follows in my experience. What does the technology market look like in ten years’ time? Technology is constantly evolving and every day new tools appear in the market. That makes it very difficult to predict because it is not a linear process. But there are certain patterns that we’ve seen. For example it seems the sector is heading in the direction of even more artificial intelligence, or through liquid architecture and machine learning. With such an emphasis placed on AI and machine learning, the type of roles that are available in the technology space will also change. It is quite feasible to suggest that the key roles that we place in 10 years’ time look completely different to the roles we were placing ten years ago. The type of working is changing too. The move towards flexibility surrounding the way people work is definitely impacting the industry and contracting in the Information Technology sector. It has long led the way in comparison to other industries. I have seen consulting companies in the technology space build specialised labs for workers to transform their ideas in prototypes, which with the support of AI and other machine learning, reduces the cycle of products getting to the market quicker. Projects are more brief but a lot more specified, also aided by cloud logic. So in the future companies will need to look for much more specialised profiles and skills of people to work on projects rather than as full time employees. The game changer in the technology market is therefore the way in which people work and how they interact with machine learning, AI, etc, on shorter term projects. A ‘job for life’ isn’t something you hear too much in the technology market and it certainly isn’t going to increase in future! It’s about constantly learning new skills and adapting and being somebody who can quickly adapt to new projects, potentially across multiple companies.
Read more
Today’s blog comes from one of the longest serving members of M Cubed. Nitin Wadhwani joined the company in 1996 as a Resourcer, and has seen the organisation grow and evolve in his 23 years at the company. Today he talks us through some of the developments he’s seen, as well as where some of the key areas of demand there are for the specialist type of roles he places, primarily within the niche JD Edwards Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.Recruitment has certainly changed since I first started in the industry in the 90s and most certainly within the IT space, and that’s without mentioning the introduction of a then little known idea called the ‘Internet’. One of the numerous reasons I love working in the JDE space is the way in which the product has remained in high regard with its client base where so much around it has changed and vanished. It’s had challenging times and surpassed world recessions, hostile takeovers, as well as general new product innovation and yet it still plays a significant part in the market. When I think back to the world when I first started supplying AS400 Consultants (RPG and SYNON developers) solely into positions across the UK the world really looked a little different to the one of today. It’s only with these reflections does it start to hit home just quite how much things have changed, how quickly, and when. At the time the IBM AS400 mid-range was the second biggest selling piece of hardware on the market and SEC was a leading agent in that space. Then along came a sudden shift in technology and a move to everything Microsoft, everything Windows, i.e. everything ‘unstable’. It was also a time in which the so called ‘low cost’ airlines were just about landing onto the scene too which again brought about big changes. The landscape really changed for us at that time and we decided to focus predominantly in the supply of experts into JD Edwards positions into the UK and now a closer Europe as well. The JD Edwards market has, I believe, been a very interesting market and a demanding one for those consultants who have remained to make their careers within it. Their perseverance and belief in the software has definitely helped keep JDE ‘stay alive’ when it would have been very easy for them to jump to a new sector to what is perceived as ‘better’ ERP software’s they stayed and promoted it. There have always been opportunities in the JDE space but those opportunities have of course become fewer over time and have surfaced in more unlikely and remote destinations. The consultants have always been an exceptionally flexible workforce again helping to keep the product visible and highlighting its versatility and seen as a viable solution to any company choosing an ERP.Globalisation has made the world a much smaller place now than 20 years ago and therefore the need to be geographically mobile is more necessary than ever before. In parallel the acceptance of remote working is becoming more widespread so hopefully it will get more and more adopted so people can retain a healthy life and work balance.Despite the market’s maturity I still see new talent entering the industry particularly from Portugal, Poland, Turkey, Romania and the Czech Republic; emerging countries where individuals have identified that there are opportunities to make successful and interesting careers. If you are a JDE specialist with whichever level of expertise, then even in such an established niche technology there is always an exciting opportunity waiting for you.In recent years demand has been generated from the USA as organisation’s look to set up projects in Europe and with Oracle committing to the software until at least 2030 there is still a good level of demand for JDE skills. So if you’re somebody who enjoys travelling, enjoys taking in different cultures, then a role as a JDE contractor is certainly worth considering. Most of our demand is of course from the UK and Europe but we also supply people into roles further afield, South Africa, the USA and even the Far East. What never ceases to surprise me that even in a geography like the Far East someone will always know someone who you know from Europe making referencing easier. It‘s the old adage of ‘six degrees of separation’ and that is certainly true within the JDE community, in fact I would probably describe it as the ‘three degrees’ of.In terms of ‘the ideal person’ then you’re really looking at a person that is assured, motivated, knowledgeable and proactive. Fortunately there are many such JDE consultants in the industry. The average contract tends to last around nine months but we’ve seen contracts last for years due to the nature of the industry. I speak to customers on a daily basis about their needs and skills required and they still believe in the software, whilst Oracle are accused of ‘not doing enough’ and sending out mix message about JDEs future, I believe it still ‘holds its own’ today due to the JDE specialists and their commitment to delivery and thus advertising a product that simply just ‘works’.From conversations with the JD Edwards clients and the consultants I hear JDE is a very good software, very fit for purpose, frequently overlooked by modern ‘trending’ yet amongst all the adversity it remains resilient, functional, well thought of. Just imagine if Oracle or Peoplesoft really pushed it.If you’d like to talk to Nitin about how he and his team could help you can get in touch by calling +44 (0) 207 255 6655 or reaching out at nitin.wadhwani@mcubedinternational.com
Read more
The hot topic in the recruitment world lately has been the forthcoming changes to IR35 in 2020. Private sector organisations are trying to ensure they’re ready for the new legislation, but what exactly can they do to prepare? M Cubed spoke to Lucien Dissake, our Head of Compliance, about exactly what’s happening, and what businesses need to do about it.So Lucien, for the uninitiated, what exactly is IR35?IR35 is tax legislation that was introduced in 2000 to help the government tackle tax avoidance in the form of ‘disguised employees’. These were contractors who would otherwise be employees (determined by the tasks that they were performing) if it were not for the fact they were being paid through a limited company, and as such paying less tax and national insurance. Initially, the contractor was responsible for determining their own status, but 17 years on from this, there were tweaks to this legislation within the public sector. These changes made the organisation responsible for the status determination of the worker, rather than the contractor themselves. They had to decide whether the assignment was ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ IR35. If it was ‘inside’, then tax and NI contributions would have to be made as if the contractor was an employee. If it was ‘outside’, then it could be considered a true contract assignment. What’s changing in 2020? These changes in liability are now being extended to the private sector. The government considered the public sector rollout a success in terms of revenue collection, and believes that once the changes are rolled out to the private sector that they will collect an additional £1.2 billion in tax by the end of 2024. Was it a straightforward change within the public sector?It’s would be fair to say there were a few challenges. Firstly, already overburdened public bodies were asked to complete lengthy administrative processes, making a determination on every individual assignment. This meant that inevitably, in order to stay within the guidelines of the legislation, blanket decisions were made that placed many contractors ‘inside’ IR35 that didn’t always need to be. Contractors placed ‘inside’ IR35 lost, on average, between 20-25% of their take home pay, and therefore public bodies experienced a considerable erosion of talent as these workers moved to private sector roles or even abroad. Have the challenges now been resolved?Yes, to an extent, in that the government bodies now have clear processes to make their determinations. Ironically the financial challenges will be nearer to a resolution once the private sector changes are introduced, as this will level the playing field and enable the public sector to be more competitive in terms of payment and flexibility. In your opinion, are businesses in the private sector ready for the IR35 changes?It’s very mixed! Some organisations have already put in place processes to make determinations and have been very proactive in looking ahead at the financial impact and the legal implications. However, some organisations are just hoping it might not happen and ignoring it for now – it’s a bit like Brexit in that way! As the changes look more certain to go ahead more and more of our clients are getting in touch to discuss the changes and ensure that they’re ready. How can M Cubed help companies navigate the change?If you work with a company like M Cubed, you will be fully supported through the changes – we are proactively reaching out to our clients to ensure that they’re ready. We have a dedicated compliance department which I head up, and having worked in the public sector through the 2017 changes, I’m confident we can help our clients through with minimal impact. We have also partnered with specialist tax lawyers Osborne Clarke to create a bespoke scorecard, enabling our clients to determine whether their contractors fall ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ of IR35. I would be very happy to discuss this with any organisations that are concerned about the upcoming legislation – please feel free to drop me an email on Lucien.dissake@mcubedinternational.com .If you’d like some more detailed information about IR35, how it might affect your business and how M Cubed can help, please download our Guide to IR35 here. Download our Guide to IR35
Read more
M Cubed holds frequent training academies to help rookie recruiters hone their skills. From the day they start with virtually no experience, they are trained on every element of the job, in the classroom and at their desks, with everyone from their peers to the CEO getting involved.Through this extensive learning and development programme, we are able to mould raw talent into brilliant recruiters - but if we're not looking for experience, how do we choose who to hire?I tend to focus on two elements: skill and will. I work closely with our internal talent team when hiring for the academies to make sure that applicants have both the soft skills to carry out the job well, and the will to do it. When someone has demonstrated this during the telephone interview phase, I am then looking for these six essential elements during face to face interviews:DiligenceHow willing are you to push yourself outside of your comfort zone? This is a crucial factor in the journey to developing as a recruiter, particularly in the early days. The more you push yourself and the more persistence you demonstrate, the faster you will become comfortable in carrying out the more difficult aspects of the role. Your drive to overcome challenges will gradually help you expand your comfort zone and become a better recruiter.MotivationI want to know what your drivers are. Why do you want to work in recruitment, and what is going to propel you through the tough days? The best recruiters are self-motivated and driven by their own goals, not just targets and KPIs set by their manager. We look for individuals who are able to demonstrate endurance and resilience, and an ability to maintain their drive through the tough aspects of the role. Thick SkinThose with “thin skin” won’t go far in recruitment - you need to be able to separate the professional from the personal and deal with the rejection as it happens. Rejection can be disheartening and difficult to deal with, but the best recruiters learn from it and use what they’ve learnt to inform future decisions. The best recruiters take responsibility for their own successes and failures, and are able to see each outcome as an opportunity for development.Work EthicEveryone says they are a hard worker; on every CV, in every interview. So, if everyone says it, it doesn’t differentiate you, no matter how true! When interviewing we’re always looking for examples that demonstrate how you go above and beyond. Recruitment is not a nine-to-five job, it’s highly demanding and requires just as much work six months down the line as it does during your first few weeks.IntelligenceThis doesn’t just mean exam results - it's having the ability to look at a situation, work out what’s happening and recognise what needs to be done. Having the initiative to take the correct action based on the information available is essential in recruitment, as processes can often require quick and informed decision making. Consultants working in the open market at SEC are largely in control of their own desks, their own processes and their own client relationships, so we always look for people who can work to guidelines, but are also confident working independently.The X-FactorYou’ve got to have something about you! Recruitment isn’t just about picking up the phone and asking the right questions - there’s a certain je ne sais quoi that successful recruiters have. As well as having a strong work ethic, understanding of the role and a commercial mindset, we’re looking for a great personality fit too. You’ll be responsible for building and maintaining a rapport with our clients and candidates, understanding their personal situations and requirements and acting on them in a personable manner; often something like knowing when to introduce humour to a situation can be a great attribute.Someone who can demonstrate all of the above has the attributes of a great recruiter, and the learning and development programme at M Cubed is able to equip you with the rest. We’re always looking to hear from individuals who are hoping to start their career in recruitment, so if we're describing you here, we'd love to hear from you!
Read more
People don’t buy your product, they buy you. A recruitment agency's brand is built from the people within the agency, and in an industry as people focussed as recruitment, it's especially true. As a recruiter, your clients buy into you as a person and what you are able to do for them. The term branding used to be reserved for businesses, even celebrities, but whether you know it or not, you have a personal brand. Everybody has one, but not everyone’s is developed to be a strength. As recruiters you have the opportunity to control your audience perception through what you’re posting on LinkedIn and how you’re communicating with your candidates and clients, and it’s up to you to take control of what your network perceive of you.Define your personal brandThe first step in taking control of your personal brand is to understand it yourself. Think about the attributes you’d like people to associate with you, who you are, your skills, your personal goals and your core values or beliefs. This isn’t about crafting a persona, but taking elements of your personality that you can authentically build upon. Consider the message and ensure it’s consistent every time you’re posting or interacting on LinkedIn.Set a solid foundation by writing a memorable profile before considering content. You have a canvas of 120 characters to paint a quick picture of who you are, and your summary to introduce your whole self, not just your work self. Have an angle that sets you apart from your peers, and avoid cookie-cutter bio templates.Understand your audienceWhen developing a personal brand you have to identify your target demographic, understand what they want to see and curate your content and engagements. As recruiters a large percentage of your network will be passive candidates and clients, so solely filling your feed with exciting new opportunities won’t provide value to the majority of your audience. It’s not that you should never post your new roles, but think about the ratio compared to other content, or be imaginative with the ways you’re advertising them. See an article about advanced gene therapy and you happen to be working on a related role? That’s a great opportunity to share it, add your view and mention the role you’re working on.Tailoring more content toward passive candidates or to clients can help you in the long term, and can set you apart from other recruiters if you’re reaching out to them in the future; think industry news, blogs, videos or updates from your clients.Create a content micro-strategyThe key to maintaining your brand image is consistency, and on the surface it might seem a large task to ensure you’re remaining in your networks’ feed and adding value at the same time. You’re well used to working toward your KPIs, so think of the content you’re posting as a different target you’d like to hit. Say, over the next two weeks I’m planning to share four industry news articles, two blogs from my network, two of my colleagues’ job posts and two of my own. I can take this plan and apply it each fortnight, and even use a content scheduling tool like Buffer, who offer a great free plan, to queue all of the posts in one sitting. Maintaining a presence doesn’t mean you need to be sat on LinkedIn for 6 hours a day churning out to-the-minute industry developments. By defining a simple strategy and setting aside a small amount of time to compile your content, you can set a week’s worth of posts at your desk on Monday morning.Engage with authenticityYou’ve decided what you’re trying to say, and have a strategy in place for how you’re going to say it; the hardest part is maintaining this and in turn developing a reciprocal relationship with your network. The interaction you have with your network should be a two way street, and that can’t happen if you’re only putting content out there. It’s important that you’re engaging with what your audience is discussing in order to develop an authentic relationship with your network, and it takes more than the occasional totally agree comment on a shared article. Adding an opinion to what someone in your audience is talking about can be daunting, but can help in boosting your industry knowledge and sparking interesting discussions.Your network aren’t all candidates that are looking for their next career move, so tailoring all your content toward that demographic won’t garner long-term results. Developing and refining your personal brand and using your industry knowledge to inform that will help in building trust with your audience, and positions you as a valuable voice within your industry, making it easy for others to see the value of having you in their network.
Read more
Today’s blog comes from a candidate we placed at Accenture as a Technical Architecture Team Lead. He joined Accenture and has worked for the multinational consultancy for just over a year. In today’s blog he talks us through his life at Accenture, the first year and what it takes to be successful as an SAP specialist. So, what is it you do at Accenture and do you enjoy it?I am an architecture delivery specialist and in that role I have a very varied position that allows me to work across multiple projects in the Tech Team. I manage the security of the users that connect to SAP, which includes managing users on to the system, ensuring correct access across Accenture. But I also work on projects with companies that work with Accenture and the implementation of SAP products into their workplaces too. It is a great role because it enables me to work with a variety of different teams and departments within Accenture and our clients.In my previous roles at past companies my experience had mainly focused on application maintenance, ticketing management, roll-outs, etc. But at Accenture I have been able to be involved in much more variety. In one of the projects I have had in the last 12 months I have been involved in supporting a customer in the implementation of SAP, so that has meant getting involved at a very early stage in the development, including design of the systems, logistics, etc, and seeing the project through to completion with the customer. That gives you a great sense of satisfaction to be involved in a project like that. When I joined Accenture I wanted a position that offered 360 degrees visibility and experience of all elements of SAP and development and that is certainly what I have got.How has the first year been working at Accenture?It has flown by so quickly! Much of that is due to the variety of projects and work that I am focused on. Accenture has a culture of hard work and job satisfaction, leading to an overall great experience. The team I work in is a high performing team and that all adds to the value we have. We are all proud to work at Accenture and that means that we all work together to deliver the right results.What were the key elements of working for Accenture that attracted you, as well as the variety you mention?The variety was certainly an important part of it, but so too was the brand of Accenture as well. It is a great experience working at a company like Accenture because you can see how a big company works but also you feel a personal sense of pride in working for a big brand too. You get visibility on a lot of projects from across the globe, in multiple sectors and with many different types of businesses that choose to work with Accenture and that is really exciting. It gives you great experience and an opportunity to grow. The possibility of your job staying the same is impossible and it is impossible to be bored! There are so many projects and so much opportunity to improve my own knowledgeAnd what does it take to have a successful career working in SAP but specifically, at Accenture?From an SAP perspective you have to always keep learning. You can specialise in many different areas for SAP – like functional work/business work flow for example, or programming – which is why getting yourself in to a company where you can have so much variety is important because you can learn so much and if you find a company that is big enough and gives you enough opportunity to develop as a specialist in an area or across multiple areas, you should take advantage of the opportunity as I did at Accenture. To be successful at Accenture you have to be driven, constantly looking at the new technologies that are evolving and be ready to adapt, which keeps you learning and as I mentioned ensures you are never bored!
Read more
I have worked with M Cubed for 6 years. They are genuinely nice people who, in my recent contract renewal, went above and beyond to ensure a smooth transition of management companies.
M Cubed took care of the entire process while I was transitioning to a new role. They were very keen to help from the start, and truly care about their candidates. I would recommend M Cubed and their work to anyone.
I have worked with M Cubed on several occasions in the last few years. They demonstrate a real understanding of their clients' needs, and are reliable, open and trustworthy.
M Cubed are professional and very proactive whilst also being personable. They have a thorough understanding of their client's needs, and are a real pleasure to work with.
M Cubed found me a position that exactly matched my skills, where I was located and the career path I wanted. I wasn't actively looking for a new job, but M Cubed supported me through the entire process.