Careers officers are highly trained specialists who have a sound knowledge of the entry requirements for a wide range of occupations. They can also offer advice about training opportunities and the local employment scene. They don't work for schools, where teachers may try to convince you to stay on, they don't work for colleges which may try to recruit you to particular courses, and they don't work for commercial companies. In effect, their advice is valuable because it is neutral. When it comes to making decisions about your career choices and discovering training opportunities, careers offices provide an excellent service. You can obtain information about your local careers service from your public library, town hall or county hall, local education authority or Learning Direct.
Certificate of Secondary Education
These school examinations were developed in the mid- to late 1960s to run alongside the better known General Certificate of Education. A grade 1 CSE was considered to be equivalent to an O level GCE. If you have any grade Is it may be worth mentioning that they are O level equivalents when you write your CV.
Checklists
Checklists are a simple and effective means of keeping you on line. If you have an interview in a week's time, spend five minutes writing down what you need to do between now and then. Think about any background knowledge you may need and how you will get it. Will it mean a visit to the library? When will you go? What about getting to the interview? Do you know where it is, or do you need to spend an afternoon finding the place? Which afternoon will that be?
Write down what you need to do and when you will do it, then cross off the jobs as you do them. Checklists get you to the interview ready to perform at your best. But checklists can be useful in other ways too. You can use them to boost your confidence by listing your skills, you can use them to compare good and bad aspects of a job or a training course or you can jot down questions which you think you may be asked at interview, noting ideal answers as you think of them. A checklist can help you to decide the best course of action or it can be a simple means of keeping you on schedule and on target.
Checklists can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make them. The finance manager of one large Channel Island organization once reported that the most useful function on his £2500 computer was a simple checklist. You needn't spend so much. You can write a checklist on any scrap of paper, and you can slip it in your pocket and refer to it whenever you need to. He can't do that with his computer!
Commission
Commission is pay based on a percentage of turnover or orders taken. It may be earned over and above your wages depending on the amount of income you generate for the organization you work for. Insurance agents often earn commission based on the amount of insurance they manage to sell. Travelling salespeople and company representatives are also frequently paid commission according to the number of orders they take, and sales staff in shops often earn commission based on the value of their sales. It can have a dramatic effect on the amount of money you take home at the end of the week or month.
If you are good at your job, and if the company is a fair employer, you can do well. Some computer salespeople, for example, have been known to earn over £100,000 a year. In one well-publicized recent case, a bank managed to negotiate a 'salary plus compensation' deal to buy its way out of a 'commission-only' arrangement in which one of their agents was making in excess of £400,000 a year.
Some employers, however, expect you to sell a certain amount each week before you begin to earn commission. They set targets which are difficult to achieve and, in these cases, you'll find yourself earning a fairly basic wage. Some companies offer employment on a 'commission-only' basis. This means that there is no basic wage at all. What you earn is determined by what you sell. In a lean week you could come home with nothing. This is not the ideal arrangement for anyone new to the business. Commission-only arrangements are for the well- established salesperson who already has a range of excellent contacts and extensive product knowledge.
If you are thinking about working on a wage plus commission basis, check out the arrangements carefully. You'll need to be enterprising and fairly confident that you can achieve the targets which might be set for you. You will also need to be sure that you can handle a job which offers an irregular income. Even the best products sell better at certain times than others. When you're working on commission you have to be able to take the rough with the smooth. Check out the contract or the terms and conditions of the job carefully before taking the plunge.
