The pension arrangements which a company makes for its employees are important aspects of every job's remuneration package. Some companies offer attractive pension opportunities and others offer none at all. When you are in your twenties retirement may seem like a distant horizon and thoughts of a retirement pension are probably not on your agenda. As you get older, however, pension arrangements become increasingly important, especially when you are looking for or changing a job.
Company pension packages are not compulsory. You don't have to become a member of any scheme which you don't understand or don't like. You are free to shop around until you find your preferred package.
Pension arrangements can be complicated, especially if you are hoping to transfer your contributions from one scheme to another.
Further information
Free, up-to-date information about State retirement pensions is available in a brochure NP 46 A Guide to Retirement Pensions obtainable from your local benefits agency.
Information, advice and explanation of other pension packages can be obtained from the Financial Services Authority. Contact the FSA to obtain information about professional advisers in your area. The FSA is at 25, The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS; tel: 0171 676 1000.
Person specification
Once a vacancy has been agreed, many employers write a person specification as well as a job description. A person specification is an attempt to identify the local candidate for the job. An employer tries to describe the background needed, the type and level of qualifications he or she would need to do the job well, the level of fitness required, the previous experience needed to fulfill the tasks, and the temperament which the job requires. He may also think about the location of the job and make a statement about whether it would be unsuitable for people with particular types of disability.
A person specification can be used in a number of ways. Initially, it is a tool for producing a shortlist of candidates from a large number of applications. The person specification, for example, may require the successful candidate to hold a clean driving license. Automatically, therefore, the company can discount any applicant who doesn't appear to meet this requirement. It may require proven ability in Maths or experience of handling people in difficult situations. Once again, when there is no evidence of either of these, the employer can reject more applications until he arrives at a small group who appear to fit the bill. If the shortlist is still too long, he may now decide to take up references on these candidates to see if that helps him to reduce the list even further. Finally, he will have a small group of applicants whom he wishes to interview.
Equal opportunity employers often take the process a stage further and use the person specification at interview to explain how they arrived at the decision to employ this particular candidate in favor of the four or five other interviewees. The interview will be used as a means of testing each candidate to see if all the requirements of the person specification are met. They may know, for example, that you have a driving license, but it wasn't clear from your application whether it was clean or not. Testing candidates against the requirements of a well-written person specification allows an employer to prove that the decision not to employ someone was based on a requirement of the job rather than a view about suitability based on ethnic background, religion or disability.
Testing applications against the requirements of a person specification is a good method of reducing a large number to a manageable shortlist. If you don't take the time to make a good detailed application, an employer may assume that you don't meet the requirements.
In many instances, employers who use person specifications discover that, in theory at least, they have a shortlist of people, all of whom could do the job well. When it comes to the interview, the successful candidate is the one with the most appropriate temperament and personality.
Photocopies
Photocopiers are your friends. Never send a letter of application, an application form or curriculum vitae without taking a photocopy first. If you have taken the time to list all your previous employers and work out the starting and finishing dates for each job, if you have spent a couple of hours explaining in a letter why you want to be a nursery nurse or an engineer, and if you have carefully listed all the schools you attended and the examinations you took, it would be crazy to put all that information in the post without keeping a copy. You may not need the information again for five or six years, but most application forms ask for the same information and, anyway, it's always easier to update an old document than start again from scratch.
Also, before you fill in an application form, remember to take a photocopy first and use that as a draft.
You can take photocopies in most high-street print shops. Alternatively, most public libraries have photocopying facilities.
Punctuality
It is important to be on time for each and every appointment with an employer. Ideally, you should arrive at the office or factory ten minutes early. You can use this time to collect your thoughts and check your tie/your hair before you are invited into the office. That way, you enter in a calm and collected fashion.
If you are unfamiliar with the company's location, or if you are unsure about public transport or parking facilities, always try to do a dry run and visit the company a few days before your interview at the same time of day as your appointment. Don't go in; just stop at the door and check how long it took you. That way you'll know how long to allow for getting there on the day.
It is always better to be a half hour early for an appointment than even one minute late. If you arrive far too early, take a walk around the block. You can pick up a lot of useful information about a company from the neighborhood in which it is located, especially if it serves the local community. A walk around can tell you a lot about the customers it is trying to serve.
Once you have a job, start punctually each day, and allow for traffic jams and delays in public transport by leaving home early.
