We found this interview on The Talent Buzz by Jason Buss, hope you enjoy it!

Ben: I’m currently the CEO & Co-Founder of Standout Jobs, which started in 2007 and launched at the end of January 2008. Prior to that I was the co-founder of another web software company, which I had started in 1996. As a software entrepreneur I’ve touched on every aspect of starting and running a business - financing, operations, recruiting, sales, marketing, product development, customer service, etc. I enjoy all of them, although I get especially excited about product development and customer service. These are areas that I’ve focused on in my career as an entrepreneur.

I have a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from McGill University - and started my first company (1996) while I was still in school finishing the degree.

I’m all neck-deep in the world of social media, blogging and social media marketing. I write a blog on startups and business called Instigator Blog, and have done consulting work for numerous small and large companies on social media strategy.

On a personal note, I’m the father of two young boys (3 and a half and 14 months), and I’ve been happily married for 7 years. I live in Montreal, Canada.

Jason: How do you think career sites have evolved over the past 3-5 years?

Ben: From my own perspective, as the owner of a small company (prior to Standout Jobs) I don’t think career sites were even on my radar. Certainly they existed, but I think they looked / acted much the same way as they do now; they’re static, uninspiring and provide a very poor candidate experience.

Over 5+ years we’ve certainly seen significant evolution of corporate websites. They’re getting better designed, faster, and more streamlined. They’re targeting prospects better, and many companies do much deeper analytical research into visitors’ behavior. But little of that has translated effectively to career sites, at least for smaller and medium-sized businesses.

Jason: What are some of the biggest challenges with career sites today from your perspective?

Ben: I’ve mentioned some of them above - but I think the crux of the issue is that HR isn’t given the real estate or flexibility to do what it needs to on its career website to attract the right audience and keep them engaged. Corporate sites are dominated by Marketing/Sales - which is understandable; HR’s biggest challenge is being able to translate the Marketing/Sales-driven approach to corporate websites to their career websites. And, I would encourage companies (of all sizes) to give more prominent real estate on corporate sites to recruiting. Every single website should have a “WE ARE HIRING” sign right on the home page, because it works.

Beyond the “who rules the corporate website” situation, I think the next biggest issue is the quality of career sites to provide a great experience to job seekers, interaction and engagement. Currently, most career sites allow you to apply and do nothing else. But you can be sure there’s plenty of people who are “window shopping”, interested in engaging with the company but not ready to apply. Many of those people aren’t being supported effectively.

Jason: With all of the changes in technology, why do you think there have been few improvements in the overall engagement and experience for candidates?

Ben: There’s a lot of technology out there. There are even more buzzwords. That in and of itself is a big part of the problem. I’d say the next issue is that none of the technology, or solutions out there to-date are recruiting-centric. Yes, you can use an existing platform or existing technology to put something together and start to provide candidates with a better experience, but there’s a learning curve, you need to potentially get I.T. involved, and it’s downright overwhelming.

I think we’re starting to see newer technology that leverages some of the newer principles of how to use the Web (blogging, social networking, social media, etc.) targeted to HR, and if that’s done successfully, with easy-to-use tools that don’t require huge cost or time investments on the part of companies, things will change.

Jason: What do you see as the top 2-3 areas of improvement with online recruiting?

Ben: The overarching issue with online recruiting is that it’s not built around active communication between employers and candidates (and prospective candidates). Online recruiting isn’t built to representative how people interact. It’s evolved into a much more transactional model, which has its merits, and you can understand in the early days of the Web why things went in that direction. But times have changed online, and they’ll continue to change at a very quick pace; online recruiting hasn’t caught up, and while I don’t go starry eyed into the night with dreams of “social networking for jobs” or assuming that every Web 2.0 concept is perfectly suited for recruiting, the fact is that online recruiting has to become more conversational and open, and less process-driven.

Jason: When did V1 launch? What upcoming changes are being made with the V2 Standout Jobs product? When will they be available?

Ben: We launched the product at the end of January, 2008. Since that time we’ve made numerous improvements - iteratively adding features, fixing others - and generally responding to our clients’ needs and following our product roadmap. As for V2, who said anything about V2? *chuckle*

What we’ve built to-date is a good platform for allowing HR to quickly and easily create a branded career site. We’ve started opening the doors for more communication of a company’s culture, and more interaction between companies and people. There’s definitely room for more, ultimately to fulfill on the goals of helping company’s representative themselves more effectively and communicate more actively with candidates (prospective or already in the pipeline.) I can say this - we move very quickly - it’s what makes a startup so exciting, the ability to iterate quickly, launch new things fast, test the market and get feedback. I can’t promise dates for anything new, but you can expect lots of news in the next few months.

Temps will have the same rights as permanent workers from April 2010 after an Agency Workers Agreement was reached, provided the final EU sanction is given.

The agreement means equal rights apply to temps after working for an organisation for 12 weeks. This includes the same pay, holidays (on a pro-rata basis), overtime and breaks as recruited employees.
The agreement has been reached after six years of talks at an EU level and negotiation between bodies such as the TUC, CBI and the UK government. A sticking point was after how much time a temp should get the same rights – even one day was in the melting pot. The compromise struck at 12 weeks is fair, say many.
Supporters of the agreement say it’s a good deal and puts an end to exploitation of a sizeable work force – 1.3m are employed in temp jobs every week – that offer the flexilibity vital to a dynamic economy. It means agency staff who have worked for extensive periods for a company will now receive equal treatment.
Those in favour say this is the right balance between protection and flexilibity.
However, critics say a key to the success of the UK economy is the flexibility of the labour market in which agency staff have a key role – and that is particularly important given today’s challenging market conditions. The agreement reduces employers’ choice, they say, and will lead to fewer opportunities for agency workers. I39 per cent of employers say the directive will have an impact and 68 per cent say they will recruit fewer agency staff, according to a Labour Market Outlook report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
The agreement includes a clause forbidding companies from firing a temp worker just before the three-month time is reached, and hiring them immediately afterwards, so businesses can’t get around it that way. There are other ways around the legislation, such as engaging agency workers on a project basis or treating all temps as trainees.

A new service offered by Charterhouse Group will take the burden off the many business whose speciality is not doing the payroll or managing the invoices. PayDynamics will perform all these back office functions, leaving the company – large or small – the time and freedom to build the business.
This is good news, particularly in these belt-tightening times, and cuts out the expense of hiring staff and buying software to perform back office functions. Use of PayDynamics can expand, or contract, with changing fortunes.

You can now claim a working from home allowance to cover expenses. Don’t get too excited, it’s only £3 a week, but that does add up and over a year could be worth around £150, which suddenly makes it all worthwhile. To claim this expense, see the form on the FPS website.
Another way to boost those coffers a little is an offer over the summer from FPS Umbrella, if you introduce a friend to them, they will get a voucher worth £25 and so will you!

Construction and trade workers will be interested to learn FPS Umbrella has launched a service specially for that area of industry called FPS Trade Pay. All types of trades and professions are covered by the service, that the umbrella company said removes the red tape and agency’s employer responsibilities, as when the worker signs up to Trade Pay, they effectively become an employee of FPS. They guarantee the correct tax is deducted and payment is prompt. Also being with FPS includes all the legal cover in case of accident, which is good to know, especially in this industry, where accidents – and serious ones – can happen.

One of the glitches of the banking system, in which it takes days for payment to be cleared and find the employee’s account, will be tackled when a new Faster Payments Service comes into force.
Thirteen high street banks will offer the new service that promises to improve the efficiency and speed up the clearing of some payments in sterling. First to benefit from the new service will be non-corporate customers, who can make one-off payments of up to £10,000 over the phone or internet, that will arrive at its destination account on the same day. The corporate world will follow next year. Not all banks are on board yet, but surely others will follow …

Temporary and contract workers going through FPS Umbrella will soon get their payslips by email. The obvious advantage is no paperwork, but also it will be easier to keep track of payments by storing them on a computer.

Temporary or contract workers are very vulnerable to the overpayment of tax for several reasons. They do different jobs at different rates and on varying tax codes, also they could work for truncated periods of time meaning they won’t necessarily be employed for the full year.

Agencies that run a payroll will make sure the correct PAYE and NIC are paid. However, an individual will be unable to offset eligible business expenses incurred, even if they are related to work.

Those who work for multiple agencies could find it hard to get on the right tax code, meaning the overpayment of tax is likely. But proving this to the tax office is administratively challenging. Because the whole reason for the claim is likely to be periods of employment for various employers and at different times, paperwork to prove this is likely to be complex. The tax office will want to see pay slips, P60 and P45 plus information about employment. It’s a tall order for the busy temp/contractor.

Some agencies do not run a payroll and cannot, under the Agency rules in the tax legislation, make a gross payment to individuals. Individuals can run their own limited company, but this requires significant knowledge of company and tax law and opens them up to IR35 risks, along with a whole raft of additional expenses such as accountancy and insurance fees.

Also there is new MSC (managed service company) legislation to consider. The legislation was brought in because the government considered that freelancers avoided tax by working through an MSC. Those deemed to be truly self-employed and managing their own company legitimately will be OK, but those the government considers to be actually employed by a company/organisation, though working through their own MSC, could face crippling tax bills (possibly backdated). Also, the transfer of PAYE and NIC debt legislation makes third parties, such as recruitment agencies, open to any tax bills not paid by the employee, so limited companies aren’t popular with recruiters.

Umbrella companies are another route workers could consider, members doing temp or contract work are effectively employees of the umbrella company, so their tax and NIC are deducted at the right levels.

But individuals must take care in choosing an umbrella company that pays full heed to the risk of MSC legislation. Umbrella company FPS Umbrella takes it so seriously it actually withdrew its accountancy and limited company services to protect its members.

Given the vagaries of the new MSC (managed service company) legislation, introduced in 2007, it would be a brave freelancer who used another party to help run their own limited company.

Those who use such managed services for their limited companies could end up paying huge bills in backdated tax and penalties under the new legislation. The government has brought in the controversial MSC legislation subsequent to having brought in IR35 seven years before, which was aimed at clamping down on what were, at the time, entirely legal devices to avoid paying tax and NICs (national insurance contributions) used by freelance and contractor workers. The government considered freelancers were still avoiding tax by using MSCs, hence this latest MSC legislation.

The legislation means that running a limited company using the services of a provider that is found to be a provider of managed service companies opens the individual up to MSC legislation and potentially crippling bills for backdated tax, penalties and interest.
The burden for those who have historically worked through a limited company is greater now not least because they can no longer share the running costs of one with other freelancers or contractors, through a composite structure.
Vulnerability to MSC legislation applies if: an individual is not the sole director of the company or signatory on the company’s bank account and making all of the decisions on behalf of the company. The raft of responsibilities of running a limited company includes: ensuring the company complies with all company law requirements to file accounts and returns to Companies House; To calculate and pay VAT and corporate tax; Provide payroll calculations and returns; Company administration such as raising company invoices, running a spreadsheet or accounting system and appointing an accountant; Ensuring necessary insurances are in place. A qualified accountant or solicitor can be engaged to help with the production of accounts and returns but the decision and responsibilities remain with the Director. In short if someone other than the sole director is making any of these decisions then the company could well be deemed to be a MSC.

Changes to MSC (managed service company) legislation, introduced in April 2007, sent tidal waves through the market of contractors and freelancers, and just seven years after being hit by controversial IR35 legislation in 2000.

MSC legislation is, like IR35, an attempt by the government to stop tax and NIC avoidance. The government believes that IR35 is not being followed by MSCs, so is catching them this way. Critics say it demonstrates IR35 legislation has not worked.

The problem is that the definition of an MSC is not clear, leaving many professionals vulnerable.

MSCs are corporate structures through which workers provide services; therefore HMRC take the underlying nature of the relationship between the business and worker to be employment. The concern is that many service companies might be considered MSCs and unwittingly be caught out and end up paying tax and NI backdated to April 2007, as well as possible penalty charges and interest.

The legislation could also apply to third parties involved in promoting the services of the managed service provider, such as a recruitment or temping agency, and under the legislation, the government could go to that third party for the payment of any unpaid tax bills.
Because of lack of clarity, the legislation has made it unclear which functions freelancers and contractors can safely outsource, such as the level of accountancy support provided for their company.

To protect its members – and itself – from any threat from this legislation, companies such as FPS Umbrella withdrew its accountancy and limited company services so that nobody involved would risk financial ruin.

As umbrella members are effectively employees, they pay full PAYE and NIC, and do not operate through their own limited company, so they can rest easy in the knowledge they are protected from this vague and unpredictable legislation.