New Contractor Portal - Sourcing new contracts - What do you want?

[DeadKenny]

IProfile ?

[expat]

DP Connect are generally one of the better agencies, but I have stopped sending my CV to them as they use IProfile (which is an utter pile of shambolic sh1t). It would be interesting to get an agents feedback having used IProfile, do you find our profiles are wildly inaccurate? (as mine always seems to be).

Totally agree. I could see why it sounded like a good idea, but it's all wrong and I can't seem to get it changed. Easier to avoid anybody who uses it!

[Cowboy Bob]

DP Connect are generally one of the better agencies, but I have stopped sending my CV to them as they use IProfile (which is an utter pile of shambolic sh1t). It would be interesting to get an agents feedback having used IProfile, do you find our profiles are wildly inaccurate? (as mine always seems to be).

Thanks for reminding me. That would also be another complaint about DP Connect since we all know that iProfile is a complete load of innaccurate sh!te that breaks various privacy laws along the way. I personally have never logged into my iProfile and have never given my permission to Skillsmarket to hold any data on me, which is illegal according to the Data Protection Act.

Hopefully the fact that they're creating their own portal means that they're dissatisfied with iProfile and that they'll stop using it.

[DodgyAgent]

No help in the immediate future, but our profession needs a professional qualification. Not just a paid membership or a CV certification, but a qualification that means that the professional can do the job.

Why?? let me tell you that you are not important enough. Just because you have a certificate does not mean that you are suddenly going to do a proper job.

Professional bodies exist in professions because those professions work in markets that involve considerable risk if things go wrong, Dentists, Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers etc. Professions need to establish recognised standards of health & Safety, training and day to day practices as such that cannot be policed through criminal law until it is too late. If you guys write some dodgy code it doesnt really matter.

I am afraid that even Corgi accredited plumbers are higher up the value chain than you lot.

What is wrong with being called a pimp?. This agent appears to be taking himself a little bit too seriously for my liking. I would suggest that he just gets on with making calls.

[cojak]

You're a tough one, DA.

[expat]

Why?? let me tell you that you are not important enough. Just because you have a certificate does not mean that you are suddenly going to do a proper job.

It doesn't mean that for a CORGI plumber or a doctor either, it just means that they can. This seems to be a complaint about some contractors (that they are incompetent) and I do think that a serious qualification would help with that.

I never said anything about being important, so take a Rennie and relax a bit. I'm not talking about I'm-a-professional snootiness, just about the real need for clients to know they are dealing with somebody who can cut it.

Part of my point about being a professional is that it would show up that there is more to the job than the CV keywords. In no other occupation can 15 years good experience become worthless overnight. A plumber or a dentist with 15 years' experience, but who doesn't know the latest materials or techniques or legislation, is still a knowledgeable professional who can get up to speed quickly. I believe that the same is true of us: a good 15-year VB programmer might be facing the scrapheap now, but actually he or she is very close already to being a good C# or PHP programmer: much closer than a young Computer Science graduate, or possibly better even dare I say than a 6-month C# programmer. The orentiation to CV keyword searching completely obscures this, that is, it ignores our greatest skill.

I'm not blaming agents for that: what else do they have to work with? I am suggesting something better to work with.

[b0risTblade]

If you guys write some dodgy code it doesnt really matter.

I'll keep that in mind next time i make a change to a heart monitor or some other medical system used to keep people alive. Or for that matter next time i fly somewhere - nothing a coder does or screws up has any impact on anyone else

[DodgyAgent]

I'll keep that in mind next time i make a change to a heart monitor or some other medical system used to keep people alive. Or for that matter next time i fly somewhere - nothing a coder does or screws up has any impact on anyone else

They (medical systems) are thoroughly tested before they are released. A doctor, dentist or lawyer even does not have the luxury of carrying out work and then being able to hang around whilst the quality of it is checked.

Expat.. just checking

[chicane]

a good 15-year VB programmer might be facing the scrapheap now, but actually he or she is very close already to being a good C# or PHP programmer: much closer than a young Computer Science graduate, or possibly better even dare I say than a 6-month C# programmer.

Sad but true. But look at it from the pimp's perspective - they would actually need to spend more time analysing what these words mean and more time studying each CV.

There's a similar problem with sales people in IT organisations who are too busy chasing a fat commission cheque to understand what they're selling...

[DodgyAgent]

Sad but true. But look at it from the pimp's perspective - they would actually need to spend more time analysing what these words mean and more time studying each CV.

There's a similar problem with sales people in IT organisations who are too busy chasing a fat commission cheque to understand what they're selling...

Not as big a problem as some bore, who understands every technical facet of a product, doing the selling. Do you really think decision makers give a flying f*** about how something is put together?