State of the Market

[dsc]

LI jobs seems full with perm jobs in my industry, but pay is on 2015 levels and 95% are hybrid which is probably the most annoying tulipe ever. It does absolutely nothing to increase the amount of people applying, as anyone further than driveable distance from the office will pass anyway. EU jobs (got an EU passport) are similar, the ones I applied to straight away ask if you are ok relocating as you have to be local and of course it's all hybrid. On top of this they ask for your expected salary range and there's no salary brackets shown anywhere on the job spec. Oh and everything takes absolute effin ages...

How I missed perm

[tsmith]

Ha so true.

Just started one. They ask for a password on page 1. Choose a password then it expands to another FOUR pages

With a check box. "This role is hybrid. With some days in Andover. Are you happy to commute to Andover?"

Some days in Bendover

Ahhh yeaa thats a hard pass.

Oh asking salary is defacto standard now almost. And most roles seem to be 3 to 5 years experience. How can everything be 3 to 5 years?

Just messaged a senior guy directly to apply to him on a role I got rejected for 2 weeks and got "Oh yes thats not a senior role"

I agree I think you need to be putting in 2010 salaries in those 'required salary' boxes if not its rejection central.

More and more 6 months FTC - gone from Outside IR35 to Inside IR35 to FTC - getting progressively worse- How about outside the workforce altogether.

Probably 10 years of contracting puts them off too. I did reject a perm role last year- god bad vibes from it - probably shouldnt have done that in retrospect.

[willendure]

Finally got through to the recruitment consultant I have been chasing since friday. Took at least 6 phone calls to finally make contact with a human being. And did not answer any of my emails. Apparently he already has 300 CVs from TOGAF Certified Architects. He also told me I was rude, I probably came accross as being a little abrupt due to having to be so pushy to get a phone call through. So that didn't really go very well, already has his short list before hes even looked at my CV, which was a very strong match to the job. I guess everyone just slaps all the keywords in their CV including TOGAF, whether they have them or not.

What a tulip market.

I need a plan B. Open a coffee shop or something.

[edison]

yes all of that is true.

best indication of whether a large project or programme will be a success, is whether enough of the senior people on it have regularly produced success in the past. not methodology, not BS on slides, or any of the rest of it.

the only real genuine transformation stuff now is mergers & acquisitions where there is real business imperative to do things to join together, improve, change, & sometimes separate out different businesses. sometimes you get something similar when a big org wants to setup a brand new division. the number of interviews I have been to where the interviewing side are convinced they are going to bring about great change by simply using a slightly different methodology is high, often they have not got the 1st idea what they are doing, it can be hard not to just openly laugh at them, but these people exist, and in the land of the blind the one eyed giant is king.

Hardly any 'transformation' programmes are transformative in any true sense of the word. True transformation is about developing significant new business capabilities, being able to bring new products and services to market quicker, increasing innovation, entering new markets etc.

Most of what companies called transformation is really digitisation of old legacy systems and processes or technology refreshes.

I worked on one so called transformation programme for two years that was estimated to take 3 years. Ended up taking over 6 years and by the time it was finished, the company was really only on at a level with their competitors from years before. And had spent twice as much as forecasted.

[edison]

LI jobs seems full with perm jobs in my industry, but pay is on 2015 levels and 95% are hybrid which is probably the most annoying tulipe ever. It does absolutely nothing to increase the amount of people applying, as anyone further than driveable distance from the office will pass anyway. EU jobs (got an EU passport) are similar, the ones I applied to straight away ask if you are ok relocating as you have to be local and of course it's all hybrid. On top of this they ask for your expected salary range and there's no salary brackets shown anywhere on the job spec. Oh and everything takes absolute effin ages...

How I missed perm

In my niche, current advertised salaries seem all over the place. I'm seeing some at around the same package or slightly lower than I was on as a perm between 2008 and 2011. Quite a few are significantly lower.

The perm application process is such a faff. Started doing an application for a well known travel company and it asks for salary but you can only put in a single number, not a range. There's not that much detail in the advert so I can't fully gauge the scope and level of responsibilities, so how can I put in a single figure? It just seems a way to force people to lower their expectations to get past what is probably a candidate knockout question.

[dsc]

[...]Oh asking salary is defacto standard now almost. And most roles seem to be 3 to 5 years experience. How can everything be 3 to 5 years?
[...]

Yup, seen that as well, on a lot I see 3yrs+ which makes me thing if you have over 10yrs, it's a quick rejection. Same with the salary question, they basically probe the market at the lowest amount, if they get someone reasonable, who ticks 50% of the requirements, they probably look at the value vs cost ratio, assume some skills can be thought and reject anyone else. It's only when the position is so niche, or they really know who they really want, they might actually not bin you for putting 50k+ on the expected salary.

In my niche, current advertised salaries seem all over the place. I'm seeing some at around the same package or slightly lower than I was on as a perm between 2008 and 2011. Quite a few are significantly lower.

The perm application process is such a faff. Started doing an application for a well known travel company and it asks for salary but you can only put in a single number, not a range. There's not that much detail in the advert so I can't fully gauge the scope and level of responsibilities, so how can I put in a single figure? It just seems a way to force people to lower their expectations to get past what is probably a candidate knockout question.

I also love the fact that often they ask what is you salary expectation (bonus included) when you don't even bloody know what the work is, what is possible in terms of bonus etc. Tell me what you can pay for what skills and then we can negotiate and stop wasting people's time ffs

Btw I'm fairly sure most job offers just get recycled on LI, I've signed up to a few job alerts and at the start it said 200-500+ job offers across Europe, but now daily I get maybe 2/3 new ones per day, so yeah

[Fraidycat]

Yup, seen that as well, on a lot I see 3yrs+ which makes me thing if you have over 10yrs, it's a quick rejection.

Its so they can pay 'mid level' salaries. They will more than happily take someone with 10yrs+ who is prepared to work for mid level pay. By mid level pay i mean in the 45K to 70K range.

[oliverson]

This thread is taking a disturbing turn down the 'job' (perm) side!

[sreed]

LI jobs seems full with perm jobs in my industry, but pay is on 2015 levels and 95% are hybrid which is probably the most annoying tulipe ever.

I wouldn’t discount roles advertised as ‘hybrid’. From experience, in some cases all it means is that you will need to drop in to the office once in a while and/or that they don’t want to be flooded with applications from across the country or overseas! An initial conversation can usually clear this up.

I’ve had the other extreme as well where a hybrid role turned out to be a 4 days/week presence in Liverpool but the recruiter advertised it as hybrid as he wasn’t getting enough applications when the ad said on-site.

My current contract was advertised as hybrid far-off-northern-city but to all intents and purposes it’s a remote role with occasional visits to the office. I’ve only had to visit twice in 5 months.

[tsmith]

Finally got through to the recruitment consultant I have been chasing since friday. Took at least 6 phone calls to finally make contact with a human being. And did not answer any of my emails. Apparently he already has 300 CVs from TOGAF Certified Architects. He also told me I was rude, I probably came accross as being a little abrupt due to having to be so pushy to get a phone call through. So that didn't really go very well, already has his short list before hes even looked at my CV, which was a very strong match to the job. I guess everyone just slaps all the keywords in their CV including TOGAF, whether they have them or not.

What a tulip market.

I need a plan B. Open a coffee shop or something.

Yea man Ive been on a side hustle for 2 years luckily and applying for stuff for the rest of the time. Maybe without the side hustle Id have been applying for a few more roles -seems like you have to be calling people these days. Just digital comms doesnt cut it.

Most side hustles arent as easy as the Youtube course shillers pretend and will take significant grind to get to salary replacement levels is the problem

Now its looking increasingly like I will have to go deeper into the side hustle and abandon IT altogether though. Luckily I have skill outside of IT but it wont be straightforward and will probably mean being self employed forever with what Ive got planned