State of the Market

[Dorkeaux]

Indeed, good luck Schumster. You can't want it more than they do.

For the numerate, I average around 1 in 3-4 interviews leading to an offer lately. These days, I feel the agents are doing more work up front, so there are no surprises in the interview.

Even on my best days, I don't get as many calls as Yuri. Maybe a couple non-stupid ones a week if I include phone calls, linkedin messages, texts and emails.
The stupid ones are really bad, though. I don't take those to represent the market, at all.

The rates Oliverson is quoting are generally higher than what I command, but not by that much. Roles North of £800 outside IR35 aren't uncommon.

Again, average contractor. But highly experienced (old) and living in London.
I don't know why the rates should be higher in London, they just are.

[dsc]

A number of things. So, I'm 'living the dream' right now, down at the holiday home in Andalucia, only it's not what I expected. Weather isn't helping as there's a week of storms. It feels very different not to be working out here though. All of a sudden without a decent income coming in, I'm starting to question going out often for expensive meals. Is that heating still on? That's expensive out here too. I'm charging the Tesla up at El Higueron hotel, except I'm staring out at the infinity pool as the rain falls, from the comfort of the lounge. It occurs to me that wonderful car is going back in September and I won't be leasing another through the company on the back of no income. Then there's the apartment, a lovely duplex Penthouse with fantastic views. As I've said earlier, this was my pension pot. Either it goes or the house back in England does. Which one? A decision has to be made pretty soon. Then there's the sense of purpose and the waste of a skillset built up over a 25 year career. Flushing the development / devops / platform engineer down the toilet, it seems criminal. Then there's wandering round the supermarket mid-day with all the other retirees and daytime television talking about funeral plans, etc. Is that the life I really want? Is it the one I envisioned, sat at my desk in contract, wishing I could retire? In hindsight I think the last contract of 3.5 years, working almost every possible billable day, and sometimes statutory holidays was a big mistake and I should have taken more time off. But on the other hand, I needed to put those days in, coming off the back of 17 months on the bench, and all the financial damage that did.

So, I'm telling myself, while you've got these hot skills and feeling the way I do, why not push this decision down the line another few years. Keep both properties, take out another car lease, build up a bigger war chest and, one for you SchumiStars, get back to the office in London. Capitalise on my skillset. Sad, some might say, but I do miss the prestige of being down there, even just a couple of days a week. Couple of nice suits, look the part and feel I'm going somewhere, not just the bingo or crown green bowling.

Ooooooor pick up a time consuming hobby, look up Japanese wood working and go down the rabbit hole. Or read up on tea / coffee, scaled two stroke engines, motorbikes etc. No wonder you are going bananas with **** all to do, especially after 25yrs of working pretty much constantly. Seems like work was the main thing occupying you, so with that gone you are kind of lost. Also if you have offers, why not just carry on? it's not like you have to retire now.

[oliverson]

Ooooooor pick up a time consuming hobby, look up Japanese wood working and go down the rabbit hole. Or read up on tea / coffee, scaled two stroke engines, motorbikes etc. No wonder you are going bananas with **** all to do, especially after 25yrs of working pretty much constantly. Seems like work was the main thing occupying you, so with that gone you are kind of lost. Also if you have offers, why not just carry on? it's not like you have to retire now.

I've been working since I was 15 pretty much. That's well over 40 years. I know nothing else!

I'm going to give it one last go and as has been mentioned earlier, get a plan in place for when the inevitable comes along. My plan b can be ignored no longer.

[simes]

A few weeks ago, a gentleman, a recruiter wrote an article for CUK suggesting that the way to beat the malaise, is to just 'change industry sector'...

As if this had never been a consideration, I got in touch and politely suggested that it was those very same recruiters that wrote the job ads that stipulated 37 years' experience in an industry, and 29 years in a technology that prescribed it as an impossibility to ever change industry sectors in this climate.

A perm job popped up on JobServe. 'Must have x industry sector experience.' It came from this same agency. I got in touch with the gentleman and he very efficiently asked the agent in question to put me in the frame.

And upon talking to the lovely lady, I was just as quickly removed from the frame. Why? Well, the obvious reasons as stated above.

And then I was told, 'being a contractor, you won't be able to apply for a perm role either, cos our clients like to speak to existing perms with years of service on their CVs for each role.'

And then I was asked what I wanted from my next role? This was innocently asked as though I had any say or choice over and above that which was already on the CV. I.e. 'I 'choose' to do what is already on my CV.' Makes sense?

And then I was asked why I had 'Chosen to take a break at this juncture'...!

Well, that ended on a high. I had to laugh.

[SchumiStars]

Just reading on LI from a guy who has gone old skool by printing his CV off and handing it to people outside canary wharf.

Kudos, for trying something out of the box.

[Yuri F]

Just reading on LI from a guy who has gone old skool by printing his CV off and handing it to people outside canary wharf.

Kudos, for trying something out of the box.

Leaving aside the fact what 99% of this media content is scripted and designed mostly for popularity/clickbait/subs - If your target market is small (people-wise, not necessarily money-wise) offices then probably that could work (without going into chance details), but if you're aiming for larger corp on roles with high/narrow professional specialization then taking someone off the street like that for normal vacancy would be significant breach of corporate governance (transparency, competition/equal rights, etc., whatever they are declaring these days as publicity stunt) towards corruption, there are processes in place not just for fun.

[Yuri F]

Just discovered LinkedIn jobs since it was previously mentioned in this thread,
I mean I was on LI for years but in rather passive state (opened/published profile with updates once a year)
probably got quarter of my materialized contracts from that profile too, but again - it was a passive way, as receiver.
Tried to do an actual keyword-based proper boolean logic job search (narrowing down to contracts only) for a first time
1.5K hits just for contract roles published/refreshed within last week (UK only).
80% is junk but nonetheless it's quite impressive database anyway, something what can potentially keep me busy spamming apps.

[Dorkeaux]

Just discovered LinkedIn jobs since it was previously mentioned in this thread,
I mean I was on LI for years but in rather passive state (opened/published profile with updates once a year)
probably got quarter of my materialized contracts from that profile too, but again - it was a passive way, as receiver.
Tried to do an actual keyword-based proper boolean logic job search (narrowing down to contracts only) for a first time
1.5K hits just for contract roles published/refreshed within last week (UK only).
80% is junk but nonetheless it's quite impressive database anyway, something what can potentially keep me busy spamming apps.

I'm also relatively new to Linkedin Jobs, sometime last year.
The search facility isn't great, and most jobs don't have rates on.

But agreed, it's very useful.
I've got a few interviews and offers from it.

[SussexSeagull]

Quite tempted to apply to issue a volley of foul mouthed abuse at the interview stage. They go on to ask for specific skills.

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[Ketto]

I'm between gigs at the moment. Which is my own fault - I was being grouchy in the previous one and got let go. Lesson learnt.

At the moment I'm terrified though, I'm getting calls about £300 inside gigs and a whole lot of silence.

Best of luck. I'm not sure I can do anything but grouchy any more!