State of the Market

[TheDude]

HMRC have quite lot of contracts at the moment. Rates not great but mostly 100% remote.

[willendure]

HMRC have quite lot of contracts at the moment. Rates not great but mostly 100% remote.

Where do they advertise them ?

[caminito]

I wasn't getting much action on LinkedIn recently and no responses from the likes of JobServe for anything I applied for, auto-rejections aside, so with the assistance of ChatGPT, we analysed my CV and my LinkedIn profile and made drastic changes, hacking it down from 7 pages to 3 or 4. Almost overnight there was a significant change. EVEN QUIETER, and it remained like that for a fortnight. So I took the changes to Claude which basically slagged off the changes, saying the filtering down of my CV and profile, condensing all my London finance roles into a single sentence was a big mistake. So much for 7 pages down to 4. I know this thread is about 'state of the market' and I'm coming to that, please bear with me. So, again, a total rewrite of both was on the cards. Got that completed and submitted and make a couple of LI posts and comments, and the magic happened and not even slowly. I started receiving contact from agents and this has increased. The views of my profile are up significantly. The job suggestions are bang on for my profile. The posts I've made have been the key to some of this visibility I'm sure and they don't always get the results you expect they would. One technical post with a nice image to accompany it, the first in a series of posts on a particular subject, received virtually no engagement, and yet another one talking about how contracting has changed over the years, quite a personal one, was a smash, as as a post I submitted last week, again featuring a personal 'journey' in my career.

So, the state of the market can largely be determined by how 'visible' you are and I think getting the right CV and LinkedIn profile, being very searchable, generating interest with posts, maybe of your cat or something can show a very different market to how you perceived it was. As for contracts, I've not landed one yet and it's hard work, a full time job trying, but it's also a number game, and when you see opportunities out there, because people are seeing you, well, it gives you some hope. I'm optimistic that my latest sting on the bench might be over soon. All it takes is one.

[ladymuck]

Where do they advertise them ?

They don't seem to advertise them on PSR: https://publicsectorresourcing.co.uk/

[WTFH]

They don't seem to advertise them on PSR: https://publicsectorresourcing.co.uk/

There were a dozen or so earlier in the year - mostly around the ETMP ECC6 to S/4HANA project, which would be a good project to be on (if you know SAP) as it's going to go well over time and require a lot more resources that in the original plan. Any devs with ABAP skills might want to dust them off.
https://www.find-tender.service.gov....ce/003960-2026

[eek]

They don't seem to advertise them on PSR: https://publicsectorresourcing.co.uk/

HMRC will be outside and probably via Equal Experts (or at least that is the consultancy / agency they used to use.

[avonleigh]

HMRC will be outside and probably via Equal Experts (or at least that is the consultancy / agency they used to use.

In the testing space Cap Gemini and Coforge have a big presence at HMRC currently.

[SchumiStars]

I wasn't getting much action on LinkedIn recently and no responses from the likes of JobServe for anything I applied for, auto-rejections aside, so with the assistance of ChatGPT, we analysed my CV and my LinkedIn profile and made drastic changes, hacking it down from 7 pages to 3 or 4. Almost overnight there was a significant change. EVEN QUIETER, and it remained like that for a fortnight. So I took the changes to Claude which basically slagged off the changes, saying the filtering down of my CV and profile, condensing all my London finance roles into a single sentence was a big mistake. So much for 7 pages down to 4. I know this thread is about 'state of the market' and I'm coming to that, please bear with me. So, again, a total rewrite of both was on the cards. Got that completed and submitted and make a couple of LI posts and comments, and the magic happened and not even slowly. I started receiving contact from agents and this has increased. The views of my profile are up significantly. The job suggestions are bang on for my profile. The posts I've made have been the key to some of this visibility I'm sure and they don't always get the results you expect they would. One technical post with a nice image to accompany it, the first in a series of posts on a particular subject, received virtually no engagement, and yet another one talking about how contracting has changed over the years, quite a personal one, was a smash, as as a post I submitted last week, again featuring a personal 'journey' in my career.

So, the state of the market can largely be determined by how 'visible' you are and I think getting the right CV and LinkedIn profile, being very searchable, generating interest with posts, maybe of your cat or something can show a very different market to how you perceived it was. As for contracts, I've not landed one yet and it's hard work, a full time job trying, but it's also a number game, and when you see opportunities out there, because people are seeing you, well, it gives you some hope. I'm optimistic that my latest sting on the bench might be over soon. All it takes is one.

7 page CV?!
Now it's down to 4 pages?

I've been working for 30yrs and mine has never been more than 2 pages.

[Dorkeaux]

Mine is 9 pages, with all the roles outside the UK trimmed off.
Clearly I have a problem, but I find this style of CV is coming right again with AI and keyword searches.

If humans don't read your CV or admire it's trendy formatting, maybe length works to your advantage.

[northernladuk]

Mine is 9 pages, with all the roles outside the UK trimmed off.
Clearly I have a problem, but I find this style of CV is coming right again with AI and keyword searches.

If humans don't read your CV or admire it's trendy formatting, maybe length works to your advantage.

Not really. It might work for the AI and searches but a human has to ultimately read it and it's highly likely they are going to be as shocked as most of us are and not in a good way for you. Absolutely no reason a CV needs to be 9 pages long and every reason it shouldn't be.