State of the Market

[Peoplesoft bloke]

A senior client guy told me recently that a 12 month project could be done in three months if we were agile. I kindly advised him that it could be done in three months if we were starting from three months before project completion.

Did he also claim you could make a human baby in 1 month by impregnating 9 women?

[krytonsheep]

Maybe there should be a CheckATrade type service accreditation process for contractors where client feedback is used as an anonymous reference to agents

There's a lot of things that could be improved! Typical agency candidate filtering seems to work like this:
Gig available for an iOS app developer. Contractor who worked at Apple on the iOS framework applies. Contractor CV is rejected by agency before it reaches client, because their CV does not include the keyword XML listed by the client in the job description.

[BR14]

Did he also claim you could make a human baby in 1 month by impregnating 9 women?

you can't ?

don't tell any Powerpoint Monkeys that.

[Old Greg]

Did he also claim you could make a human baby in 1 month by impregnating 9 women?

The punchline is that the project needs legislation to be passed.

[heyya99]

The punchline is that the project needs legislation to be passed.

If you folk are offered a 6 month contract / renewal that brings you beyond April next year, do you sign it or do you add in IR35 change elements? I won't have this issue as my next renewal is March and I suspect my client will have blanked IR35'd us all before then.

[ladymuck]

If you folk are offered a 6 month contract / renewal that brings you beyond April next year, do you sign it or do you add in IR35 change elements? I won't have this issue as my next renewal is March and I suspect my client will have blanked IR35'd us all before then.

If I were in that position, I would not sign an extension past March without a determination.

That said, any determination change could be deemed a change of contractual terms (IANAL) so you could just take the extension and consider it terminated if you get an answer you don't like.

[Bluenose]

If you folk are offered a 6 month contract / renewal that brings you beyond April next year, do you sign it or do you add in IR35 change elements? I won't have this issue as my next renewal is March and I suspect my client will have blanked IR35'd us all before then.

have the contract reviewed by QDOS sign the 6 month contract.

re-asses the situation in March.

the problem with not taking a full extension as offered is that the client might think that you want out and find a replacement who is willing to commit for the full term and even beyond.

By all means inform them of the IR35 changes coming next year and ask what their plans are but do that after you have signed the extension.

it has paid me not to try and second guess when in a sticky situation.

once the current political mire has started to clear things will pick back up.

[Bluenose]

In the last couple of days I've had about 5-6 posts appear on LinkedIn from agencies I know who are running IR35 information sessions this week. Some are aimed at end clients, some at contractors.

I had dealings with several large agencies in the Spring who had already done a lot of prep.

Not sure why there is a sudden burst of activity but I can't help thinking that if so many clients haven't already made significant preparations by now, it's practically too late and going to be a car crash come the new year? In a lot of organisations, updating HR policies including hiring can take ages...

The answer to this is simple.

The pure-bred rec. agencies are afraid that consultancies will eat their lunch this time around and the war on Linked-in has kicked-off because the consultancies have started to fire PDF IR35 focused papers out to CIO's which throw the recruitment agencies under the bus.

Many of the mid-range and low-end pure recruitment firms don't have the brainpower to do this transition hence you will have seen another tell-tale sign that the rec. firms are looking for CTO's to come onboard as I have seen the advertisements.

This is why there is now a burst of activity and we could see some recruitment desks fold if they do not adapt and yes, the recruitment firms are late, the consultancies are not, the longer the rec. firms leave this the more it plays into the hands of the consultancies.

Funnily enough, the two lads on the pay-as-you-go mobile phones running a recruitment 'agency' might be winners here too as there will be a bigger demand for specialist units that can head-hunt and work on a commission basis with the resourcing teams inside consultancies.

[PerfectStorm]

Long-time gighunters from the summer lull - anyone still looking? What's your running total of months out now?

[KinooOrKinog]

Long-time gighunters from the summer lull - anyone still looking? What's your running total of months out now?

I was looking from the end of August, started an eight week contract a month later, which has just been extended until end of the year. It's definitely picking up in general now I think.