State of the Market

[dx4100]

Be very wary of providing free consulting solutions services in extended interviews for strangely specific problems. Gathering consensus from a few experts over interviews is a known way to gain free consultancy.

Yup - this was on my mind... Probably why I drew a rude picture on the board...

Actually with hindsight this probably why I didn't get the role...

[edison]

Be very wary of providing free consulting solutions services in extended interviews for strangely specific problems. Gathering consensus from a few experts over interviews is a known way to gain free consultancy.

Yep - I've even had agents be quite candid to say that's what the client is doing. For perm roles, this isn't uncommon as what the company thinks it wants/needs at the start of the process can be quite different once they've interviewed 5-6 people.

[hairymouse]

Just in case anyone is curious, all those postings on jobserve that are about PRONOM for a contract paying £1000 per day are all about a project at the National Archives in Kew. I'd bet that you could just go direct.

[boxingbantz]

Be very wary of providing free consulting solutions services in extended interviews for strangely specific problems. Gathering consensus from a few experts over interviews is a known way to gain free consultancy.

Had this myself a few months back.

Asking some very specific questions about an implementation which they wanted me to 'potentially' work on. I even pulled them up on it. Suffice to say, I didn't spend too long on the interview.

[ruasonid]

Yep - I've even had agents be quite candid to say that's what the client is doing. For perm roles, this isn't uncommon as what the company thinks it wants/needs at the start of the process can be quite different once they've interviewed 5-6 people.

Very true. Recently had an interview for a role that appeared to be a good match. Interview went well and expecting to move forward. Role advertised again with a different set of requirements.

[hairymouse]

Cam across this one today:

Requirements:
3 years' experience across the Microsoft Azure Stack including Azure Data Factory. (Essential).

Location:
Canary Wharf

Rate: £300 - £350 per day

I guess you could always live in a cardboard box under a bridge to save on costs

[hairymouse]

Just in case anyone is curious, all those postings on jobserve that are about PRONOM for a contract paying £1000 per day are all about a project at the National Archives in Kew. I'd bet that you could just go direct.

Man, Jobserve is full of ads for this one role. Every agency in the country must have been invited to give this one a go. Kudos to the one agency listing it for £460 a day when everyone else has it up for £800. If they manage to find a developer smart enough to do the job while at the same time so dumb they don't notice the 40 other identical ads with double the rate, they get to pocket 300 quid a day. YOLO!

[hairymouse]

How about a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst paying "ideally around £250pd"?

Doesn't sound ideal to me.

[LadyPenelope]

How about a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst paying "ideally around £250pd"?

Doesn't sound ideal to me.

So long as they'd be prepared to put up with the MASSIVE AMOUNT of resentment this would cause throughout the duration.

Some of the permanent roles of this type seem to want to pay £30k or so. Same as my son is getting in his first grad job.

[simes]

Exactly this...

There was a role in Preston I went for recently who gave me a whiteboard exercise. As far as I know I did really well in both stages of the interview and there only feeling was I was a bit weak on the white board exercise. Four months later they was still looking for some chump who held the secret magic to what they wanted to see on their white board exercise.

Madness

Ah, the whiteboard exercise.

I remember one interview for the then T-Mobile up in Hatfield whereby I was being interviewed by two very serious and frowny people. Every answer was treated with the utmost suspicion.

And then came the whiteboard question, Can you draw up for us the project management flow on the whiteboard? This was in the days of; Requirements, Design, Dev, Test, Operations, Live.

Sitting down, I looked round behind me, saw said whiteboard, and turned back round to them saying I can describe this to you without the need for whiteboards.

I didn't get the gig, obviously, but by then I figured I didn't want it either. And so I thought the performing monkey element could be well done without.