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State of the Market

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  • tsmith
    replied
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • dsc
    replied
    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

    Leave a comment:


  • SussexSeagull
    replied
    I was having a similar conversation while waiting for a meeting to start the other day and in the near 30 years I have been in the industry the tools and technology has come along leaps and bounds but actual delivery hasn't really improved.

    Leave a comment:


  • CoolCat
    replied
    Originally posted by edison View Post

    Since as long as I can remember, the failure rate of IT enabled projects has been around 60-70% depending on which stats you look at. Despite endless frameworks and methodologies, there doesn't seem to be anything likely to change that. There appears to be a bit less appetite for very long transformation programmes and some companies are now trying to be more 'agile' in the broadest sense with change.

    Having worked on large programmes and projects as a consultant and as an employee, it never ceased to amaze me how there were usually so many consultants, tech and process people on board but so few on the change side. Maybe a comms person, one person from HR and a change manager if you were lucky in tandem with a PM.

    A big reason is that there is always a tension between BAU operations and change in terms of priorities and resourcing, never mind resistance and inertia. Hence why consultancies get brought in but the results are usually depressing.

    And due to repeated failed change initiatives, firms don't develop their own change management skills and the reliance on consultants goes on and on.
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • edison
    replied
    Originally posted by eek View Post

    You would have thought it was zero risk to management

    1) if the project is a success take the glory for the successful project
    2) pass the blame to the change experts who failed to achieve things.

    I guess this is why you offload the project as a whole to a consultancy - still leaves an element of personal responsiblity (you picked Dave) where if you bring in a consultancy a all management involved in the project jointly get the blame.
    Since as long as I can remember, the failure rate of IT enabled projects has been around 60-70% depending on which stats you look at. Despite endless frameworks and methodologies, there doesn't seem to be anything likely to change that. There appears to be a bit less appetite for very long transformation programmes and some companies are now trying to be more 'agile' in the broadest sense with change.

    Having worked on large programmes and projects as a consultant and as an employee, it never ceased to amaze me how there were usually so many consultants, tech and process people on board but so few on the change side. Maybe a comms person, one person from HR and a change manager if you were lucky in tandem with a PM.

    A big reason is that there is always a tension between BAU operations and change in terms of priorities and resourcing, never mind resistance and inertia. Hence why consultancies get brought in but the results are usually depressing.

    And due to repeated failed change initiatives, firms don't develop their own change management skills and the reliance on consultants goes on and on.

    Leave a comment:


  • eek
    replied
    Originally posted by cojak View Post
    Because Senior Management aren’t prepared to devolve power and budget to juniors who can do the job better than them.

    My career in Service Management involved moving from operations to design to strategy, to try and improve things ‘up-stream’. I then retired when I realised that Service Owners job was to take the blame when their service when belly up because of poor design and lack of budget to maintain and improve. They had no agency to do either.
    You would have thought it was zero risk to management

    1) if the project is a success take the glory for the successful project
    2) pass the blame to the change experts who failed to achieve things.

    I guess this is why you offload the project as a whole to a consultancy - still leaves an element of personal responsiblity (you picked Dave) where if you bring in a consultancy a all management involved in the project jointly get the blame.

    Leave a comment:


  • cojak
    replied
    Originally posted by eek View Post

    What parts do you enjoy doing? Given the choice I would be looking at change management but for reasons I've never understood there is zero money in helping companies ensure the changes they make stick and the project is a success...
    Because Senior Management aren’t prepared to devolve power and budget to juniors who can do the job better than them.

    My career in Service Management involved moving from operations to design to strategy, to try and improve things ‘up-stream’. I then retired when I realised that Service Owners job was to take the blame when their service when belly up because of poor design and lack of budget to maintain and improve. They had no agency to do either.

    Leave a comment:


  • dsc
    replied
    Originally posted by barely_pointless View Post

    [...]biggest problem I see with SF is the low barrier to entry for expert, especially agile ones, Product Owners/BA's etc

    This of course, good or bad, causes work............
    As in it's full of people who know little about SF? they seem to be struggling with getting good SF devs, which seems odd to me, yeah fair enough you can get clueless Product Owners / BAs, but I always assumed devs need to know something to start.

    Leave a comment:


  • oliverson
    replied
    Originally posted by Bluenose View Post
    once Jobserve pops into the late 40s it represents a healthy market. The problem is its only just done that, from a low base, and it needs to be sustained over a period of time.

    My burner phone, inbox and linked in are all dead currently.
    Received another spec. by email this morning, out of the blue. A reminder of how things used to be, except despite not mentioning IR35, being for a bank (BAML) it definitely will be inside.

    Leave a comment:


  • Bluenose
    replied
    once Jobserve pops into the late 40s it represents a healthy market. The problem is its only just done that, from a low base, and it needs to be sustained over a period of time.

    My burner phone, inbox and linked in are all dead currently.

    Leave a comment:

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