State of the Market

[ContractorHardman]

Agreed.
Having been through the mill on this last year (two final rounds, no offers).

The problem with interviewing for permie jobs is you will be questioned on motivation.
And as mentioned above there is a unspoken view that you will jump ship at the next good contract.

There is a common phrase on here: 'Oh I'll just go permie'. I wonder who on here has had success with that approach.

Me, I knocked back 4 offers from the same company to go Perm. I have also had a few others interested. As I say, if you skills are in demand then companies will drop the paranoia about your contractor past however it is usually the case that contractors will still be in demand.

[JamesBrown11]

Last recruiter I have spoken with received over 300 applications in 12 hours since the ad was posted.
"Vast majority" of these were from people that didn't even match reqs to begin with. Also many, many Indian consultancies trying to steal the gig.

[northernladuk]

Last recruiter I have spoken with received over 300 applications in 12 hours since the ad was posted.
"Vast majority" of these were from people that didn't even match reqs to begin with. Also many, M Indian consultancies trying to steal the gig.

The number of applications can vary. It used to be that high as standard when I first started contracting and seemed to drop back for a few years. I'm surprised it's only that many with the current situation going on though.

The people applying that don't match annoys me somewhat though. I'd heard this happens but never really seen it until I saw a Service Transition gig on linked in. There must have been 10+ people saying they were interested but they were a complete mix of randoms. PM's BAs, you name it. At least half of them didn't have service or transition as a keyword in their linked in profiles at all let alone experience in it. Why on earth do people do this? They must have skin like an elephant to put up with all the silence they get from their applications.

[Old Greg]

The number of applications can vary. It used to be that high as standard when I first started contracting and seemed to drop back for a few years. I'm surprised it's only that many with the current situation going on though.

The people applying that don't match annoys me somewhat though. I'd heard this happens but never really seen it until I saw a Service Transition gig on linked in. There must have been 10+ people saying they were interested but they were a complete mix of randoms. PM's BAs, you name it. At least half of them didn't have service or transition as a keyword in their linked in profiles at all let alone experience in it. Why on earth do people do this? They must have skin like an elephant to put up with all the silence they get from their applications.

If there are 100 totally unsuitable applications, there are two possibilities:

1. There are people who work vaguely in IT who are just firing off a dozen or so applications every morning for any IT contract / job ad.
2. PC has identified a role for his extended family to apply to en masse, to demonstrate job seeking activities.

[SussexSeagull]

I always thought 300 about par for the course for anything publicly advertised. Although most of them are either not qualified or not eligible for a Visa it must turn the whole process into a bit of a lottery.

[elsergiovolador]

Agreed.
Having been through the mill on this last year (two final rounds, no offers).

The problem with interviewing for permie jobs is you will be questioned on motivation.
And as mentioned above there is a unspoken view that you will jump ship at the next good contract.

There is a common phrase on here: 'Oh I'll just go permie'. I wonder who on here has had success with that approach.

Contractors are working on their own account. If company wants to ensure contractor stays, they should offer shares in the company.

[edison]

Last recruiter I have spoken with received over 300 applications in 12 hours since the ad was posted.
"Vast majority" of these were from people that didn't even match reqs to begin with. Also many, many Indian consultancies trying to steal the gig.

The number of applications can vary. It used to be that high as standard when I first started contracting and seemed to drop back for a few years. I'm surprised it's only that many with the current situation going on though.

The people applying that don't match annoys me somewhat though. I'd heard this happens but never really seen it until I saw a Service Transition gig on linked in. There must have been 10+ people saying they were interested but they were a complete mix of randoms. PM's BAs, you name it. At least half of them didn't have service or transition as a keyword in their linked in profiles at all let alone experience in it. Why on earth do people do this? They must have skin like an elephant to put up with all the silence they get from their applications.

I saw a senior IT managerial job on LinkedIn two weeks ago that had over 2,200 applications which is crazy.

I've recently been working with a large well known recruitment firm to recruit around 30 perms and we've typically been getting 300-500 applications when advertised on any of the big job portals.

Those people who apply for 10 jobs a day when they are barely a 20% fit are just wasting their time and most importantly, emotional energy. The vast majority will still be looking for a job in a few months. Any decent career coach (and this applies for contractors as well as perms) will advise you to target your applications very carefully. You've got to be able to demonstrate and crucially evidence, that you can solve a specific problem for an organisation.

I've read hundreds of shortlisted CVs and applications in the last 2-3 months and I'd say 25% were utterly useless, 50% were mediocre and maybe 10-15% were good. It's staggering that so many job seekers fill their CVs with pages of drivel about their responsibilities (often quite mundane) and include barely any tangible achievements that relate to the specific vacancy. If you can't articulate your achievements, then there's nothing to make you stand out as a candidate. IT job candidates are definitely amongst the worst at producing CVs compared to other job functions.

Firing off CVs at will means you can't in effect, tailor your application for the role. You might be a great full stack developer for example but so might 100 of the other applicants and there's little about you that makes you seem special or worth talking too.

[JamesBrown11]

Do recruiters even *read* all of those CVs or just pick a subset at random and go from there? That recruiter I have spoken with said he's "trying" to go through all of them, but I very much doubt that he has the time for it.

How can genuine experts like me and many on this board (with 10, 20, 30+ years of experience) stand out from competition when applying on public job boards?

[elsergiovolador]

I've read hundreds of shortlisted CVs and applications in the last 2-3 months and I'd say 25% were utterly useless, 50% were mediocre and maybe 10-15% were good. It's staggering that so many job seekers fill their CVs with pages of drivel about their responsibilities (often quite mundane) and include barely any tangible achievements that relate to the specific vacancy. If you can't articulate your achievements, then there's nothing to make you stand out as a candidate. IT job candidates are definitely amongst the worst at producing CVs compared to other job functions.

One dude from old gig asked me to help with his CV years ago, because he had trouble finding anything. His CV was like 15 pages and description of what he did for some employers spanned over two A4 pages, literally walls of text. He pasted random texts from job descriptions that more or less fit what he did, some with different formatting and tone... I said to him that he needs to get rid most of it as nobody is going to read that. He got upset and said that if his CV is empty then they will think he has no experience. Eventually one of his old employers hired him back and he's been there for like 10 years now. If he ever decides to switch jobs his CV will probably look like a book...

[GhostofTarbera]

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