State of the Market

[Bluenose]

People not getting work/calls, why do you think that is?

It is a bear market. Older hands that went through the 2001 dotcom crash and aftermath of 9/11 will know the feeling.

[SussexSeagull]

Further problem is when you do get n somewhere projects are being pulled at the drop of a hat. Doesn't matter how niche your skillset is when there isn't any work to do.

[Fraidycat]

It is a bear market. Older hands that went through the 2001 dotcom crash and aftermath of 9/11 will know the feeling.

Was not pleasant.

It was the first half of 2001, I was on £500+ a day.

And i had saved 100K: 50K deposit for my first house and 50K warchest.

The house was due to complete in August 2001.

I was benched in late July 2001, but managed to complete the house purchase.

Over the next year i proceeded to eat through most of my warchest and was pretty much broke.

I went from earning 130K a year and having 100K savings and no debt to being broke, unemployed with a big (for its time) mortgage to service

[rocktronAMP]

Was not pleasant.

It was the first half of 2001, I was on £500+ a day.

And i had saved 100K: 50K deposit for my first house and 50K warchest.

The house was due to complete in August 2001.

I was benched in late July 2001, but managed to complete the house purchase.

Over the next year i proceeded to eat through most of my warchest and was pretty much broke.

I went from earning 130K a year and having 100K savings to being broke, unemployed with a big (for its time) mortgage to service

Damn!

Similar story about saving the loot, and then redundancy and restructuring happened tail end of 2010 and most of 2011. I saw my warchest deplete month by month and I should've twigged to rain in the expenditure. I was thinking I will get another job soon enough. Never again. Jump on the nearest boat (gig / job). I will be the stingest f7ck7r ever!

The most money I ever saved was 72K in the *good years* 2003 to 2007 and then I went perm just in time to see Lehmans Bros fall off the edge of the cliff! Thankfully, my decision to go perm meant that I did qualify for compo .... \ And now here we are (the both of us)..


BTW: Congrats on saving 100K+ back in the day. I could do with the dosh now!

[edison]

I don't necessarily agree with this. From what I'm seeing the big problem is that recruiters aren't wasting money posting on the usual boards and relying on their existing candidate lists. If you're not on them, you never hear about any of the contracts. My last couple of contracts have never appeared on jobserve/jobsite/cwjobs etc.

I spoke to an agent today who said something similar, more roles seem to be getting filled through networks and organisations are more willing to cut out the recruitment specialist.

[eek]

I spoke to an agent today who said something similar, more roles seem to be getting filled through networks and organisations are more willing to cut out the recruitment specialist.

That's actually 2 different issues:-

1) Agents now have such full address books that they don't need to use jobserve when they can post a message for free on LinkedIn (it doesn't work that well but your typical agent will see enough responses that he won't care)
2) Some companies have networks that allow them to bypass agents full stop.

[SueEllen]

That's actually 2 different issues:-

1) Agents now have such full address books that they don't need to use jobserve when they can post a message for free on LinkedIn (it doesn't work that well but your typical agent will see enough responses that he won't care)

Agents don't even need to do that.

I've been on some agencies email lists for years.

Randomly they send me a relevant email at the right time.

[Fraidycat]

Damn!


BTW: Congrats on saving 100K+ back in the day. I could do with the dosh now!

Wasnt hard to save that much living at home.

My 2001 story was even worse than i wrote above.

My 50K warchest in 2001, i depleted half via living expenses the other half i lost through day trading in the stock market

Luckily in late 2002 i phoned up an old friend who got me into a contract paying just £275 a day, which was a major lifeline as i was almost completely broke.

[uk contractor]

Wasnt hard to save that much living at home.

My 2001 story was even worse than i wrote above.

My 50K warchest in 2001, i depleted half via living expenses the other half i lost through day trading in the stock market

Luckily in late 2002 i phoned up an old friend who got me into a contract paying just £275 a day, which was a major lifeline as i was almost completely broke.

Similar to mine around that same dreadful 2001 summer time. Went through about £200K though (big £££ 00000K lost on day trading not all living the high life! although I did live like a king for some considerable time...but paying for that now) now I do not have 2 pennies to rub together but still existing (just about!!) hoping for the eventual turn around like so many! But realistically not expecting much either so semi-retired!!

[hungry_hog]

Similar to mine around that same dreadful 2001 summer time. Went through about £200K though (big £££ 00000K lost on day trading not all living the high life! although I did live like a king for some considerable time...but paying for that now) now I do not have 2 pennies to rub together but still existing (just about!!) hoping for the eventual turn around like so many! But realistically not expecting much either so semi-retired!!

200k!

I hope she was worth it!