State of the Market

[northernladuk]

if that one entity suddenly becomes ill and cannot work. does the company receive any income? no. so one employee business.

You aren't an employee of your company. It isn't just employees that can do work for the company. If you were an employee it would be illegal to pay under the NMW.
Just picking on your understanding of a company. We all know what you mean but you are NOT an employee.

[Andy2]

Most likely it was an exercise driven by HR bods that local resources cannot be found so they can have their backs covered and bring people on sponsorship. Most of people that I have interacted with 1in HR(out of 3) and 2 devs were clearly fresh off boat. HR has about description not in UK but... (no discrimination here, I am an immigrant myself but the coincidence seems a bit too strong)

no brexitier here, but the point I am trying to make is that companies hire control. And you can't have a shorter leash than a work visa when your livelyhood is dependant on that piece of paper.

What's not to like. Pay 30-40k salary to get an employee who will work 12 hour a day due to being on work visa and fear of deportation.
Win win for the companies.

[BigDataPro]

What's not to like. Pay 30-40k salary to get an employee who will work 12 hour a day due to being on work visa and fear of deportation.
Win win for the companies.

Boris is going to India next week. Visa rules relaxation is most likely to take centre stage of discussions.

[Destiny2]

Boris is going to India next week. Visa rules relaxation is most likely to take centre stage of discussions.

The great Indian IT employer strategy :

We have one guy who knows how to do X but we will say we have ten. We will then obtain a contract with a foreign company for IT services and send our ten guys to that foreign country. The other nine guys will always observe the guy who knows X and learn a bit. To look busy to the client, everyone can sit at their desks and browse the net or put on headphones and watch Bollywood movies on their phones.

But, these are our employees and we will treat them like slaves back in India. So, all these ten guys have to go home and jump on their laptops and keep working. Now, we don't want any of our Indian employees to get comfortable and thinking of getting a visa and God forbid a foreign passport! We employ them and thatmeans we own them. Every year, we are going to rotate the employees!


*I worked for Infosys briefly as a contractor
*I have Indian roots

[Lance]

The great IT consultancy strategy :

FTFY.
It's any company. They always big up their capabilities. Only after you've paid for it do you realise that the one guy who knows it is the pre-sales guy who's selling to the next client.

[agentzero]

Worst I've ever seen the market, including the dotcom crash and 2008/9 (to 2013) crisis.

Had one outside IR35 and one inside IR35 roles cancelled in the first week or just prior to starting. A third is being strung out and seems to require the most Q&A paperwork I've ever seen. I expect they have just rid themselves of a low quality contractor and are being very cautious. At least this one is outside IR35.

The volume of rubbish roles inside IR35 in my specialism is bizarre, as I can't seriously believe people are applying for those roles when they're asking for every qualification under the sun and a perversely wide range of experience that is impossible to fulfill for £350/day inside IR35. My average rate prior to April 6th was double that outside IR35.

Some people are turning to permie roles, but even those seem to be £50k to £90k on the advert but essentially just £50k. I earned more than that in two short stints as a permie 20 and 18 years ago.

Client interviews seem to involve a tired, haggard hiring manager or senior manager who seems exercised at having to perform interviews over video conference. One interview last month asked me my age, whether I had children and what my wife thought of me traveling to London during covid19. I lied and said I was gay, to highlight their assumptions were unacceptable, and that I had no real plans to travel to London if the work can be completed remotely. Most work these days in our areas can be completed remotely. I also recorded the interview and am tempted to raise it with their HR department. It's a cultural issue in their organisation for certain, as entirely different people asked similar questions at the first stage interview prior to the second stage interview.

[GigiBronz]

Client interviews seem to involve a tired, haggard hiring manager or senior manager who seems exercised at having to perform interviews over video conference. One interview last month asked me my age, whether I had children and what my wife thought of me traveling to London during covid19. I lied and said I was gay, to highlight their assumptions were unacceptable, and that I had no real plans to travel to London if the work can be completed remotely. Most work these days in our areas can be completed remotely. I also recorded the interview and am tempted to raise it with their HR department. It's a cultural issue in their organisation for certain, as entirely different people asked similar questions at the first stage interview prior to the second stage interview.

I had an interview for a 3m FTC role that was "highly likely to be extended" and they were looking for a consultant not a run of the mill programmer to interact with HR team and build an internal system. So contract in disguise. At the whooping 55k per year (pro rata).

Between the questions that were quite intrusive, there was one: "do I need reasonable adjustments for the interview with the manager?". Don't be fooled by their generous intentions, what reasonable adjustments do you need for a phone call with the manager?

What I think they were actually after was to see if you pose high risk for a recourse to your unfair dismissal. So if you would have felt betrayed or dismissed for any reason they wanted to make sure that your chances are low to fight the dismissal. ( under 2y you have no rights unless you can prove the dismissal is because of discrimination etc...)
I don't have any disability but at this point I snapped... it was clearly one of the many reasons wrong with that company.

Welcome to the 2021 hamster wheel!

[krytonsheep]

Some calls here and there. I personally haven't had a call for a contract for about 3 months and I believe I have a strong cv. (unless recruiters share feedback on us through hidden databases and rely on word of mouth from previous recruiters - which is very likely what they are doing)

There's no hidden database ( I hope ). Agents use UDP communication between contractors and themselves. It's totally unreliable and they'll only respond to people who they think are dead cert of landing a gig based on

• a few random keywords in their CV such as XML and DB.
• maximum agency cut on the daily/hourly rate.

[GigiBronz]

There's no hidden database ( I hope ). Agents use UDP communication between contractors and themselves. It's totally unreliable and they'll only respond to people who they think are dead cert of landing a gig based on

• a few random keywords in their CV such as XML and DB.
• maximum agency cut on the daily/hourly rate.

google " police database construction workers blacklist" and you will find some in the construction sector that were previously taken down. What makes you think that you would not have the same practice in different industry?

I had a gig at some point with a brand name agency, they bent me over at the beginning of the contract (not only on the rate but forcing umbrella solution and a few other things) so I went for a good part of their cut at renewal and drove a hard negotiation. Client pulled contract and offered permanent role, I refused it but before leaving forwarded my emails and concerns about the agency to client. That probably did not like that.

It is a business for how it operates but agencies would defiantly weed out the more business oriented people if they could and go for the "happy go lucky" ex permi that feel treated well by a free meal and some "banter" with the agent.

[krytonsheep]

google " police database construction workers blacklist" and you will find some in the construction sector that were previously taken down. What makes you think that you would not have the same practice in different industry?

I honestly can't think of any criteria for a contractor to be blacklisted by an agency... let alone have a shared list or database between agencies. Sure there maybe some bias towards contractors who've done long stints through them before, but that's it.