State of the Market

[The Green View]

Also starting to get these requests from agents to arrange Teams meetings to go over my profile and see how they can work for me going forward.

Not sure whether I should be champing at the bit here because it may increase my chances of landing something by 1% or whatever but my heart tends to sink when I get these kind of calls as it's always Comp Futures, Rocsearch et al who have never landed me me anything in the past and have never done anything other than waste my time.

[SussexSeagull]

Also starting to get these requests from agents to arrange Teams meetings to go over my profile and see how they can work for me going forward.

Not sure whether I should be champing at the bit here because it may increase my chances of landing something by 1% or whatever but my heart tends to sink when I get these kind of calls as it's always Comp Futures, Rocsearch et al who have never landed me me anything in the past and have never done anything other than waste my time.

From memory I have never landed a role that didn't involve either me applying for it or an agent getting in touch over a specific role. You don't pop down the butchers to discuss Pork Chops until you want to buy some Pork Chops.

Quite happy to pass the time of day with agents as it might put my name in the frame when something suitable appears but anything more formal than that is a waste of time.

[SussexSeagull]

That's just plain stupid and I've got no sympathy towards them. When I read their desperate posts and help requests on LinkedIn I just think about my 24 months warchest, stroke my beard and laugh at them.

I think there is a belief amongst some on here that all contractors are on £500 a day or more so can build up a war chest in no time by living carefully. It simply isn't the case for some contractors who don't get near that rate, especially in single income households.

It's great that you have built up that cushion but it simply isn't possible for all contractors.

[dx4100]

That's just plain stupid and I've got no sympathy towards them. When I read their desperate posts and help requests on LinkedIn I just think about my 24 months warchest, stroke my beard and laugh at them.

Wow, what a lovely bloke

[dx4100]

I think if you want to contract long term you have to keep moving forward and picking up the latest skills. I have traded off the back of .net for 20 years now but I have had to add significant cloud and dev ops experience along the way as well as moving more towards python and typescript from a language point of view. Stand still and one day you will be dead in the water.

In my 40s now so need to start thinking about the exit strategy out of contracting and into full time perm. I don't see myself being in my late 50s contracting but who knows I suppose.

[TheDude]

I think if you want to contract long term you have to keep moving forward and picking up the latest skills. I have traded off the back of .net for 20 years now but I have had to add significant cloud and dev ops experience along the way as well as moving more towards python and typescript from a language point of view. Stand still and one day you will be dead in the water.

In my 40s now so need to start thinking about the exit strategy out of contracting and into full time perm. I don't see myself being in my late 50s contracting but who knows I suppose.

You are much more likely to find contract roles in your 50s than a decent perm role.

[SussexSeagull]

You are much more likely to find contract roles in your 50s than a decent perm role.

Whilst I agree with keeping up with the latest trends in technology, legacy platforms don't disappear overnight and there has historically been a market in them. That kind of lends itself to more experienced contractors for clients where it isn't worth training their own staff on something on it's way out.

[gables]

You are much more likely to find contract roles in your 50s than a decent perm role.

I hope so as 58 with no desire to retire :-)

[edison]

Was up for a very well paid FTC (hence worth stepping out of contracting for a while) and apparently had it until someone they used to work with became available last minute.

You really can't catch a break when you have been out for a while.

I know what you mean, I felt that way when I had 10 months on the bench in 2014/15. Decided to try going back to perm and got down to the last two candidates several times for some really good roles but each time I didn't get an offer for what seemed like relatively minor reasons. Eventually got a contract role and have been lucky to have done some very interesting work since.

Again, with a warchest, it takes the pressure off a bit so that you don't have to take the first role going and over time, you might catch a lucky break.

[Fraidycat]

Also starting to get these requests from agents to arrange Teams meetings to go over my profile and see how they can work for me going forward.

Not sure whether I should be champing at the bit here because it may increase my chances of landing something by 1% or whatever but my heart tends to sink when I get these kind of calls as it's always Comp Futures, Rocsearch et al who have never landed me me anything in the past and have never done anything other than waste my time.

I remember in the early 2000s being asked by agents to come into Central London to visit agency offices. Twice to sit client tests, other times to just chat with the agent about a specific role. Probably did that about five or six times in total.

Teams or Zoom doesn't take much more effort than a telephone call.

Comp Futures landed me a role in 1999, never used them again after that. You never know who will be the next agent to find you something.