State of the Market

[JustKeepSwimming]

Came up on my feed too. Dreadful.

What was the tone of the comments?

The new higher-ups implemented a blanket ban on contractors (with caveats) when I was last there earlier this year. Hence no extension for me.

Would explain why I have only seen 1 gig from them all year. Contractors cut and they still need to cut some permie fat. From what I've heard they have pretty geographically diverse workforce because of their WFH policy and it seems they only have 3 offices, Northampton, Swindon, Bournemouth. Another case of cuts without any regard to quality of the resource.

[oliverson]

What was the tone of the comments?

...

Didn't read the comments, in fact I deleted the post, but if it's anything like the one I saw last week, equally cringe-worthy, it would be a bunch of supportive lefty permie w4nkers typing 'Commenting For Reach'.

[northernladuk]

TBH if I was recruiting a contractor and saw that I wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. Permanent employees get a bit of slack for personal issues but we have to leave them at the door.

Must admit that was my first impression as well. Hard to understand how bad it can be for some people but this isn't the way. Does him zero favours and poses more questions than it solves. I get that it might be a passionate plea from the heart and he really is in dire straights but this is just not the way to fix it. This is business and sadly when clients have needs and agents have targets/commission to protect there is little place for charity I am afraid.

He'll get a ton of internet hugs but I can't see any agent or client taking him on based on the fact he's desperate sadly.

Someone earlier said the SC won't make any difference. I'd say that's wrong. Having SC is a massive benefit as he's in a market with a vastly reduced people pool. It's well known many people get gigs they aren't fully skilled in just because they have SC. So if he's experienced AND has SC he's in a prime place to hover up roles. My question is why he hasn't been able to do this with that in place. Something has got to be wrong at a more fundamental level meaning he isn't getting the gigs based on experience and SC. His interview techniques, poor CV, not looking in the right places. Something is broken and he needs to fix that rather than posting like this.

Hate to see someone in that position but something isn't right here.

[dx4100]

Didn't read the comments, in fact I deleted the post, but if it's anything like the one I saw last week, equally cringe-worthy, it would be a bunch of supportive lefty permie w4nkers typing 'Commenting For Reach'.

You missed off woke... Its not a proper rant unless you throw in the word woke next to lefty...

[dx4100]

Must admit that was my first impression as well. Hard to understand how bad it can be for some people but this isn't the way. Does him zero favours and poses more questions than it solves. I get that it might be a passionate plea from the heart and he really is in dire straights but this is just not the way to fix it. This is business and sadly when clients have needs and agents have targets/commission to protect there is little place for charity I am afraid.

He'll get a ton of internet hugs but I can't see any agent or client taking him on based on the fact he's desperate sadly.

Someone earlier said the SC won't make any difference. I'd say that's wrong. Having SC is a massive benefit as he's in a market with a vastly reduced people pool. It's well known many people get gigs they aren't fully skilled in just because they have SC. So if he's experienced AND has SC he's in a prime place to hover up roles. My question is why he hasn't been able to do this with that in place. Something has got to be wrong at a more fundamental level meaning he isn't getting the gigs based on experience and SC. His interview techniques, poor CV, not looking in the right places. Something is broken and he needs to fix that rather than posting like this.

Hate to see someone in that position but something isn't right here.

Given it is a small pool, if he was canned for being useless at his last place, I would imagine its also hard to hide from that.

[northernladuk]

Given it is a small pool, if he was canned for being useless at his last place, I would imagine its also hard to hide from that.

Possibly and so he needs a new approach to fix, and this isn't it. Although after 5 years in PS I've seen some truly useless contractors come and go and very occasional inexplicably re-appear at times. Very much depends on which gov org you are with but in the few I've been with it's extremely difficult to get canned.

[SussexSeagull]

Must admit that was my first impression as well. Hard to understand how bad it can be for some people but this isn't the way. Does him zero favours and poses more questions than it solves. I get that it might be a passionate plea from the heart and he really is in dire straights but this is just not the way to fix it. This is business and sadly when clients have needs and agents have targets/commission to protect there is little place for charity I am afraid.

He'll get a ton of internet hugs but I can't see any agent or client taking him on based on the fact he's desperate sadly.

Someone earlier said the SC won't make any difference. I'd say that's wrong. Having SC is a massive benefit as he's in a market with a vastly reduced people pool. It's well known many people get gigs they aren't fully skilled in just because they have SC. So if he's experienced AND has SC he's in a prime place to hover up roles. My question is why he hasn't been able to do this with that in place. Something has got to be wrong at a more fundamental level meaning he isn't getting the gigs based on experience and SC. His interview techniques, poor CV, not looking in the right places. Something is broken and he needs to fix that rather than posting like this.

Hate to see someone in that position but something isn't right here.

I don't know how old he is but there is a tendency nowadays to share your feelings more than used to happen, especially with men. Now that isn't a bad thing in general as bottling these things up doesn't help but it needs to be done at the correct time to the correct people. To your entire professional network while looking for a new contract where they expect you to be productive from the get go is neither.

Not entirely sure he is the best person to have SC at the moment either as he is hardly coming across as the soul of discretion.

[JustKeepSwimming]

Not entirely sure he is the best person to have SC at the moment either as he is hardly coming across as the soul of discretion.

That's a good point. It's not discretion it's that he has publicly advertised he is financially and emotionally vulnerable. If the powers at be came across it surely his SC would be pulled?

Is there an obligation on other SC peeps to report something like this?

[dsc]

[...]

Someone earlier said the SC won't make any difference. I'd say that's wrong. Having SC is a massive benefit as he's in a market with a vastly reduced people pool. It's well known many people get gigs they aren't fully skilled in just because they have SC. So if he's experienced AND has SC he's in a prime place to hover up roles. My question is why he hasn't been able to do this with that in place. Something has got to be wrong at a more fundamental level meaning he isn't getting the gigs based on experience and SC. His interview techniques, poor CV, not looking in the right places. Something is broken and he needs to fix that rather than posting like this.
[...]

Agreed but if there's no market for his skills, then the SC makes no difference. I work in a very niche area and have SC, in the last two years there was two contracts I've seen for what I do, the SC made absolutely no difference in hoovering up roles, as there was no roles to hover up.

[avonleigh]

Given it is a small pool, if he was canned for being useless at his last place, I would imagine its also hard to hide from that.

Might not have been canned. I have SC and have worked with some utterly useless people over the years. They have never been canned. As others have said there is a shortage of people with it and a lot of hassle to bring people in. So they tend to be kept on however bad they are.