State of the Market

[Antman]

When you get multiple interviews, it says a lot about the client and the type of working environment.

[northernladuk]

When you get multiple interviews, it says a lot about the client and the type of working environment.

You'd think so wouldn't you.

Not quite related but what's starting to trigger me at the moment is the number of linked in posts complaining about the market and agencts on linkedin at the moment. It's almost a daily occurance to see a long thread complaining about one of two things. Firstly that someone has sent of 100 (or some other ridiculous number) applications in the last two weeks and hasn't found anything. Maybe it's only us contractors that know this but no way are there 100+ roles out there for any generic business area let alone one that specifically meets the skills of the applicant. The other is that agents don't feed back because 'it's professional and polite to do so'.

I very rarely comment on linkedin for obvious reasons but I'm finding it harder and harder to not reply to people posting this kind of rubbish on there at the moment.

[JohnM]

In terms of contracting it is definitely the slowest I have ever known it and I have been doing this 20 years now

Normally 100ish contract roles a day posted on jobserve nationwide for my skillset, I checked before and there had been 10 today

I picked something up a few days ago but I have never seen the IT contract market like this, been similar since April as well to be honest. Would hate to be new to contracting with only 2 or 3 years experience in the current climate or have a niche skillset

[JohnM]

The flip side is that accepting large drops in rate resets the market rate. When covid clears, clients aren't then going to then turn round and say "sorry the rate was lower, going forward we'll whack it back up". The view will be "well, you were happy to work at that rate then...".

Consultancies especially are more concerned about driving their own profits.

Its the market driving the rates, there are hardly any roles around because of COVID that is why the rates are dropping, once there are more roles around the rates will automatically go back up as they will have to get the right people

This is unprecedented, 4 months now of the entire economy almost grinding to a halt. Remote working is bringing rates down to which for contractors like me who travel is fair enough, as there are no hotels etc to pay

As long as we don't have another national lockdown things will get better and better now going forward hopefully

[northernladuk]

In terms of contracting it is definitely the slowest I have ever known it and I have been doing this 20 years now

Normally 100ish contract roles a day posted on jobserve nationwide for my skillset, I checked before and there had been 10 today

I picked something up a few days ago but I have never seen the IT contract market like this, been similar since April as well to be honest. Would hate to be new to contracting with only 2 or 3 years experience in the current climate or have a niche skillset

I'm still surprised at 10. When I was off for 5 months end of the last year there it was single number per week. I was looking at just Service Transition though so pretty specific.

[JohnM]

I'm still surprised at 10. When I was off for 5 months end of the last year there it was single number per week. I was looking at just Service Transition though so pretty specific.

I am talking about developer roles with the most popular tech, used to be around 100 a day nationwide pre March

Its around 20-25 now but there are some days like today where its 10

[simes]

In terms of contracting it is definitely the slowest I have ever known it and I have been doing this 20 years now

Normally 100ish contract roles a day posted on jobserve nationwide for my skillset, I checked before and there had been 10 today

I picked something up a few days ago but I have never seen the IT contract market like this, been similar since April as well to be honest. Would hate to be new to contracting with only 2 or 3 years experience in the current climate or have a niche skillset

And for mine, 150 / day in normal times. Currently 15 / day is the expectation. And this is worldwide, US excepting.

That said, I would submit it is less 10 'roles', and more 10 'adverts' for three roles.

Right now, Cloud Azure is all the rage with a few roles being picked over by a veritable volume of vultures.

[Antman]

You'd think so wouldn't you.

Not quite related but what's starting to trigger me at the moment is the number of linked in posts complaining about the market and agencts on linkedin at the moment. It's almost a daily occurance to see a long thread complaining about one of two things. Firstly that someone has sent of 100 (or some other ridiculous number) applications in the last two weeks and hasn't found anything. Maybe it's only us contractors that know this but no way are there 100+ roles out there for any generic business area let alone one that specifically meets the skills of the applicant. The other is that agents don't feed back because 'it's professional and polite to do so'.

I very rarely comment on linkedin for obvious reasons but I'm finding it harder and harder to not reply to people posting this kind of rubbish on there at the moment.

....must ...resist ...pointing out ...their idiocy ....temptation ...too ...great

[dsc]

Really can't see any problem with that - if an agency is charging me 20% of the annual salary to recruit someone the very least I would expect for the £xxxk I'm paying is ensuring I don't waste my time interviewing people who are only paper qualified.

Fair enough and that was my thinking, but if the technical test is taking care of the technical side of things, what the hell can the pimp ask me which is relevant? He already knows I'm freelance now and would prefer freelance roles and only really going for this one as it has a few areas which I've not done much work in before. I'm expecting the usual question "so what if a good contract shows up in 2 months time and you are doing this perm job?", but apart from this not sure it makes much sense.

[Antman]

Fair enough and that was my thinking, but if the technical test is taking care of the technical side of things, what the hell can the pimp ask me which is relevant? He already knows I'm freelance now and would prefer freelance roles and only really going for this one as it has a few areas which I've not done much work in before. I'm expecting the usual question "so what if a good contract shows up in 2 months time and you are doing this perm job?", but apart from this not sure it makes much sense.

They don't know about tech but they are people persons and they'll be good to judge whether people seem comfortable talking about a tech subject. So they won't understand what you're talking about just how you deliver the message, they might even have a standard follow-up question but again they won't follow what you're saying just seeing if you seem to be winging it or not.

The approach then is always think of it as a parlour game with children.