State of the Market

[edison]

A fairly basic one but make sure it is compatible with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that many recruiters and portals use for uploading your CV. Many CVs can be hampered when a search is carried out because it has formatting that ATS systems often don't like e.g. tables, boxes, lines, graphics, footers etc.

I've managed several large recruitment campaigns in the past and IMHO, many people who work in IT have quite poor CVs. You have to differentiate yourself so focus on the outcomes you achieved not long lists of responsibilities. Try and quantify achievements and relate them back to your organisation and its business goals. At the end of the day, most organisations are only interested in how you can help make or save money and evidence of things you did that helped make money is a lot more attractive than saving it.

At the risk of sounding lazy, do you have any examples you can link to?

Sorry I don't have any specific examples of CVs I can link to. If you Google ATS CV tips, you'll find plenty of advice. The other tips came directly from a specialist IT career coach and a bigwig headhunter. The tips can apply to contract or perm roles.

[founder]

Sometimes I think I am joking, and as NowPermOutsideUK says I don't need to work in IT any more. Heck I've been working my nuts off for the past 20 years just so that I don't have to work any more now.

But I've been interested in computers since age 8 when I first started coding on my Commodore 64. And I still love working in IT. I'm passionate about my "job" whatever it is on a daily basis... I wake up and log in first thing, I stay until issues are resolved, I pull together lazy-arsed permies to get jobs done, I don't let the day go until I'm happy that everything is good. So I don't really want to not work in IT.... I don't want to retire from it just yet. I want to keep working on something in IT, and not just for the money any more.

I'm just stuck in a rut and need an opportunity to move into modern skillsets. Everything is cloud these days and I'm not quite there yet. Every job description asks for 25 different skills, many of which I haven't even heard of (though that'll always be the case in IT). I'm stuck in old tech, but I have strong holistic experience in my area.

vue, react, firebase, BLOckchain, kubernities

[jamesbrown]

kubernities

Say what, now?

[Scholes blurred vision]

Another tip if applying to an advert is to call the agent or drop a message (via invite feature) on Linkedin, no InMail quota needed.
This will vastly increase your chances of them interacting with you, skipping the ATS entirely.

I take a similar approach when *in* contract.

I review engagements on Jobserve and contact with the agent via LI using the 'personalize message' option. When they connect I follow up with a polite message confirming my next availability, and periodically check in thereafter.

Then, when I am available I direct message without - generally - communications going into the ether...

It's a long game tactic

Sent from my HD1903 using Contractor UK Forum mobile app

[founder]

Say what, now?

never used it, have an excuse to mess up the spell

[founder]

I had 2 calls from recruiters this week, that's 100% increase from last week

don't know if I made the shortlist

[NowPermOutsideUK]

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

Day rates for consultants advising on government projects can reach thousands of pounds per day. Executives at Boston Consulting Group, one of the three largest US advisory firms, were charged out to the government at rates of around £7,000 a day to work on developing the UK’s test-and-trace system.

[ladymuck]

Yeah but the people doing the work don't get paid that. Charge out rates don't necessarily correlate with pay rates

[founder]

200k to update the colour on a gov website.

thats all im saying

[eek]

200k to update the colour on a gov website.

thats all im saying

Congrats to the agency / consultancy who managed to get those costs into the contract.

Stupid of the Government employee to agree with it but I really don't see what the problem is there.