State of the Market

[Fraidycat]

Senior Java Developer with a government department?
- £750 p/d inside IR35

There are contracts around, just only a small fraction of what there used to be, and they get 100+ applications and there is a good chance they not even open your CV. Getting them on the phone is next to impossible. If it is an agent you have worked with in the past you have a much better chance. Or if your CV shows you have worked with similar previous clients in a similar same role and they actually open the CV to read that. Otherwise your application will just be ignored, radio silence..

[rocktronAMP]

There are contracts around, just only a small fraction of what there used to be, and they get 100+ applications and there is a good chance they not even open your CV. Getting them on the phone is next to impossible. If it is an agent you have worked with in the past you have a much better chance. Or if your CV shows you have worked with similar previous clients in a similar same role and they actually open the CV to read that. Otherwise your application will just be ignored, radio silence..

Yes 100% and maybe somebody here is 6 months out of contract, looking and has the SC to try. I had the same job request and Linkedin requests from 4 different agents. So I believe the role is live, but I am not looking for work.

I think it is DWP. The same DWP with bitbucket monorepo, RocketChat not Slack and supplied heavily locked down developer Windows HP machine or recent MacBook Pro with USB-C dongles. I wouldn't touch it now with a barge pole as the people culture was not in a good state in the area I dropped into 2 years ago. Take it or leave it.

[SpliterOfLogs]

Senior Java Developer with a government department?

- £750 p/d inside IR35
- 12 months
- Hybrid, WFH & 2/3 days onsite in London
- SC desired however they will consider SC eligable candidates if not

10 Different agencies on Jobserve all posting that same job. Seems things are desperate for recruiters as well

[pjt]

FFS, I'm getting well p off now. Nothing out there. It's been 6mths of bench. No sign of recovery

Wow thats painful. How are you keeping yourself motivated? I'm just over 2 months in and finding it tough.

[GJABS]

FFS, I'm getting well p off now. Nothing out there. It's been 6mths of bench. No sign of recovery

Sorry to hear this. Agreed it seems very quiet out there.
Make sure you're looking after your mental health, if you're not doing so already, by keeping active, volunteering, doing tech training, tech meetup.com group events etc. Keep busy.

[willendure]

> FFS, I'm getting well p off now. Nothing out there. It's been 6mths of bench. No sign of recovery

Wow thats painful. How are you keeping yourself motivated? I'm just over 2 months in and finding it tough.

Sounds grim. My longest time on the bench was the whole of 2009. Finished contract start of the year, and my first child was born. So I was happy to be taking a "month" out at the time. Then I started applying and nothing. It got to the point where I was applying for jobs in Switzerland (actually got an interview for one there - but they were twats). Eventually at the start of 2010 I got a new contract.

Financially I was ok and had a small war chest to see me through. Also the govt put interest rates right down and my mortgage was an interest only tracker, so costing me practically nothing. But we literally lived off £7K that whole year! I hope your finances are hold up because todays mortgage prices are not pretty.

My coping strategy was... apply for everything going. Get on the phone every day at 9am, to every agent that I could possibly make it through to in order to press upon them that I was THE Candidate they should be putting forward to. Done by 10am. Get out and live an active life, find hobbies and friends (take baby for a walk) etc. Was actually one of the best years of my life.


>Originally posted by Fraidycat
>There are contracts around, just only a small fraction of what there used to be, and they get 100+ applications and there is a good chance they not >even open your CV. Getting them on the phone is next to impossible.

The phone thing bugs me. It used to be that agents were sat at a desk in their offices. So even if there was no phone number on an ad, you could phone the agency and ask to speak to so and so and they would put you through. I always phoned on the pretext of checking, "did you get my CV? I sent it via jobserve so might be in your spam folder...". But really I am phoning to tell them what a great candidate I am. 9 times out of 10, they had not seen my CV when I phoned, but would fish it out of their jobserve/spam folder on the phone, have a quick look and realize that they were speaking to someone with relavant experience who was keen for the job. Immediate change in attitude from mild annoyance/skepticism to being enthusiastic about putting me forward.

Now they are all at home, and their desk phones are not set up to forward to mobile. Phone reception and you just get told they are at home, but will get back to you if your CV holds up. This whole working from home thing is largely an excuse for people to hide from having to interact with other people, in my honest opinion. Great for coders who need peace and quiet. But people who work in HR should be people people first and foremost and should be making themselves available for personal interaction.

I really think speaking to people is what makes all the difference. Also these days, your CV probably got binned by some tulipty AI system. Phoning someone at 9am tells them you are fresh and keen and on the case and this is a subconcious message that AI cannot read.

Works for me anyway. Best of luck.

[willendure]

I think it is DWP. The same DWP with bitbucket monorepo, RocketChat not Slack and supplied heavily locked down developer Windows HP machine or recent MacBook Pro with USB-C dongles.

At least the crappy setup means you wouldn't have to do any work!

[simes]

FFS, I'm getting well p off now. Nothing out there. It's been 6mths of bench. No sign of recovery

My longest times were both six months. But that was without a meaningful and competitive CV at those points, and they were respectively just after the dotcom crash, and 9/11.

[Fraidycat]

10 Different agencies on Jobserve all posting that same job. Seems things are desperate for recruiters as well

And paying over £100 an hour when you add in the agency cut.

Someone should tell that client that schumistars is up for work at £13.50 a hour. They would then save about 175K for a year long contract.

Seriously, although we are all worth £100+ a hour, it does make me wonder why they paying so much when they should know there are many experienced contractors on the bench who will do for it much less in this current market. Most wont go as low as £13.50, but say £40ph or £50ph for will tempt many more experienced contractors who have been benched for 3 months+

[northernladuk]

10 Different agencies on Jobserve all posting that same job. Seems things are desperate for recruiters as well

Not quite. It's common for there to be a raft of agents advertising Gov gigs. There was one in Taunton that sent my inbox in to freefall a few weeks ago as well. Just the way the gov frameworks work.