State of the Market

[oliverson]

Serves them right. IB's have always been completely up themselves. Don't have IB experience then you have no chance of ever getting an interview despite how good your skills are. Only sector I haven't worked in I think, never had a sniff in 27 years of contracting.

I didn't have any IB experience but that didn't prevent me breaking in! At the time, my last two clients were retail banks, so I must have somehow drifted under the radar! 3 days into my first IB contract and they announced rate cuts, so I told them to stuff it, which I guess was high risk as the financial crisis was just about starting to kick in. Fortunately I landed another role, quite quickish, in commodities/energy trading. Ten years later, my time contracting in London finance comes to an end. Seven years later, so does my career!

[dsc]

Be interested to know how many people do not have the “desired skills”.

Interesting to see this as a hybrid role, but the teams are virtual, my guess is that the projects are outsourced and they just want someone to control them from the office.

Also: "Facilitate and coordinate agile ceremonies"

do a little dance whilst at it

[willendure]

I suspect the problem is they are sitting round doing nothing most of the time so when a half opportunity appears they pile into it and expect you to drop everything as well.

Does begin to become hard to motivate yourself when a so called opportunity appears.

When I am really keen to find work, I am actually ok to pile into something. I think there is something about seeming keen that gets people to notice you. But 4.45 for a CV urgently just made me laugh. No-one is going to be looking at it till the following morning at the earliest anyway! So I might as well take an evening over polishing it and thinking about my presentation.

So now I have an interview set, but the f**ing agent has sent an unpolished version of my CV over. Also no job description, only a vague indication of the market sector of the end client. No idea what they are actually looking for.

I am already calling this one "interview practice".

At least its not like I am going to have to travel for hours to the interview, I guess that is the upside of video calls! I remember as a young man travelling to London for a badly set up interview, totally the wrong person for the job, didn't even get travel expenses for it!

[willendure]

Be interested to know how many people do not have the “desired skills”.

Only SchumiStars!

[Snooky]

I love it. Makes you feel part of something. Like a cog, part of a machine.

Every person there has paid ~£10 to travel for the day adding to the economy.

There is no growth of the economy when there is no spending.

Firstly, I wish my commute had only cost me £10 a day. Current season ticket from my neck of the woods is £5k+.

Secondly, what do you think people who no longer waste that money on commuting do with it? Do you think they just hide it under the mattress, or - as I do - spend it on something more enjoyable which still benefits the economy?

Without meaning any offence, all your points in favour of office working seem a little weak so far, especially when compared to the benefits of not doing it.

[SussexSeagull]

When I am really keen to find work, I am actually ok to pile into something. I think there is something about seeming keen that gets people to notice you. But 4.45 for a CV urgently just made me laugh. No-one is going to be looking at it till the following morning at the earliest anyway! So I might as well take an evening over polishing it and thinking about my presentation.

So now I have an interview set, but the f**ing agent has sent an unpolished version of my CV over. Also no job description, only a vague indication of the market sector of the end client. No idea what they are actually looking for.

I am already calling this one "interview practice".

At least its not like I am going to have to travel for hours to the interview, I guess that is the upside of video calls! I remember as a young man travelling to London for a badly set up interview, totally the wrong person for the job, didn't even get travel expenses for it!

in fairness when your luck does change it tends to change quite quickly so you need to respond to events but agents do need to learn to read the room.

I remember driving up from the Sussex coast for an interview with Next in Leicester when on the way up to the office I was asked where I had come from. Interview went ok but found out they were only considering people local to them.

Putting effort into an interview you were never going to get through due to something that should have been picked up beforehand is amongst the most frustrating thing that can happen.

See the time I got turned down for a SAP Tester contract having explained several times I had no SAP experience because I had no SAP experience for further reading.

[Ketto]

Not had a face to face interview since 2018. All Zoom/Teams since then.

[willendure]

Not had a face to face interview since 2018. All Zoom/Teams since then.

Yeah. I find it a problem, because the face-to-face interview is something I was good at. Judging by my success rate, I probably got offered the job 80% or more of the time if I made it that far. What can I say? I must just have some mysterious charisma that only comes out for the occasion because it certainly isn't detectable on a normal day!

With Zoom/Teams I get offered the job about 10% or less of the time.

Can't say for sure that is what is making the difference, but I do find these things a bit off. I would actually prefer just a phone interview to video. The awful sound and inability for more than one person at once to speak is not something I enjoy at all.

F-to-F interviews would usually be with one or max 2 people. With video calls they like to get 3+ people to interview. Find that off putting too.

Anyway, the times are what they are. One of my problems seems to be my camera and large screen pushing the camera to the side or above so that I am not looking anywhere near to the lens. So no eye contact with the interviewers. I am going to set up a teleprompter so I can feel more engaged with my audience and I hope that helps.

What about a suit and tie? I used to wear that to all job interviews. Now we just sit around in jeans and t-shirts. Seems weird to dress up for a video interview but might give it a go tomorrow, what the hell.

[Fraidycat]

From last week:

"Globally, more than 220 million people currently have “open to work” turned on, either privately or publicly, according to LinkedIn.
That’s a 35% increase from last year, the company said, which also reveals trouble in the job market"

[SchumiStars]

WFH staff are striking due to being asked to come back to the office.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y2vgg1x0qo

This is level the workforce has reached, that if they can't WFH, they will strike on the office days. Blows my mind TBH. Why not just, go to the office and work.