State of the Market

[quackhandle]

Not heard of 'Contract Spy' before. It's not yours is it? Lol.

£ 250 a year. Err, no thanks.

I have only ever seen it on LI, where they post gigs, but have never applied for any and certainly would not pay anyone for the privilege.

qh

[SussexSeagull]

Employers?

TBH with most contracts now Inside IR35 I think the debate around that semantic has probably had it's time.

[SussexSeagull]

ah.. good old Arthur Anderson. or Arthur's Androids as we knew them.
all called hermione and toby and producing lots of pretty graphs but no real engineering skills at all.

Mind you, I made a fair bit fixing their cockups at various clients, so bless their little cotton socks.

They also had company credit cards and were more than happy to provide Pizza if working late and offered occasional free bars.

[oliverson]

TBH with most contracts now Inside IR35 I think the debate around that semantic has probably had it's time.

Depends on your mindset.

My 'employer' is my own Limited company, one that engages in contracts with other companies.

[SchumiStars]

With respect it's not you that you have to convince.

Two years without a gig would suggest potential clients feel otherwise.

Contracts have never come easy for me, par for the course. Technial questions in an interview, I have always struggled with.

In a good market, it's been easier TBH. And then sometimes, I can answer all the tech questions presented.

But that's me, I understand that I am never going to know everything and I know, that not everyone is going to like me, I have a diverse personality.

One thing, I try to avoid doing is beating myself up when the problem, at least to me seems to be outside my control.

These are the cards I have and I need to play the game to best of my ability.

Did another load of applications today, no phone calls or emails back. So went cycling & gym. Hopefully Nandos and cinema later on with wife and sons.

Have a good w/e everyone.

[SussexSeagull]

Depends on your mindset.

My 'employer' is my own Limited company, one that engages in contracts with other companies.

It depends on your contract!

[sadkingbilly]

Depends on your mindset.

My 'employer' is my own Limited company, one that engages in contracts with other companies.

quite. maybe the met office need help?

[edison]

As I said, I am sure it happened but you don't hear of anyone saying it hs happened anymore.

I live on the Sussex coast and the City has historically dictated the Contracting industry in the South East as it probably employed a fairly high percentage of contractors. I don't think that is the case anymore.

Of the people I have worked with in the last few years, the ones in Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire seem to be fairing quite well.

Good point to remember that there are regional variations in the market. Much of the discussion here often seems to be heavily orientated to FS and or London.

I got my first contract in Cambridge in the early 2010s and it seemed to be a thriving place. If you work in life sciences or the tech sector then it's an excellent place to be with lots of tech startups and established giants like Apple, Arm, Microsoft etc. Although after the current stock market rout and tech stocks falling sharply, who knows how long that will last.

[edison]

Very true. One of the best things about contracting is that no one gives a stuff where I went to Uni decades ago.

Permie jobs are another matter. They seem to think it's relevant for some reason.

I never ask when I'm interviewing someone. Some of the worst coders I've ever met are products of some of the finest Unis.
Computer programming is more of a talent , like music and sport. It can only be "taught" to a small extent. Coaching people who have the gift would be a better approach.

You'd think no one would care about a university degree from almost 35 years ago but that isn't true.

A few years ago I did an interim Head of IT role at a large FTSE100 company. I was bemused to get a call from HR asking if I had my degree certificate as they had been quoted £60 by the uni for an official transcript.

I recently applied for a FTC role with one of the biggest accountancy firms. It was exactly like applying for a perm role including having your CV parsed into a standard format for Workday which invariably doesn't work and you have to enter most of the info manually. Including my degree details with dates.

Unfortunately by having to put in my degree date, it exposed my age as over 55 and despite having done the exact same role before multiple times as a contractor including in this sector, I got an automated rejection a few hours later.

[edison]

The ones I worked with leaned towards private schools and a few of them did it for a few years then went off to the family business or to do something non IT related. It's almost like in past times when the boys went off to the armed services for a few years and the women had a bit of a career before producing posh babies (note I am not saying that was a good thing but it did seem to be a thing amongst people of a certain class).

For reasons I can't recall I did actually get interviewed for Accenture getting on 20 years ago. It involved a battery of about five people in quick succession and it was all personality based and nothing technical. Needless to say, I didn't join them! From what I understand of the big tech companies now, at least there recruitment is based on finding people who will hopefully be very good at what they do.

Aged 30, I joined a large consultancy which at the time was considered fairly prestigious. Most of my colleagues from their mid-20s to late 30s were ex-private school / Oxbridge or similar types. I and a few others really stood out because of our very different background.

Many of these people did indeed follow the path you described. Funnily enough, I was rejected by Accenture a couple of years earlier.