noobs elusive 1st contract

[LondonManc]

Guess what I've found the most tricky is, where my XP is broad and varied, I have been going for a variety of roles. The feedback I get then is the client is looking for out-and-out individuals. Now in my view that's a bit short-sighted and sitting on the other side of the fence when I recruited permies and contractors, your prima donna expert is usually more of an inflexible difficult-to-manage personality, than someone who is agnostic to both technology and methods, but who applies their skills to whatever given situation. However what with the PM market being saturated, I guess it is too much effort for some to look outside the box.

So that's a bit frustrating, as I know I could do a good job there, maybe it's just not meant to be and maybe I wouldn't want to work there anyway, but a gig's a gig, right?

At least I'm finding my way around and now gravitating towards the few agencies who've bothered to have a decent conversation with me and who in turn have put me through for a few quality gigs early in the pipe.

Can you figure out a specialisation that you have and aim for it? Such as certain types of project, tight budget projects, tight timescale projects, etc.

[missinggreenfields]

Was speaking to an agent last week and had to explain that a contract at Lloyds Banking Group where I have been at, is a different company to Lloyds Of London, which is the role she is recruiting for. Checked out the Linkedin profile and she has 1 months professional experience following a degree in some fancy arts subject that girls tend to take...

"Agent acts like agent" - hold the front page for that news bombshell :/

[rjoe]

Can you figure out a specialisation that you have and aim for it? Such as certain types of project, tight budget projects, tight timescale projects, etc.

Yeah thanks, I'll have a go at that.

[kaiser78]

"Agent acts like agent" - hold the front page for that news bombshell :/

Yes, I was just re-inforcing the point that SueEllen had made in the previous post.

[rjoe]

Be patient, something will turn up.

I'll take that advice.

[Eirikur]

Was made redundant from my permie PM job during the financial crisis, just before Christmas so no chance to find something immediately. Found first contract in about 8 weeks, in Finance

[SueEllen]

Was speaking to an agent last week and had to explain that a contract at Lloyds Banking Group where I have been at, is a different company to Lloyds Of London, which is the role she is recruiting for. Checked out the Linkedin profile and she has 1 months professional experience following a degree in some fancy arts subject that girls tend to take...

No need for the sexism.

Lots of degrees have stupid titles. The aim is to make them more appealing to the 18/19 year old applying for the course.

[LondonManc]

Yeah thanks, I'll have a go at that.

Make sure you have more than one cv as well, if you can specialise in different ways.
Get a job spec and then match it to whichever cv you think is appropriate.

I've got a master cv that's six pages long but never gets issued. It simply gets trimmed when there are more niche than normal roles advertised, should my standard cv not be sufficient.

[Lance]

All good advise you're getting. One more thing to add around specialisations is that you can still be a specialist if you're a generalist.

For example..,,, I'm a generalist infrastructure architect/tech lead. Hard to find roles as I do most infrastructure. But if I push myself as a migration specialist I have found gigs a lot easier to get. I know enough old stuff, and enoug new stuff to be a good fit for a client moving from old infra to new infra. And isn't that pretty much every client?

[rjoe]

You'll need to drop any self-imposed limitations. For example if there's a contact 100 miles from home you should still think about applying for it. If there is a role for a "Project Manager" and you view yourself as a "Programme Manager" then apply for it.

So what if you're over-qualified? Like if you see a real junior role...
Do you think clients would view that on your CV negatively? Or is it a legitimate way to get XP...