Recruiter demanded that our interview be recorded

[eek]

Another completely irrelevant rant that doesn't add anything of value.

Sorry but there is nothing there that helps anyone - no one owes you a living and the entire purpose of agents and end clients is to find the resources their need as cheaply as possible.

And the solution to that is not to be cheap but to be very good at what you do and possibly say promote yourself outside of work via helping others in the community you work in so that your name is known and you can justify being reassuringly expensive because they know the value you will add when you join the project.

[GigiBronz]

Sorry but there is nothing there that helps anyone - no one owes you a living and the entire purpose of agents and end clients is to find the resources their need as cheaply as possible.

And the solution to that is not to be cheap but to be very good at what you do and possibly say promote yourself outside of work via helping others in the community you work in so that your name is known and you can justify being reassuringly expensive because they know the value you will add when you join the project.

That sounds very much as the fluffy narrative that is encouraged by society to the detriment of the people, distracting from the truth and redirecting the conversation to an irrelevant subject.

How can you say anything bad about charities? Are you a communist?

Exactly the opposite of what I said about being skeptical and analytical about how the market works.

"promote yourself outside of work via helping others in the community you work in so that your name is known " - that is pure nonsense, it has nothing to do with adding value to the client, meritocracy. it's just brainwashing people to do all those fluffy things as if they have a meaning.

charities will use your money to pay them hefty dividends and at best 5% will reach the cause

[eek]

That sounds very much as the fluffy narrative that is encouraged by society to the detriment of the people, distracting from the truth and redirecting the conversation to an irrelevant subject.

How can you say anything bad about charities? Are you a communist?

Exactly the opposite of what I said about being skeptical and analytical about how the market works.

"promote yourself outside of work via helping others in the community you work in so that your name is known " - that is pure nonsense, it has nothing to do with adding value to the client, meritocracy. it's just brainwashing people to do all those fluffy things as if they have a meaning.

charities will use your money to pay them hefty dividends and at best 5% will reach the cause

My company gets work because I'm an known expert at what I do - and I'm known because I sit on the product forum answering the difficult questions that others cannot answer and by talking at community led industry events on either broad how to issues (on issues of licensing costs, change management or deployment) or more technical talks such as this is how the latest architecture (the software is cloud based) would prefer you to do XYZ.

And because I do that people seek me out to solve problems for them - which allows me to bypass the agents and do things directly.

Oh and the tech community in my sector is very good because we know we need way more people than currently work in it so a lot of people spend an awful lot of time training newbies in how to do things.

Mind you having done projects in the world where you come from I can see why you have your attitude (even though to me the everyone for themselves approach is completely insane).

Finally I don't think I mentioned charities at all - I mentioned community and that is a very different thing - you call it charity, I call it networking with fellow workers...

[GigiBronz]

My company gets work because I'm an known expert at what I do - and I'm known because I sit on the product forum answering the difficult questions that others cannot answer and by talking at community led industry events on either broad how to issues (on issues of licensing costs, change management or deployment) or more technical talks such as this is how the latest version would prefer you to do XYZ.

And because I do that people seek me out to solve problems for them - which allows me to bypass the agents and do things directly.

that is a bit different than charity work I was implying. maybe I lack imagination but I am not sure how I could do that for the business I am in. Maybe contribute to opensource projects.

I still hope that some of my posts on this forum are helping the contracting mindset. But most of the time they are against the corporate agenda so not quite sure they count.

[eek]

that is a bit different than charity work I was implying. maybe I lack imagination but I am not sure how I could do that for the business I am in. Maybe contribute to opensource projects.

I still hope that some of my posts on this forum are helping the contracting mindset. But most of the time they are against the corporate agenda so not quite sure they count.

Well in reality your posts make you out to be a clueless idiot but that doesn't seem to have stop you or a lot of other people posting.

[GigiBronz]

Well in reality your posts make you out to be a clueless idiot but that doesn't seem to have stop you or a lot of other people posting.

if you are part of the one that trusts the current establishment I am not sure what says more about being a clueless idiot.

[eek]

if you are part of the one that trusts the current establishment I am not sure what says more about being a clueless idiot.

What part of the current establishment do you think I trust? Remember I've spent 5 years creating my own consultancy so I'm not stuck dealing with agents anymore and dictate my terms on a take it or leave it basis.

And to emphasis that point - my current project is real time transparency for umbrella companies - because no-one else is going to fix that industryt so I'm doing that out of my own time and pocket.

[GigiBronz]

What part of the current establishment do you think I trust? Remember I've spent 5 years creating my own consultancy so I'm not stuck dealing with agents anymore and dictate my terms on a take it or leave it basis.

And to emphasis that point - my current project is real time transparency for umbrella companies - because no-one else is going to fix that industryt so I'm doing that out of my own time and pocket.

that is to be appreciated indeed but I still think that there is more to gain by educating people to stand their ground and question the nature of interactions we have. we would have had a better market if there was more negotiating ability on the contractor side.

look at how the market is now, we've had very limited outside roles for months on end or agents were being very difficult about them. now the outside ir35 market is flourishing. because of the market fundamentals we are in a better position. (whether they are actually outside roles and not just false promises that fail to materialise in the contract, that is a different question)

but we could have made that all along by refusing to work inside or take perm roles on false pretenses and dismal take home. (that you work 60h per week and get laid off before 2 years because of 'budget')

umbrella is also the worst case scenario, you pay all taxes upfront, dismal take home and you cost also the client too much and incentivise him to keep the relation short. the fact that with a clear framework(clearer than any other we have) umbrella companies still fail to do what they were supposed to do is probably also a sign that it is an inherent fault with the legislation surrounding them and that people want it that way for a reason.
what is that umbrella accreditation? only but a seal of a approval from the old boys regulating the business and wanting their cut.

[eek]

that is to be appreciated indeed but I still think that there is more to gain by educating people to stand their ground and question the nature of interactions we have. we would have had a better market if there was more negotiating ability on the contractor side.

look at how the market is now, we've had very limited outside roles for months on end or agents were being very difficult about them. now the outside ir35 market is flourishing. because of the market fundamentals we are in a better position. (whether they are actually outside roles and not just false promises that fail to materialise in the contract, that is a different question)

but we could have made that all along by refusing to work inside or take perm roles on false pretenses and dismal take home. (that you work 60h per week and get laid off before 2 years because of 'budget')

umbrella is also the worst case scenario, you pay all taxes upfront, dismal take home and you cost also the client too much and incentivise him to keep the relation short. the fact that with a clear framework(clearer than any other we have) umbrella companies still fail to do what they were supposed to do is probably also a sign that it is an inherent fault with the legislation surrounding them and that people want it that way for a reason.
what is that umbrella accreditation? only but a seal of a approval from the old boys regulating the business and wanting their cut.

Sky have started offering 12 month fixed term contracts - that is why worse than any umbrella deal

[Paralytic]

that is a bit different than charity work I was implying. maybe I lack imagination but I am not sure how I could do that for the business I am in. Maybe contribute to opensource projects.

This is exactly the sort of thing you can look to do to make a name for yourself, alongside the ideas eek mentioned. I've done the same in the past too - me and another spotted a new technology trend and created a mailing list around it (had over 10K+ subscribers), created some open source projects (MVC framework, when MVC was a think, unit testing framework etc). We were seen as the go-team team in Europe for the technology, picking up gigs on the back of our work, grew the team, spoke at conferences and eventually were bought out by a product vendor to become part of their European consultancy. We started out as two individual conrtractos.

Contractors who act and think like an employee, which is the vast majority of contractors i've ever worked with, do not see opportunities like this.