Recruiter demanded that our interview be recorded

[cojak]

Or offer to speak at a conference in the area you specialise in. Event organisers are always desperate for new speakers - it gets your face in front of potential clients.

Thats’s what I did when I started out.

[ladymuck]

Or offer to speak at a conference in the area you specialise in. Event organisers are always desperate for new speakers - it gets your face in front of potential clients.

Thats’s what I did when I started out.

Crikey, that's brave. I know feck all about feck all. The last place I want people to find that out is at a conference

[cojak]

Crikey, that's brave. I know feck all about feck all. The last place I want people to find that out is at a conference

It was a fluff piece on stakeholder management during ITSM implementations, but it got me in front of clients.

[eek]

Crikey, that's brave. I know feck all about feck all. The last place I want people to find that out is at a conference

In the power platform world the talks range from beginner to true experts across both technology and soft skills. Given that a lot of people are functional rather than technical there would be plenty of soft skill or low tech stuff you could talk about and people would be interested in, for instance how to quickly write decent user documentation

[GigiBronz]

Crikey, that's brave. I know feck all about feck all. The last place I want people to find that out is at a conference

I think I would do something so silly during the presentation that I would be remembered for anything but my presentation.

But there is no bad publicity I guess…

[northernladuk]

I think I would do something so silly during the presentation that I would be remembered for anything but my presentation.

But there is no bad publicity I guess…

As soon as you open your mouth I think you've got that one covered.

[PerfectStorm]

I had one record it surreptitiously. He introduced the client and myself over video, then dialled out.

Then came over the audio; "this meeting is being recorded". I continued the interview, but with this in mind.

Afterwards the agent asked my availability for a 2nd interview. "Not a problem", I said, "but would you mind not recording this one"?

I was met with a silence before "...How did you know that was being recorded?"

"The meeting told me. And I think the information commissioner would be very interested if they knew interviews were being recorded without consent, especially after reading your very long GDPR statement you sent me. Will there be an issue with turning it off?"

There was no issue :-)

[GigiBronz]

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

I would not mind an FTC if the salary was fair and notice period short. But if they can't offer more than what they are offering to the perm team... It is dogsh**.

[LondonManc]

because you do not encourage people to have a very skeptical attitude about agents, market and clients. everything is up for question and contracting is a business relationship. we should be able to push the equilibrium towards our advantage and demand better terms.

as I see it, there are two team, one of them benefiting from asymmetrical power. they have the agents on their side, practices and experience. as I see it it is a ideological warfare, it can be analysed from the interactions between the parties. A lot of the communication is deliberately confusing, misleading to be able to set a ground for them to take advantage of the situation. And they have the economical side on their side, we have limited resources in comparison and one way or another have to engage with them.

Another example is how many of the job adverts are fake, many of the recruiters call without having a role to fill. Some of them are as a result of how their market works but I believe it is also deliberate to bring more awareness to the contractor. Put them in their place. If you have 10 recruiters telling you 70k is your salary, you tend to believe them. It doesn't matter that they had no role to fill only acting out of office exercies.

You will have/ or already have kids and they will grow up one day to be like daddy, because that's what they will be. They will do what are told, get good grades, get a specialised domain knowledge. Then they realise that they are no longer able to get permanent jobs because by that point HR has become very good at picking up on entrepreneurial spirit and independent mindset so they will put them at the back of the queue. Contractors do not make good employees and without this market there are limited ways that you could earn a leaving in this word.

It might be slightly pushed but still believe close to the truth.
HTH

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

I have always said that their are different types of agents (and indeed agencies) and it's a contractor's job to figure out which to build relationships with and which to politely ignore - never be rude to someone as it can come back to bite you. If you want equality, then by extension, educate the agencies on IR35, proper rates for the roles, what they'll end up with if they go cheap, etc. Who else is going to do it if the contractors don't? If you simply sit there with your "I'm better than everyone" attitude, then you're going to lose. You assert that "contracting is a business relationship" yet you don't seem to want to build relationships with the people who can source the income lines for you. Very odd.

Your last two paragraphs aren't worth replying to, absolute bollix.