HOW LONG YOU ARE IN BENCH ??...!!!!:confused:

[FarmerPalmer]

Developer - 3 days

[Darren_Test]

Thanks tim...

Did you compromise a lot (in terms of rate, position, location & technology) to get this new role...??? if so How are you managing this now..?? Like if managers are forced to become analysts ..I am not sure how well they do the job, especially when your new manager is an absolute dunb mo**n..???

[TheFaQQer]

Oracle technical developer / functional consultant in eBusiness Suite - any modules considered

I had three weeks of job hunting last April - would have had an extension at last gig but went to Goa for a month instead. Before that, I had a week between contracts in the summer - left one project on a Friday, interview Tuesday following week, got the gig but the PM was on holiday for another week.

Current contract runs to May with probability of an extension for another 6 months.

[PAH]

I was on the bench for 17 weeks before starting here (and had been looking for 8 weeks before I finished).

17 weeks! I'd have been looking for a permie role, that I could jack in after a year or so when/if the market picked up. Particularly if there was a chance to pick up some different skills where there is more demand.

Though I did once briefly try to go permie when I was in a phase where I wanted to settle down in one area, and not move to where there is more contract work. Amazing how it takes 2 or 3 stage interviews to land a permie role, when for contract work you can do one interview (two at most if one is via telephone) and be starting a few days later. Even more bizarre when you consider some contractors outlast the permies.

[miffy]

Amazing how it takes 2 or 3 stage interviews to land a permie role, when for contract work you can do one interview (two at most if one is via telephone) and be starting a few days later. Even more bizarre when you consider some contractors outlast the permies.

That always makes me smile, it's so true! Three or so interviews where you're grilled to death and for what? A carp salary and total abuse.

I'm on the bench at the moment (finished on the 24th of Dec). I'm not looking nor available at the moment. I do virtualisation, storage and messaging. Plenty of work about I'm just taking some time off after 10 years of continuous permie slavery has caught up with me.

I'm off to new york next week for a little break. I'll start looking when I get back I reckon.

[Ardesco]

I thought most budgets were 'reset' in January?

Depends on the Co's financial year I guess. From personally experience I have found that Feb is a tulip time to find new work, January and March are normally pretty good though (In fact all months apart from February seem to be good). My longest stint of being on the bench was 4 weeks last year, apart from that I haven't had any real problems in 5 years.

Mind you I must admit that I wasn't really looking too hard when I was benched last year, I was enjoying the time off and being quite slack about hunting for jobs.

[Sockpuppet]

Agreed.

CurrentClientCo year end is the end of Feb. Therefore budgets are reset and they are looking now for people to start start of March.

[Devlin]

Longest time on the bench was 5 weeks and that was only after a contract was actually pulled on the start date, so had to start the job search from scratch!

[tim123]

Thanks tim...

Did you compromise a lot (in terms of rate, position, location & technology) to get this new role...??? if so How are you managing this now..?? Like if managers are forced to become analysts ..I am not sure how well they do the job, especially when your new manager is an absolute dunb mo**n..???

I compromised a lot in terms of coming back to this dead boring mega project, with so many people on it you get allocated enough work to feed a sparrow and are expected to make it last 12 months.

There's **** all scope for finishing it early and leaving, because it's all dependent on the delivery of new versions of the hardware at 6-12 week intervals (some of which, you just know will be late). I'm already on the plan for 2 months off the end of my contract and I don't expect them to keep to that.

And if you finish early within each of these periods there little scope to give you something else to do because it's all been allocated to someone else. Unless, that is, you want to fix a bug that's been on the list for 9 months that nobody know anything about.

And I didn't even get allocated to part of the project which would give me some new buzz words on my CV, which many of my colleagues have been.

Finally, there's no chance of moving up the food chain because all of the 'strategic' jobs are being done by perms who have been here 7-8 years. As a contractor, the available positions are grunt jobs.

On the plus side, I'm on 25% more than I was in the last contract and could be here for 3 years, if I don't die of boredom first.

I know that there are some contractors who really like: sit in the corner, look busy and do nothing roles. But I hate it. I like to be busy, and even more important I like to be challenged.

Oh and I don't got for a perm job because at only just the right side of 50, no-one would believe that I wanted a "junior engineer" role and I don't have anything like the management experience to persuade them I could be "development manager" (though I'm sure that I could).

tim

[Darren_Test]

thanks tim...