Game Plan

[dmuk]

Hey All,

With all this doom and gloom I am feeling less and less confident about finding a new contract in London. Banking and finance is not the place to be at the moment.

I have 3 years experience in "Information" Analyst and "Business" Analyst type roles within the banking & finance industry. Prior to this I had 4 years on the retail advisory side.

My recent contract has ended and I have spent the past fortnight speaking with agents and tweaking my CV - however nothing is biting.

For those who have worked through the difficult times - what should my game plan be? Be patient and wait for any offers/interviews? Take a part-time bar job while studying some certification? Move countries?

Thanks!

[Bumfluff]

Hey All,

With all this doom and gloom I am feeling less and less confident about finding a new contract in London. Banking and finance is not the place to be at the moment.

I have 3 years experience in "Information" Analyst and "Business" Analyst type roles within the banking & finance industry. Prior to this I had 4 years on the retail advisory side.

My recent contract has ended and I have spent the past fortnight speaking with agents and tweaking my CV - however nothing is biting.

For those who have worked through the difficult times - what should my game plan be? Be patient and wait for any offers/interviews? Take a part-time bar job while studying some certification? Move countries?

Thanks!

It's defo a bad time at the moment in the city, budget season and credit crunch, things usually pick up Jan time but I don't think they will this time. I'm starting to look outside of finance, most skills are transferable so don't focus on the banking side. If that fails sell your body

[TykeMerc]

Be patient, be persistant, tweak CV to suit the roles you see advertised, be prepared to travel or stay over, be flexible on rate.

BA is a role in fair demand as a good BA can make or break a project, since project funds are tight at the moment a BA is a worthwhile investment and can save a lot of time and effort.

There are a lot of imaginary roles on the job sites, don't get disheartened when you don't get called after submitting a CV, there's also quite a lot of competition out there too.

[Liability]

Depending on your skillset - things are varied

Testing and BA work seems to be down and rates seem to have gone lower in the City - but other areas are actually on the rise and will continue to be

Ive been speaking with a fair few consultants whom I have good relations [not sexual] with and who are what Id call "good" consultants. They all are very busy with roles - in the PERMANENT space to give you an example this was what one of them said [who has placed me numerous times over the past 12 years]

4 months back he placed an add on the major boards for 5 architect and 3 testing roles - he got the usual 150 CV's of which 120 were from Olu in Nigera, Podazski in Poland and then the Graduate with no skills aside from a Degree - after he rejected them he was left with 30 of which 5 were actually good.

3 weeks back he had another 3 roles - he got 11 CV's!

He reckons that people do NOT want to move and will not and so he is finding it hard to fill the roles - what this means is that rates in the Perm sector will have to go up. Another thing he said was that clients are taking longer now to select the candidates as they think they are getting the best.

I reckon things WILL pick up slightly in Jan/Feb and then even more so in April as alot of companies want to ride out the Xmas period to see what happens in the wider market.

[NickNick]

Hey All,

With all this doom and gloom I am feeling less and less confident about finding a new contract in London. Banking and finance is not the place to be at the moment.

Thanks!

You are kidding? I get inundated with roles in Banking and finance outside of London at the moment in the £450-550 range. None of which I can get anywhere with because I've not worked in B&F. You not considered life away from the smoke?

[TheBigYinJames]

I think one of the problems with London based contractors is that they can't see past Watford Gap. In good times, this isn't a problem, you'll always get work in London, but in bad times it means loads of London-based contractors who won't move out going for a smaller and smaller pot of jobs.

Having been through a few bad drops in the market, this one is likely to be far kinder to the flexible-mindset contractor than previous ones. When the dotcom bubble burst, internet based retailing was in its infancy, and companies who were dipping their toes withdrew quickly. Fast-forward 7 years to now, most retailers have an online business wich accounts for a large percentage of revenue, and it's usually automated so there's not much scope for cuts. Far easier to lose bricks and mortar assets and staff.

What is going to suffer is your £500 a day banking jobs, those rates were inflated in line with the rest of the banking sector's assets, and as soon as that bubble bursts so do the big rates. What will remain is your slightly less lucrative, but 'safer' retail internet contracts, in the £250-£350 a day range. Some of us have been milking that market quite happily for years anyway.

For anyone who says smugly that they wouldn't work for such 'low' rates, you're kidding yourself. Your skills are only worth what someone will pay for them, so any conceit in that department is a sure-fire walk to bankruptcy. There's a lot of bravura in the contracting world, my rate is bigger than yours, look at my wad, etc but boys will be boys. One day they'll kiss a girl and grow up a bit. Meanwhile, if you want to keep working through this recession you'll have to do some of the following:

1. Be willing to move. Doesn't have to be permanent or full-time. A weekly commute from London to Manchester or Leeds is only about 3 hours, you can do that. When jobs are scarce you have to widen your net geographically, and be willing to consider 'the provinces' because there are so many location-snobs out there, this immediately puts you ahead of the pack.

2. Be willing to be realistic about your rates. Rates outside of London have always been more realistic (i.e. not over-inflated to match their now worthless portfolios). £300 a day is a good rate outside the square mile. better doing 12 months at £300 a day during the recession than 6 months in the bench looking for that £500 a day contract and settling for £350 in the end anyway. It's a just a rate, it doesn't define you. It pays the bills.

3. Be prepared to be piecemeal. During the last rough patch, I did four 3 monthers in a row. One of them was a perm stint (they didn't know I was treating as just another short term contract Yes it was a little unsettling and not very joined up. but I was in work for the full year. Your security is based entirely on your ability to move quickly. Better to be in work than out, even if you're only covering your costs and saving your savings.

4. Don't be a bull in a bear market. I love it when I'm in great demand, it means I can be rude to agents. But in this market you have to bite your toungue and be prepared to play along with their games. I hate giving out references to fishers, for example, and usually refuse. But when things get tough, it might be best to 'groom' such agents - the more you may be a source of possible leads, the more you are in their minds. I'm not saying spill your address book to the first tulip-end who asks, but use it as a bargaining chip. Remember, your old boss at X Corp isn't putting pennies in your pocket right now is he, why should you 'protect' him from the indignity of a few cold callers? Your contact list is as asset - milk it.

HTH

[dmuk]

Thanks for all the comments.

The idea of waiting and seeing what happens in Jan/Feb next year doesn't seem all that attractive unless I spend the next two months on holiday (somewhere warm).

I have certainly been toying with the idea of heading outside the square mile. And reducing my rate is not a problem. I would prefer to be sitting in an office for a few pounds an hour than at home earning nothing.

Is it worth pursuing additional skills with all this free time? I don't expect to become a zen master, however are there minimum skills expected by some recruiters - ie on the IT side or data warehouse side?

Nick - where are these jobs based and how are you being notified about them?

[Badger]

I think one of the problems with London based contractors is that they can't see past Watford Gap. In good times, this isn't a problem, you'll always get work in London, but in bad times it means loads of London-based contractors who won't move out going for a smaller and smaller pot of jobs.

Having been through a few bad drops in the market, this one is likely to be far kinder to the flexible-mindset contractor than previous ones. When the dotcom bubble burst, internet based retailing was in its infancy, and companies who were dipping their toes withdrew quickly. Fast-forward 7 years to now, most retailers have an online business wich accounts for a large percentage of revenue, and it's usually automated so there's not much scope for cuts. Far easier to lose bricks and mortar assets and staff.

What is going to suffer is your £500 a day banking jobs, those rates were inflated in line with the rest of the banking sector's assets, and as soon as that bubble bursts so do the big rates. What will remain is your slightly less lucrative, but 'safer' retail internet contracts, in the £250-£350 a day range. Some of us have been milking that market quite happily for years anyway.

For anyone who says smugly that they wouldn't work for such 'low' rates, you're kidding yourself. Your skills are only worth what someone will pay for them, so any conceit in that department is a sure-fire walk to bankruptcy. There's a lot of bravura in the contracting world, my rate is bigger than yours, look at my wad, etc but boys will be boys. One day they'll kiss a girl and grow up a bit. Meanwhile, if you want to keep working through this recession you'll have to do some of the following:

1. Be willing to move. Doesn't have to be permanent or full-time. A weekly commute from London to Manchester or Leeds is only about 3 hours, you can do that. When jobs are scarce you have to widen your net geographically, and be willing to consider 'the provinces' because there are so many location-snobs out there, this immediately puts you ahead of the pack.

2. Be willing to be realistic about your rates. Rates outside of London have always been more realistic (i.e. not over-inflated to match their now worthless portfolios). £300 a day is a good rate outside the square mile. better doing 12 months at £300 a day during the recession than 6 months in the bench looking for that £500 a day contract and settling for £350 in the end anyway. It's a just a rate, it doesn't define you. It pays the bills.

3. Be prepared to be piecemeal. During the last rough patch, I did four 3 monthers in a row. One of them was a perm stint (they didn't know I was treating as just another short term contract Yes it was a little unsettling and not very joined up. but I was in work for the full year. Your security is based entirely on your ability to move quickly. Better to be in work than out, even if you're only covering your costs and saving your savings.

4. Don't be a bull in a bear market. I love it when I'm in great demand, it means I can be rude to agents. But in this market you have to bite your toungue and be prepared to play along with their games. I hate giving out references to fishers, for example, and usually refuse. But when things get tough, it might be best to 'groom' such agents - the more you may be a source of possible leads, the more you are in their minds. I'm not saying spill your address book to the first tulip-end who asks, but use it as a bargaining chip. Remember, your old boss at X Corp isn't putting pennies in your pocket right now is he, why should you 'protect' him from the indignity of a few cold callers? Your contact list is as asset - milk it.

HTH

Superb post.

I live close enough to London to commute in for contracts and have done in the past, but at the moment there's nothing there for me so as TBYJ says you have to be flexible, I've done a few 4 week contracts and a few 1 day'ers all outside London meaning I've had to stay away from home. I'm currently in a, just about commutable, 3 month role again outside London, and at a London rate so these roles do exist, you just have to be prepared for them.

I'm a Northerner living in the South so that's maybe why I don't see London as the be all and end all of life and contracting.

[Liability]

Good post TBYJ and totally agree

Have a similar situ at work now - there are 3 guys who have been at the place I am for 4 years and so have got used to not doing much and getting paid too much [usual story I guess]. There arrogance has got the better of them when in all honesty and reality on Friday I had to tell them their tulipe and not as good as they think they are as they have de-skilled.

Each one of them have a plan [if you want to call it that]

- Only work in the specific sector
- Only apply to roles within the M25
- Only work at a set rate

Crazy to think there are people like this about

[AlfredJPruffock]

It seems to an axiom in life - when you're looking for a contact - nothing much comes your way.

But ... when you're in a contact - why the past week Ive had twice as many agents trying to get my attention - but sorry chaps - happy where I am.

Them who have - they get.