Is the market on the up or not ?

[weemster]

Isn't plan B "keep playing the lottery" for everyone?

Thats my plan A.

[herman_g]

My market was looking unusually up for July ( also fairly niche inside banking ) after 3 months of much-deadness.

Now we are in the middle of the summer pause, things overall pretty dead - but this is 100% normal for August.

Got a call from an agent yesterday regarding a role I was shot down on in July for no real reason. The rate is now as high as 500 / day and the agent cannot find anybody (and the three other qualified people he sent were shot down also ).

Seems like there may be another discussion of this role once the agent speaks to the folks one or two levels up.

Bearing this in mind ( absence of much competition ), things should finally happen in September ( 4 months on bench now ).

[HeadOfTesting]

I'm now 1 week shy of 8 months on the bench.

August has been unusually busy for me (in relative - not absolute - terms) but I've still only been interviewed by 1 client in the whole 8 month period.

When I joined this board around May time I was saying that I thought the post .com bust was worse than this but I have now completely changed my mind about that.

Good luck to all....

[norrahe]

I'm now 1 week shy of 8 months on the bench.

August has been unusually busy for me (in relative - not absolute - terms) but I've still only been interviewed by 1 client in the whole 8 month period.

When I joined this board around May time I was saying that I thought the post .com bust was worse than this but I have now completely changed my mind about that.

Good luck to all....

How are you finding the testing market in general?

My other half (test engineer type person) got made redundant back in May and has had diddley squat since then.

He seems to be getting lots of dead end applications.

are there any contacts at any agencies that you've found useful?

[HeadOfTesting]

How are you finding the testing market in general?

My other half (test engineer type person) got made redundant back in May and has had diddley squat since then.

He seems to be getting lots of dead end applications.

are there any contacts at any agencies that you've found useful?

To be honest because I'm not recruiting for hands-on test analyst types and because I only apply for senior test management roles it's hard for me to gauge it - but I have little doubt that it's dire because people at test conferences all give the same story. Plus I know that demand for testers is highly bi-modal and when the market's bad it's really bad.

Most of my work has historically come from headhunting or referrals so I'm not well placed to suggest agencies. That said my last contract was through Allegis (now Tek systems) who I found to be good but many on here disagree; the truth is it's all about individuals within these agencies - unless you're talking about outfits like Progressive who are systemically rotten to their core.

Both as a hiring manager and as a candidate I've always found the specialist testing agencies like Leysen Associates, Centre4Testing etc to be utterly useless. It is worth investing in your LinkedIn presence (although some people disagree) and events like the SIGIST offer good networking opportunities.

Sorry I know this post isn't very helpful.

[norrahe]

To be honest because I'm not recruiting for hands-on test analyst types and because I only apply for senior test management roles it's hard for me to gauge it - but I have little doubt that it's dire because people at test conferences all give the same story. Plus I know that demand for testers is highly bi-modal and when the market's bad it's really bad.

Most of my work has historically come from headhunting or referrals so I'm not well placed to suggest agencies. That said my last contract was through Allegis (now Tek systems) who I found to be good but many on here disagree; the truth is it's all about individuals within these agencies - unless you're talking about outfits like Progressive who are systemically rotten to their core.

Both as a hiring manager and as a candidate I've always found the specialist testing agencies like Leysen Associates, Centre4Testing etc to be utterly useless. It is worth investing in your LinkedIn presence (although some people disagree) and events like the SIGIST offer good networking opportunities.

Sorry I know this post isn't very helpful.

More helpful than what he's going through atm, I'll pass the info on. Thanks!

Redundant after 8 years with his last company, with 20 years experience. He's a cross between development and test. So not an easy person to place.

Thing is most companies want 18 year olds they can pay peanuts and train up these days.

He's looking at perm/contract/whatever

[HeadOfTesting]

"Redundant after 8 years with his last company, with 20 years experience. He's a cross between development and test. So not an easy person to place."

Without seeing his CV the best advice I can give is to try and re-position himself (if he's not there already) as a test automation developer (don't take the title too literally for jobserve purposes) within agile teams. Even now these people are in serious demand with rates reflecting that under-supply. I guess ultimately I'm disagreeing with you heavily - as he's potentially very easy to place following the advent of agile teams.

The skill combo to aim for is: Ruby/Selenium/Watir/Fitnesse.

They're all open technologies so can be learned at home - but clearly without commerical experience it's a case of going perm initially in such a role (harder given his age) or lying about having used them in anger in a contracting context.

If I was still hands-on, this would be my strategy for the next economic cycle (which I have to say may be the last one for UK testers given the agression of the offshoring trend).

Just my 2p's worth.

[mace]

Difficult to say. I think things are gearing up. I've had 9 calls from agents in the last couple of days which is certainly more active than I've experienced since the late 90s. However, I've gone to a great deal more effort to market myself than I've ever done previously so can't be sure that the demand side has really ramped up that much. Am worried that I've pretty much contacted everybody now, so if my current pipeline dries up, it could make it even harder to find the next gig.

[MrMark]

I don't know if others are experiencing the same, but I'm finding that recruiters are only looking for local candidates (presumably as there are so many on the market they can do this and keep the rates down). I wondering whether to start applying for roles close to my family's place with a cv where address is changed.

[zamzummim]

"Redundant after 8 years with his last company, with 20 years experience. He's a cross between development and test. So not an easy person to place."

Without seeing his CV the best advice I can give is to try and re-position himself (if he's not there already) as a test automation developer (don't take the title too literally for jobserve purposes) within agile teams. Even now these people are in serious demand with rates reflecting that under-supply. I guess ultimately I'm disagreeing with you heavily - as he's potentially very easy to place following the advent of agile teams.

The skill combo to aim for is: Ruby/Selenium/Watir/Fitnesse.

They're all open technologies so can be learned at home - but clearly without commerical experience it's a case of going perm initially in such a role (harder given his age) or lying about having used them in anger in a contracting context.

If I was still hands-on, this would be my strategy for the next economic cycle (which I have to say may be the last one for UK testers given the agression of the offshoring trend).

Just my 2p's worth.

I am a BA/Technical analyst from a development background, at my present gig they always ask me to do the automation testing development cuz no one wants to do it (even though I have not done it before) at the start I was pi$$ed off about having to learn all this scripting stuff and tools (QTP and TestComplete) especially its nothing to do with my role, OK as a BA I normally get involved with testing but normally the UAT part, not the automation systems testing, however, seeing your post above made me feel better