partimer, yep that's 20 years of wasting me money - I'm paying the price now!
Just need a way to get back into banking .....
Just need a way to get back into banking .....
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Yep,Originally posted by spud
But I don't think that there's a corporate strategy to get rid of contractors. It's just that over the past 3-4 years, clients have gotten used to having an exact fit or no-one. Now the market is on the way up again it's moved back to taking the best fit and training them.
ISTM that the SW houses do a better job of getting people in this way than the agents who appear to want the easy life of sending out CVs and only following up the ones the client picks.
timComment
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Because you're not paying them to do that. In fact you're not paying them at all. Why should they bother? There's plenty of square pegs that needing fitting into some other square hole.Originally posted by tim123
Take it from me, if you put cash on the table, the agent will try and bang you into shaped hole you fancy.Comment
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It is interesting, and annoying, to read another job advertised on Jobserve that is a good match for your skills with an agency you recently spoke to. Only they didn't contact you.....
Huxley seem particularly good at that.
Maybe the £500 will work - I'm interested to see if greed can be a good promoter.....Comment
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Why? Surely like anywhere else the agent has their favourites and will work with their existing base first, secondly an advert costs pence and will illicit responses from people who want to work. Remembering you called last week would require memory and with the amount of vacancies some of these guys juggle that isn't a possibility.Originally posted by spud
The simple consequence is if you want a job from an agent you have to keep on at them, until they either find you a job or you find one yourself. Just phoning once and expecting to be 'on file' never works unless you are
a) well known in the market
b) well known to the agentComment
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Remember to offer them the £500 in cash, Spud. If one of them turns up with the goods you will forever have a hold on the agent because I'll bet you a chip to a bagful he will "forget" to mention the payment to both his boss and the taxman.Originally posted by spudComment
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you make sense boredsenseless! I have been chasing but not everyday, so perhaps I will have to get firm with them incase they think I'm already sorted.
Lucifer, cash it is then. Does anyone actually take you up on it? Has anyone else found this a good incentive, especially with xmas around the corner!Comment
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It worked spectacularly well for me. I had a contract within a week, after a couple of months of fruitless looking. I offered £1,000 as the prize for getting me a job but I made the agent buy me champagne out of it as I arranged to meet him at a bar in central London to hand over the cash in person.Originally posted by spudComment
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Originally posted by spud
Yes jobs do exist. A few months ago when I was looking for a contract I heard from numerous sources - some reliable - that the market was much better than 6 months before, and that was better than a year or two back.
Yes there are non banking jobs, though banking seem to prevail.
Have you heard of outsourcing? It has appeared in the last few years of those 20 that you obviously slept through. In many companies most semi-skilled work is done by Indian contractors in the UK or overseas. For example Nokia have outsourced all protocol stack development!
Yes jobserve is useful. I have had all 3 contracts via jobserve. Most applications don't get a response though. I have noticed agents starting to give over the phone tests to candidates to weed out those that do not fit exactly. The one I got was an exact match to my skill set with recent proven experience. I have noticed they tend to want the harder to find skills these days e.g. multi-threading with strong C++ and UML/design, or strong telecoms L2 and L3 with 3G/GPRS stack development, etc. Any idiot can learn GUI skills. Maybe the same appliest to Java? I would have thought Oracle + Java would be useful.
I am told that you can send your CV direct to companies but make sure that they are suitable ones. Some companies do not like direct calls though.
Your CV might not be ideal despite what Mr. Nice Agent says? Most are semi-skilled and some are very dishonest. There is an article on this site about CVs though it is in parts mis-leading IMO.
Fungus.Comment
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1) Yes
2) No
3) Read Below
4a) Sometimes it seems like that but there are real positions there.
4b) There are other sites but JS is most used one by far
5) No you cannot, this is why you have multiple versions of your CV and even these you customise to use same terminology as the advertised position in question
6) Every little bit helps no?
Here i would say is your first major problem, anyone looking at this on your cv will think "permie", even if you were technically a contractor, like 20 years ffs!?!?!I'm an experienced contractor, some 20+ years of dealing direct with a client
If by chance it was for some type of consultancy then break the whole thing down on your cv so each of the consultancies clients look like a direct client (don't lie, just do a "creative" presentation).
If it was not a consultancy, for all intents you look on paper (and probably in reality) like a permie contracting for first time, with all the normal hardships secureing that "first contract" that generally entails
This is your 2nd major problem, from permie > contractor and role change at same time. Most people would just toss your cv in the bin straight away at that.I'm looking for BA/Sys analysis/PM roles but I come from a developer background
"Contractor" is generally someone experienced at the required job (role change means you are not)
"Contractor" is also someone who is adaptable to totally new situations and enviorments and methods of operations, 20 year + quasi permie does not demostrate this.
So either "go permie" and try for role change or "go contractor" and stick with what you know, both together is a real long shot.Comment
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