Officially off the bench!

[Ruse]

Well done, many congrats

Gives hope to the rest of us, just going in to 5th month on bench myself, like you had zip in way of opps from May through to August. Finally getting a couple of interviews but only for permie roles , but beggars can't be choosers. Sadly contracts still few and far between.

[tim123]

8 months and counting

One interview in Feb, not a sniff since

tim

[Zippy]

Well done that herman_g man

[EddieNambulous]

But, what's concerning me though is in the future that clients and agencies are judging us heavily on gaps in work/contracts.I'm getting a real victim complex

I don't know if it was just coincidence but, after a bench period of several months, I rewrote my CV about a month ago to include a (genuine) personal software project I had been working on during bench-time, and made it look as though it was on behalf of my own limited company (which technically it was)...thus leaving no gap on my CV.

Got myself de-benched within a week and still had plenty of interest from other agencies.

Something to contemplate perhaps.

[dmuk]

Phone hasn't stopped ringing over the past two weeks and now 3 interviews arranged.

This compares with almost no activity for the past 6 months.

Fortunately I haven't seen any bench time, but getting into a new contract has felt impossible.

Agents keep saying there are "good people who have been out of work for a long time taking my jobs" (ie taking lower rates).... in contrast to when they say "we have sent other people down for interviews but they have been too senior"?

[herman_g]

Phone hasn't stopped ringing over the past two weeks and now 3 interviews arranged.

This compares with almost no activity for the past 6 months.

That's been exactly my experience. 6 months ago I had a nice offer at a client that I could not accept because I could not "be there monday". Then it all went tulip. The offer I turned down yesterday was for the same client at a lower rate but not bad considering how dry its been.

The last time I experienced the current level of activity was April 2008 when that year's budgets came out - I only looked for 3 days at the time and came up with two offers.

itjobswatch shows a peak in activity in my niche market in May 2008 and a comparable peak in activity right now - seems pretty much accurate.

[tim123]

What is it you guys do?

If I go to Jobserve and type in "my" search I get a total of 9 jobs for the week(only three of which are in the UK).

Even in April the number was in the 50s (even if a lot of them were doubles)

tim

[rootsnall]

What is it you guys do?

If I go to Jobserve and type in "my" search I get a total of 9 jobs for the week(only three of which are in the UK).

Even in April the number was in the 50s (even if a lot of them were doubles)

tim

My game is also in the doldrums, with barely an advertised job. What few jobs there are the agents keep quiet about if they have any sense. A mate with 10 years experience just did 8 months out with barely a sniff but eventually got something by going for anything and everything. Something always comes along but 8 months is getting into scary territory. After 3 or 4 months I'd be looking at some sort of retraining (-> blagging ) exercise as you have nothing much to lose.

[BolshieBastard]

How can one be 'officially \ unofficially off the bench'!?

[EddieNambulous]

How can one be 'officially \ unofficially off the bench'!?

From what I gather, it is a complex process involving various types of chutney and numerous spoons.