Getting on an agents list

[gingerjedi]

After speaking to a few agents recently it has become clear that they aren't bothering to advertise roles unless they're looking for niche skills, so how do you get on their 'hot' list when an unsolicited phone call wont get you past the guard dog?

The ones I've spoken to seem to think someone with my wintel support skills and current security clearance shouldn't have much trouble securing contracts.

I beg to differ...

[nomadd]

After speaking to a few agents recently it has become clear that they aren't bothering to advertise roles unless they're looking for niche skills, so how do you get on their 'hot' list when an unsolicited phone call wont get you past the guard dog?

The ones I've spoken to seem to think someone with my wintel support skills and current security clearance shouldn't have much trouble securing contracts.

I beg to differ...

Just keep sending cv's. I got lucky a year ago with my current agency that way. I've rolled from one contract to the next with them, fortunately, and without a gap in between.

I guess the other issue is those 'niche' skills. You need to look towards getting them. Remember, even a 'hint' of them on your cv is usually enough to land you the role as there is little competition - my current gig being a prime example of that.

Mind you, "Windows Support" is not really a marketplace I'd want to be in; most of the sites I've worked on in the last few years have pushed nearly all of that 'offshore', even when that means having a bunch of outsourcing company Bobs 'onshore' doing the actual work - and, of course, for peanuts.

[HairyArsedBloke]

Thankfully I don't have to do all this anymore.

However, you've reminded me of a conversation I was having ages ago with a pal of mine who was hunting at the time. He said that frequent calls to agents once got people in the front of their mind and on the 'hot board' but didn't work anymore. His recommendation was to hut jobserve etc for the keywords du jour and see if they could be added to your CV somehow. In any case make a change to the CV in someway every week and up load it so it makes you look like new meat. That change could be as simple as spelling, punctuation, or layout.

I don't think I could cope with some of the desperate stories I read on this board.

[gingerjedi]

Mind you, "Windows Support" is not really a marketplace I'd want to be in; most of the sites I've worked on in the last few years have pushed nearly all of that 'offshore', even when that means having a bunch of outsourcing company Bobs 'onshore' doing the actual work - and, of course, for peanuts.

In the past I've relied on securitly cleared jobs as Bob can't easily access that market, the trouble is HP/EDS has offloaded 1000's of security cleared people in recent years which doesn't help. I'm trying to get into virtualisation and SAN but it's hard whithout real world experience.

[JoJoGabor]

You've missed the boat with virtualisation too. The last few years its been good, but now everybody and their dog knows about it, you wont make much money there.

Cloud computing might be the next big thing

[nomadd]

Cloud computing might be the next big thing

I hope so, as that's what I'm specialising in at the moment. Still, I'm concentrating more on the "in-house cloud" rather than those which are externally hosted. The market for people with experience of localised, secure, scalable H.P.C. Grids/Clouds has been manic in terms of jobs for the last year or so on Jobserve, especially for the Financial Services industries. Rates seem to be pretty high, too. It's the first time in years I've actually been "fired up" about my job; actually quite enjoying it, which makes a pleasant change!

[digerido]

Isn't internal cloud computing just another buzz word for internal architecture?

I understand that services may be outsourced and hosted on the cloud\internet and once sla's can be managed this could take off but are there any concerns regarding security?

[nomadd]

Isn't internal cloud computing just another buzz word for internal architecture?

I understand that services may be outsourced and hosted on the cloud\internet and once sla's can be managed this could take off but are there any concerns regarding security?

Absolutely. Which is why I stated that my plan is to stick with Grid/Cloud computing. Pulling the "cloud" ideas in-house - as most Banks do, for instance - overcomes those security concerns. All the stuff I do now is internally-hosted real-time Grid stuff. Seems to be a growing list of it on Jobswerve too, which is what I care about the most (oh, and the decent rates! )

As I say, it's my plan to stick with this stuff for the next few years. Should keep bread on the table...

[digerido]

I'm from a vmware background and I always presumed that grid computing was just pooling resources and then slicing them up, much like clusters\resource pools in vi3 or vSphere.

No doubt I'm missing something but if this is the case could I just add grid computing as a key skill to the CV or should I be looking at this from a different angle?

Thanks,

[nomadd]

I'm from a vmware background and I always presumed that grid computing was just pooling resources and then slicing them up, much like clusters\resource pools in vi3 or vSphere.

No doubt I'm missing something but if this is the case could I just add grid computing as a key skill to the CV or should I be looking at this from a different angle?

Thanks,

Completely different angle.

You can build a "grid" (or "cluster") of machines by simply cabling a few servers together, and/or creating multiple VMs on one big server. But that doesn't give you an application that can make use of all that power... For that you need some Grid software (Oracle, formally Tangosol, Coherence is the most popular choice with the Banks at the moment) and an application Architected, Designed and Implemented to exploit it. If you get it right, you can build apps. that show very low-latency characteristics and near linear scalability. The jump from 10's to 100's to 1,000's to 100,000's of TPS isn't easy, but it is doable. That's the power of Grids.

Have a look at Oracle Coherence Enterprise Edition for some info.

EDIT: And the rates even for permies aren't too bad: http://www.jobserve.com/Java-FSharp-...638E9DFB.jsjob