First Contract

[churchy80]

Hi all,

Newbie here, hoping I'm in the right forum.

Hi all,

I'm looking for help trying to secure my first contract (please advise if I am in the wrong forum). Is it that difficult to secure your first contract?

I seem to be struggling.

I've been applying for roles on Jobserve, CW and a couple of other sites since late January 2011, had responses from agencies and feed back was grreat on my CV how ever I hear my CV gets sent across to the company and that's pretty much the last I hear.

The problem is, 4/5 months down the line I still haven't secured my first contract.

Does anyone have any idea's was going on? If I doing a fundamental error.

I look forward to your response.

Regards

Craig

[stek]

What's your skillset and do you like Gladiator movies?

[thunderlizard]

Companies will almost always take a tried-and-tested contractor over a first timer. The exception is cheap, difficult, "urgent" contracts. You might have to do one or two of those first to get some experience, before moving up to the more normal kind.

[eggtastico]

Its hard to give advice without knowing your experience & skillset.
Its sometimes worth contacting the bigger agencies & register with them for ad-hoc/short term work.
things like rollout, office moves, etc. The pay is never great, but it gets you a little experience
& 'in' with some recruiters who will offer you more roles, etc. Not every vacancy ends up on CW or jobserve.
Dont forget, it costs them money to advertise on job boards.

[SueEllen]

Lots of agencies (and some direct companies) will contact you if you post your CV on job boards and keep refreshing it daily (sometimes you have to add or remove a word), rather than you just replying to adverts.

[Scrag Meister]

Experience? Location? Possibly CV format is an issue?

It was 2 months after leaving permiedom, before I changed my CV format from 4 pages to 2 and was then in contract within a month.

Patience is important too, paticularly if you are looking for a role in a specific industry. I wanted "in" to banking and could have taken a couple of other contracts but decided to hang on and eventually got what I wanted.

Contracting 4 years today actually and on 3rd contract.

GL in your search.

[Sid]

safe job boards?

any idea which are safe job boards, from where shady agencies which make fishing calls from 'private numbers' won't pick up my CV?

[MarillionFan]

any idea which are safe job boards, from where shady agencies which make fishing calls from 'private numbers' won't pick up my CV?

I tend to use www.jobserve.com

[churchy80]

Repsonces

Thanks for all your responses,

I am still in my, permie jobs. I did have an interview lined up, however fell through to an internal member taking the roll (I expect to come across this offen).

I have had a few more calls, and had be focus on one type of role forgetting that I can transfer my skills into other areas.

Fingers cross I will get something soon

[stek]

I have had a few more calls, and had be focus on one type of role forgetting that I can transfer my skills into other areas.

That's not what contracting is about.