The Market is picking up..... or is it!

[norrahe]

Phone has been ringing off the hook for stuff in the UK, sod all for stuff I really want to do in Euroland.

Though my niche market is pretty busy for gigs and good money.

[Scrag Meister]

My finger in the wind consists of itjobswatch for my skillset and currently its running at half of what it was a couple of years back.

Not an accurate picture but certainly a good indicator.

[ChimpMaster]

Europe is looking strong for my line of work, but the UK is pants

[TestMangler]

Though my niche is pretty busy for giggs and good money.

You are Imogen Thomas and I claim my two free CL Final tickets.

[Funkywood]

Same here. Does the Agency have a h and x it in by any chance?

Even worse, in my case it was a previous client I worked for 4 years ago and who I have contacted directly.

Yesterday the number went to 4!

5...

[HeadOfTesting]

chin going down a bit

Well I've now been on the bench 4 months as of today having completed an 8 monther in Feb which was itself preceded by 18 months on the bench

Around half of that bench time was intentional but I'm finding it very tough in the world of senior test management - very little out there and huge expectations for very modest rates

Not an issue in terms of warchest but psychologically it's not ideal and although nobody is questioning this latest CV gap that won't last forever.

I may try and use the transferable nature of my skills to move in to generic programme management but I'm under no illusions about how easy that will be - my best hope is that someone who has worked with me buys the argument that my skills are transferable.

Good luck to everyone!

[Fred Bloggs]

I have even had calls this week and last for work in Manchester. Those are the first calls I've had for local work in 18 months or more. Current job finishes end of the month, so it might turn out better than I had dare hope a few weeks back.

[SimonMac]

Well with the bench looming from next Friday been speaking to a few agents, two good opportunities lined up and one on the horizon, fingers crossed it stays like this

[Fred Bloggs]

Well with the bench looming from next Friday been speaking to a few agents, two good opportunities lined up and one on the horizon, fingers crossed it stays like this

Seems good at the moment, I'm starting a new job next week.

[craig1]

I've been on deliberate downtime since my last contract finished recently and my only contract hunting activity was to put a new CV on the main job sites, I've not gone job hunting at all. Since then I've had about 5-6 calls a day from agencies with the greatest majority being genuine. I've just been offered a new role following a telephone interview in an area outside of my normal narrow niche.

That's the level of activity I was last seeing in 2007-8. Compare that with late 2008 to 2010 where I had to go hunting hard to get a sniff at an interview. So, in my very narrow subjective experience, the market is definitely on an up.

An agent that I know very well says that the number of roles is up but so is the number of candidates applying. He said that the quality of CV is down significantly, especially from the newer entrants to the contracting market, so those of us that have been around for a while with polished CVs still get through the sifting process. He also mentioned that the number of people with outright lies on their CV is up with one role he advertised in a very narrow market had eight applicants all saying they'd run the same project at a competitor when, in reality, they'd been involved only in either spin-off smaller projects or managing tiny tasks within the main project.