Is the Java market flooded with candidates?

[Kanye]

Im finding the London banking contract market quite miserable at the moment.

Ive submitted maybe 50 CVs resulting in 10 chats with agents, 5 submissions and 0 interviews.

I have a pretty good front office banking CV though mainly at one end client.

Im getting the impression that core Java is just swamped for candidates now. A few agents have said people are crying out for C++ experts, and I know I missed out on a few interviews due to no business knowledge in that particular area.

Are you guys finding it necessary to go increasingly niche?

Starting to doubt myself here!

[nomadd]

Im finding the London banking contract market quite miserable at the moment.

Ive submitted maybe 50 CVs resulting in 10 chats with agents, 5 submissions and 0 interviews.

I have a pretty good front office banking CV though mainly at one end client.

Im getting the impression that core Java is just swamped for candidates now. A few agents have said people are crying out for C++ experts, and I know I missed out on a few interviews due to no business knowledge in that particular area.

Are you guys finding it necessary to go increasingly niche?

Starting to doubt myself here!

Yes.

We've been out-bob'd in the regular Java world.

Look on the bright side: the weather is great, so take a few months to relax and enjoy life.

[MyUserName]

Yes.

We've been out-bob'd in the regular Java world.

Look on the bright side: the weather is great, so take a few months to relax and enjoy life.

ISTR several threads in the last few months about Java contracts in London. Have a look at the search results, it might well be that the market has taken a nasty hit.

[DimPrawn]

I blame one man for this!

Bob Shawadiwadi | LinkedIn

[rocktronAMP]

Im finding the London banking contract market quite miserable at the moment.

Ive submitted maybe 50 CVs resulting in 10 chats with agents, 5 submissions and 0 interviews.

I have a pretty good front office banking CV though mainly at one end client.

Im getting the impression that core Java is just swamped for candidates now. A few agents have said people are crying out for C++ experts, and I know I missed out on a few interviews due to no business knowledge in that particular area.

Are you guys finding it necessary to go increasingly niche?

Starting to doubt myself here!

Perhaps you have not been following the news, because IMHO I think it very worth looking outside of banking for any type of work contract or perm. There have been on-going large redundancies and structuring since 2008 for all banks in City or the Docklands, or basically ever since Lehman's Bank suddenly was there on one Friday and then vanished from existence the following Monday.

How long have you been looking? (Have you seen bench time poll on this forum?)

How much experience of banking do you have? How many years have you been in the sector? Is this your2nd, 3rd job since college? Perhaps, you have too little experience in comparison with the other candidates going for the same role. Therefore who would you prefer to interview if you have pile of these CVs on your desk?

Human resources at banks (and anywhere else) now know that they can pick and choose who they contract in for gig or hire for employment: a buyer's market. It sounds like that your CV is either not strong or not promoting enough skills to get pass the initial gate keeper in the process: the agents and/or the development manager and his/her best pal that they meet up with regularly at lunchtime or whatever. In 2013, you need to clearly show more than just software development in a banking contracting job. What is your USP unique selling point? What is your value-add?

I wouldn't bother with C++ expert tips or skills shortage; that is just a passing wave, if you are lucky and really have the competent skills, then you can catch it. If C++ is not your bag (like me) then give it a miss, because the next wave will surely come and that is why it is called breaking news.

Revisit the CV writing on the right hand side of the forum for hints and tips.

Good luck.

(PS: If you are willing to trust me, then as an anonymous entity, an experienced Java software engineer, privately ping me your CV and I will review it for you.)

[Dominic Connor]

At the risk of saying "I told you so", I told you so.

I said the Java market was peaking 18 months ago, since it takes time for that to take effect, about now is when it hits you.

Put down the Java manual ? The Register

[rocktronAMP]

I said the Java market was peaking 18 months ago, since it takes time for that to take effect, about now is when it hits you.

Put down the Java manual ? The Register

You are entitled to your opinions on Java.

Dominic, the biggest thing you neglect on that article is understanding the plethora of Java related open source frameworks out there. Look beyond Spring Framework and Hibernate then there is tons and tons of stuff open source projects to know. The trouble is to wet the end of your finger and say, "Whence does the wind blow?"

The OP was concerned about Java. Java is not just a programming language. The name is also about the Java Virtual Machine and also the wide community of products, frameworks and tools. There are so many technologies to learn I do agree that you can locked into say Spring and Hibernate and then in 2016 or so. What? It's all gone. Probably Gooblygook to the other contractors who don't care about Java or programming.

I suspect Java since it was born 1995 will still be here 2016 and beyond. What is going to change is the stuff around the programming languages, the JVM and integrating technologies.

You are right about business skills. Technology is not a panacea. If you are interested business, then usually it right there. If you are interested in management, then I think it best to take a permanent position. From the sound of your article, you seem to say; take stock of your career because only you can do so.

All I will say to the OP is to have a good look at the other languages on the JVM, if you want to stretch just programming languages: Groovy, Clojure, Scala and even JRuby. I will repeat what I said before look outside of banking as well. There was even another thread here that pulled the dirty pants down on the "you need banking experience" tulip nonsense. So if you left banking for while then you can always get back in the future.

(Hey. Why not reinvent yourself? You know Java. Learn Android, become a mobile dev.)

Good luck.

[mrdonuts]

i've noticed all the bobs seem to be on the phone all the time, are they phoning up mission control to find out how to do the job ? i would have though that with the quadzillion phds they claim to have and their 50 years experience for untraceable company in wherever it is they come from they wouldnt need to. I'm puzzled

[SueEllen]

i've noticed all the bobs seem to be on the phone all the time, are they phoning up mission control to find out how to do the job ? i would have though that with the quadzillion phds they claim to have and their 50 years experience for untraceable company in wherever it is they come from they wouldnt need to. I'm puzzled

They are phoning:
1. their mother,
2. their wife,
3. their other female relations,
4. their bank to move money
5. their other financial institutions to see how their investments are doing
6. are seeing if they can get a better job

And then and only then when they have done that and it's near the end of the day they phone the manager and do 0.5 hours of work.

How do I know? I listen in. I'm female, was brought up in London in a multiculture area and so they speak on the phone in front of me thinking I don't understand.

[BlasterBates]

Banking is rubbish, staff still being cut. Just heard a rumour that Credit Suisse going to cut their head count by 30%. There are a few highly specialised contracts/jobs out there, but they´re being very picky. Quite a bit of it is driven by regulation so I don´t see a gr8 longterm future, once that´s over there will be another clear out. I know that will be the case at the bank I used to work at. Generally lots of outsourcing going on and trading areas being closed down. Doesn´t surprise me that Java is hardest hit, as lot of the front end Java can be easily outsourced.

I would look beyond banking. It´s not the bright place it used to be, project teams here today will be gone tomorrow. Doesn´t help that Java is on a downer, C++ is growing in popularity for servers and .Net is replacing it on the front end. It´s being squeezed, too slow, cumbersome and not as pretty as .Net (front end). This is what I was told by a recruiter. Of course there are still plenty of jobs but it´s just not as hot as it was.