Am I correct to say that contract situation in Sep 2013 is really bad?

[miketempest]

Am I correct to say that contract situation in Sep 2013 is particularly bad compared with previous months of 2013?

Definitely not

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Been looking for two weeks.

Quiet on the job boards and the agents are saying the same thing.

Winning the global race at a snails pace.

It is indeed very quiet. Just started keeping my eye on the job boards and emails. August/September was super hot, now it's just dead. Not worried though, wouldn't mind waiting until Jan/Feb time to find the right role.

[edison]

November will be a really dead market for contracting. Too many people will be busy growing 'Mo's and will decide not to interview for fear their facial hair will be open to ridicule. December will be a boom month as they will have to recruit quick to fill the spots they put off in November.

HTH.

NLUK, I think you are definitely onto something there - I saw some ridiculous facial growth last November amongst colleagues which coincided with recruitment tailing off a bit...

[SussexSeagull]

Whenever I have been looking in the last few years it seems to go from nothing happening for ages to the phone not stopping ringing in no time. Rates seem to have held quite well though.

Although it hasn't seemed like it at times, reasonable long breaks funded by fairly well paid gigs can be quite agreeable.

[Mephisto]

Seems to have been pleasantly paced for the time of year though stiff competition and rates are both against the lowly PMO lacky.

Oh yeah I'll say it quietly though - BOOMED!

[CheeseSlice]

Seems to be a surge in fishing calls lately which is never a good sign. Had one bright and early this morning who tried to get business names of my recent interviews, and he also read out a list of contacts at my previous clientco (probably from a linkedin search) asking me to say yes to any I knew.

I even had a call from a 'take home ridiculous% of your invoice' scheme salesman posing as an agent. I let him give his spiel for 5 mins until I announced that he was a phony and a crook, to which he slammed the phone down on me


[edit: CS post #1000 !]

[eek]

I even had a call from a 'take home ridiculous% of your invoice' scheme salesman posing as an agent. I let him give his spiel for 5 mins until I announced that he was a phony and a crook, to which he slammed the phone down on me

You weren't trying. Last one of those rang me back to rant down the phone a day later. I think the paid for comment on his facebook page that his scam had resulted in the suicide of a person I linked to didn't go down well with his parents....

Yes I can be that much of a ba***rd

[DirtyDog]

An agent I was discussing things with last week was saying that things were picking up as far as they were concerned. When I said I was working until the New Year, he said "good for you; bad for me"

[craig1]

I've just finished a call with one of the agencies I trust. He asked me quite bluntly if I knew of any work that was going to be coming up soon as they're a bit quiet. Their problem is that they specialise in higher rate contracts and the agent said the market is full of low-mid rate contracts but clients are back to hiring again permies for the higher rate stuff. The agent said he'd lost his three highest billing contractors in a month, all to different clients either canning the contractor as unneeded or being replaced by a permie.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Seems to have been pleasantly paced for the time of year though stiff competition and rates are both against the lowly PMO lacky.

Oh yeah I'll say it quietly though - BOOMED!

Dead this week and last. Only just starting to look at roles and start applying. Ignoring nearly all of the roles so far due to either rate or the wrong role. I think I have made 2 applications in the last 2 weeks......

Can all suddenly change though...