Get a real job?

[Bagpuss]

My missus loves what I do. I make money! She completely agrees there is no such thing as a 'permanent' job.

You have a trophy wife who likes spending your money and has a lover on the side

[ace00]

You have a trophy wife who likes spending your money and has a lover on the side

Here's a poss.:

Project Managers X 2 - Business PMs
A fantastic opportunity has arisen for a city based financial organisation for a Project Manager into a small team to assist with running and directing major projects across many lines of business. .........
Job type: Contract · Salary: £250 per day · Location: City, London ·

250 in the city - the bus drivers get more.

[Fred Bloggs]

I have really hard time with her in doors on this topic. She badly wants me to get a "permanent job" despite them not existing really any more. Her credit card is 60% higher than my net salary expectations as a staff guy. I'm waiting at the moment to hear if my contract is getting rolled over or not and as a result life is very fraught. Ho hum.......

Regarding cross training, very tough I'd say. Doesn't help that all agencies and some clients firmly to firmly pigeon hole you based on the last one or two jobs.

[Francko]

But I would love to hear advice on cross-training.....

True that it's harder at this stage. But no excuse that it cannot be done on your own, especially if you are out of work and have plenty of time to study. True that in most cases might not be enough but it will allow you to move into other areas once the recession is over.

[pzz76077]

Siebel wasnt that appealing even before Oracle bought them out a few years ago when compared with the competition.

Two problems they have- core product = sales automation stuff, no one is selling anything much these days so no need for this kind of thing.

Second, there are many other products with similar functions in the marketplace these days. Most Co's that would need CRM stuff already have SAP or similar and would prefer to bolt on this rather than buy something oddball like Siebel. Even Microsoft are in on the act these days. Last time I looked at Siebel we were talking around 5 grand per seat just for software- way too pricey for what it does IMV.

PZZ

[expat]

True that it's harder at this stage. But no excuse that it cannot be done on your own, especially if you are out of work and have plenty of time to study. True that in most cases might not be enough but it will allow you to move into other areas once the recession is over.

I don't want to be negative but I really don't see getting any decent kind of job based on self-study. That amounts to looking for an area without a high barrier to entry, and that does not lead to good money.

What I have been doing is reading up on those subsidiary skills which pop up as parts of my existing skills, so as not to get knocked back for not having any knowledge of those.

But that won't get me a job in England. What skills does one need then to get a job in England? Skills that one can study, or cross into?

[Drewster]

A couple of years ago a pal of mine went to see some employment adviser from the Jobcentre. He said that the adviser looked at his CV then said, “I don’t know what any of this means, but I can see you have good IT skills. They are transferable, have you considered something like data entry?”

I’ve lost contact with him now

1) Presumably you visited him after the trial......
2) Did the Adviser move on to become a Pimp..........

[alreadypacked]

You have a trophy wife who likes spending your money and has a lover on the side

[expat]

I have really hard time with her in doors on this topic. She badly wants me to get a "permanent job" despite them not existing really any more. Her credit card is 60% higher than my net salary expectations as a staff guy. I'm waiting at the moment to hear if my contract is getting rolled over or not and as a result life is very fraught. Ho hum.......

Regarding cross training, very tough I'd say. Doesn't help that all agencies and some clients firmly to firmly pigeon hole you based on the last one or two jobs.

I have the same problem with "permanent" jobs: they aren't, I've noticed. And they pay less. I could do 6 months bench every year and still make as much as a job. Or to put it another way, contracting pays the mortgage, even through hard times, a job would not.

Admittedly I have accumulated a set of contracting skills (and perhaps a contrcting mind-set, where I think like an agent of the skills checklist). My contracts, if I can find them, are quite well paid, whereas the permie jobs I would fit are not.

And for sure, the problem is that you don't get taken on for work you can do, but for keywords that you have gathered in the last couple of jobs.

[DS23]

The question remains, why for goodness' sake are there no Siebel jobs in England? Is is really that nobody uses it, whereas they do all over Europe?

And if that's true, how do I go about cross-training? I have in the past deliberately taken 2 separate contracts because they promised contact woth SAP; it didn't materialise. Now in this market, it's hard to see how to cross into different skills: it's hard enough finding work with the skills you do have, never mind working with skills that you don't have yet. here's my CV with 9 years good Siebel experience........

hi expat,

i think i'd be doing something like this: target clients who are currently using siebel and want to upgrade / integrate to oracle and you have to sell yourself as the person to help them with the change.

identify:
1/ clients with very old siebel who need to bring their erp systems up to date and have decided to change to oracle
2/ businesses using siebel who are merging with businesses using oracle.

for this you have to get some oracle experience on your cv. you need to do plenty of researching to get a decent understanding and pepper your patter with keywords. try and get on some oracle training courses.

can you target a specific industry or a particular module or process?
eg if you have say, a combination of crm and pharmeceuticals in siebel on your cv it will help you identify the appropriate learning required and clients to research.

of course it doesn't have to be oracle but it makes sense.