Oh bother

[suityou01]

As you know I've been finding market conditions more than a little tight. I'm happy for those of you that are finding the market buoyant and lovely and champagne and strawberries, but I aint.

I clearly don't just rely on jockying jobserve. I have my own network of clients and have been working on that as well. The problem is to find someone who is buying. At the turn of this year I was asked to bid for a reasonably large project for a logistics company, working in tandem with one of my old companies back in my permie days.

I did the tender but was then asked by the company to provide them with architectural drawings, general approach to the design and testing. This was all in the quote, but I have been desperate enough recently to get into this and do the work "at risk", particularly as there isn't anything better on the horizon.

After many weeks of back and forth, finally I got blown out this morning. My price was good, my drawings and design work first class. However as this project is important to them they felt that me being the sole developer on the project was a risk, so they have offshored it to a team in India.

I totally understand their reasoning, but it's one hell of a blow to me considering the hoops I have jumped through.

As far as the UK market is concerned suity is no good because

a) Hasn't done any hands on coding for over 2 years so no coding roles for suity.
b) Good business analysis skills, so potential work out there but only if you've working in banking/finance/london markets.
c) Potential to move up into a PM role on a smaller project but again having not worked in banking/finance/london markets the market cannot sustain me at present.

I'll be honest, for the first time in 16 years, I am cacking it.

It seems no matter how hard I try, how many quotes, ITT responses, jobserve applications I do, I'm just not getting anywhere.

[sasguru]

If your old skills, such as they are, are not in demand anymore, it's time to re-train.
In fact everyone needs to re-train constantly.
See, I can be helpful sometimes.

[original PM]

are you sure they did not just nick your stuff and pass it on to the bobs?

apart from that I will be of no use to you whatsoever!

[d000hg]

"suityou01 is never on the bench" - We either need to rep you up a lot or down a lot.

Sounds grim though. Have you considered jumping to the permie side yet?

[suityou01]

If your old skills, such as they are, are not in demand anymore, it's time to re-train.
In fact everyone needs to re-train constantly.
See, I can be helpful sometimes.

Err, thanks Sas.

I did just that. Last week I put myself on an intensive Prince2 foundation and practitioner course. All well and good.

How does retraining make the market less incestuous?

[sasguru]

Err, thanks Sas.

I did just that. Last week I put myself on an intensive Prince2 foundation and practitioner course. All well and good.

How does retraining make the market less incestuous?

I meant train in something that is not complete BS.
Almost everyone I've met with PRINCE is a completely useless numpty, bit like everyone who is a member of the BCS is usually a complete useless pedantic arse.

[original PM]

prince 2 is great -- for putting on your CV to get pass the first sift


but if you actually get a job throw the vast majority away but keep the basics.....

[original PM]

oh and actually given you have a coding background Agile may be a better option.

[suityou01]

oh and actually given you have a coding background Agile may be a better option.

what sort of agile qualifikayshuns would you look for when hiring? Cerftified scrum master?

[SimonMac]

I know we have had our digs in the past you bedwetting cretin (only joking) but could your problem be that as a contractor you need to me a master on what you do, rather than a jack of all trades? Are you a coder, are you a BA or are you a PM?

Maybe a few years as a permie to focus on what you want to be when you grow up, sounds like you have the aptitude for maybe Solutions or Enterprise Architect so have a look at TOGAF rather than trying to jump from one role to the next and never getting any traction.