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Recent content by gruntling
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State of the Market
I'm seeing a bit more activity from emails from agents. Nothing particularly useful, and maybe just people back off their summer hold CV fishing and doing agency make-work. But perhaps some hints of green shoots?- gruntling
- Post #14,579
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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State of the Market
Well, this is rubbish. Only a couple of very short contracts in two years, and I've had to go permie (and I was lucky with that). I dropped into Jobserve sites, and it's the same fake ads from two years back. Absolutely no sign of any financial new year bounce if anything worse than last year...- gruntling
- Post #13,391
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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Contracting in the US?
Since the contract market is so dead in the UK and my wife is American and has knowledge about placing foreign workers in the US I'd wondering about relocating to a tech area of the US. I understand that the US market isn't too healthy either, but I fancy a change anyway. Anyone have... -
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State of the Market
Well I was off the bench for a few months after searching for many more months but due back on it. Is the market any better than late last year (the worse I'd ever seen in over 20 years)? Please say yes!- gruntling
- Post #9,998
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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State of the Market
I'm a programmer. I went to my first job dot com interview last century in shirt and tie, and the door was opened by a guy in a sarong. I took my tie off and everyone was laughing. I got the job. But I'll definitely a take a decent headset and maybe a polo shirt when I'm on my holibobs and...- gruntling
- Post #8,558
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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State of the Market
Well this is all still pretty tulip. I've been searching for 3 months, I've had a few leads, a few interviews but nothing yet. I have even been having a few calls on the burner (but nowhere near enough!). War chest is OK, so I'm not in dire straits yet, but still getting annoyed with it all...- gruntling
- Post #8,554
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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State of the Market
I don't believe It's anything to do with IR35. Before the bear contract market, I was seeing plenty of outside roles based on Statements of Work. I think it's just general economic conditions (interest rate hikes) hitting the IT contract market first. I'd go further and say I'd expect to see...- gruntling
- Post #8,183
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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Interest bearing business accounts and FSCS safety?
The US regional banks are getting hammered, and I'm wondering about the easiest way of moving War Chest funds from Cater Allen (Santander) to an interest bearing business account, so I don't have more than the FSCS protected limit of 85K in any one account. Is there anything with a good mobile...- gruntling
- Thread
- Replies: 3
- Forum: Accounting / Legal
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State of the Market
This smells like 2001 and 2008 to me. I've had a couple of interviews but nothing as of yet. There are about four roles I'm aware of (I know the company names) in my programming niche and they are constantly spammed on the job sites. I've been contacted by agents on Linkedin about all of them...- gruntling
- Post #8,105
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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State of the Market
I've had a couple of "how are you finding the market?" from agents which isn't a great sign. This time of year should be starting to get busy due to new financial year budgets and I've not really seen that yet. I think most of the website advertised jobs still are on jobserve and it's fairly...- gruntling
- Post #7,953
- Forum: Business / Contracts
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Changing Umbrella before end of tax year?
I'm very unhappy with my current (large, well known and useless) umbrella agency and want to change ASAP (probably to Clarity Umbrella). I'm currently "between contracts" and was thinking about doing it now, but was wondering if there is any advantage to waiting until the end of the tax year...- gruntling
- Thread
- Replies: 2
- Forum: Umbrella Companies
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Parasol Umbrella seem to have disappeared today
I was paid about half what I was owned for last month over the weekend. Of course I can't invoice for last week with the system down!- gruntling
- Post #68
- Forum: Umbrella Companies
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Parasol Umbrella seem to have disappeared today
Recent email "The root cause of this issue has been identified as malicious activity on our network. This activity did not enter via the core Parasol platforms, but to ensure the safety and integrity of your data, we suspended our systems to protect the Parasol community. As you know, this...- gruntling
- Post #49
- Forum: Umbrella Companies
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Constructive Takeaways for those suffering from the Umbrella Outages?
I'm suffering from Parasolgroup/SJD issues and was wondering what I can actually do positively (other than whine online!) I've checked all bank accounts and nothing has been taken out (although I can't invoice and may well miss payment). My guess is it's either Denial of Service or Windows...- gruntling
- Thread
- Replies: 1
- Forum: Umbrella Companies
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Red Tape and Paperwork Whine
So for a 3-month initial inside (grrr) role. I've been sent 12 sheets of A4 in a word doc to fill out by the agency! Realistically it's going to take a couple of hours to fill out things in the most basic way. I'm asked for last 5 year's worth of companies with contacts (even although at least...
