Reply to: State of the Market

[eek]

It might happen and not much else will happen, some business will fail, I doubt a lot though as every time I go and visit a city centre, be it locally in Surrey and / or London, I'm amazed how packed it is. Yes prices are sky high on pretty much everything, no idea how people in London afford going out, but the fact is that they still are. Tried booking a holiday recently? flights are expensive, hotels are absolutely packed and also expensive, so I can't see how interest rates going up by 1% for say 6 months will suddenly destroy this.

Will there be less contracts around in the UK? yeah most likely, but there's a world outside of the UK and contracting.

If you have paid your mortgage off interest rates aren't going to impact you to any extent - and its older people who are out and about spending money at the moment.

[dsc]

[...]
There is now talk of interest rates going to 5.75% this year: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...ouseholds.html

I don't even want to think about how bad things will get if that happens.
[...]

It might happen and not much else will happen, some business will fail, I doubt a lot though as every time I go and visit a city centre, be it locally in Surrey and / or London, I'm amazed how packed it is. Yes prices are sky high on pretty much everything, no idea how people in London afford going out, but the fact is that they still are. Tried booking a holiday recently? flights are expensive, hotels are absolutely packed and also expensive, so I can't see how interest rates going up by 1% for say 6 months will suddenly destroy this.

Will there be less contracts around in the UK? yeah most likely, but there's a world outside of the UK and contracting.

[MarillionFan]

It's time for me to have the awkward conversation with the mortgage company.
I've never missed a mortgage payment before. I am absolutely grief stricken and racked with worry.

One question I hope they don't ask is "how long do you think it will be before you are back in work?"

I have been out since January. I thought things would pick up after the budget...
I thought things would pick up after Easter...
I thought things would pick up in May...
I think things aren't going to pick up this year...

Anyone got any idea when this tulipshow will level out?

What are you doing with your benched time? I no longer contract at all have used time when I was contracting to implement a plan b and c. C is now A and contracting way behind me. Do you have plans you spend more time on?

[TheGreenBastard]

1) working 2 x £300pd outside contracts is stupid, they might be both £500pd and agent pocketing the rest. Or usually cheap clients are more demanding than clients that can afford a healthy budget. 2 contracts and the risk is that YOU WILL BURN OUT in less than 6 months. Guaranteed.

The second part of this is nonsense, do you speak from experience? It's not guaranteed (coming from years of experience).

it’s slave mentality.

Oh finally we agree. But I can't make sense of your conflicting opinions. Have you been burnt by an employer in the past, so that you deride the system, but feel enough guilt to get burnt out if taking on multiple gigs?

[SussexSeagull]

It is both, they are both incompetent, and when it comes time to pay for that incompetence it is the working middle that pay, with high taxes and high interest rates.

There is now talk of interest rates going to 5.75% this year: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...ouseholds.html

I don't even want to think about how bad things will get if that happens.

My advice to any benched contractor reading this who did not find a role during the recent April bounce, is to find anything: perm or contract and not to be picky about the salary or rate. It is going to be a bad out there for the next six months at least, and it could even last another 18 months.

If making the working middle pay for failure of government policy is a conspiracy then it has been going on for several centuries.

[Fraidycat]

It's apparently a grand scheme by the powers that be to keep working people in check by deliberately creating an unfavourable job market as opposed to the gross incompetence by the powers that be I always assumed it was.

It is both, they are both incompetent, and when it comes time to pay for that incompetence it is the working middle that pay, with high taxes and high interest rates.

There is now talk of interest rates going to 5.75% this year: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...ouseholds.html

I don't even want to think about how bad things will get if that happens.

My advice to any benched contractor reading this who did not find a role during the recent April bounce, is to find anything: perm or contract and not to be picky about the salary or rate. It is going to be a bad out there for the next six months at least, and it could even last another 18 months.

[SussexSeagull]

And what does this have to do with the state of the market?

It's apparently a grand scheme by the powers that be to keep working people in check by deliberately creating an unfavourable job market as opposed to the gross incompetence by the powers that be I always assumed it was.

Wake up sheeple.

(sadly I can't find an irony emoji)

[cojak]

And what does this have to do with the state of the market?

[Fraidycat]

There are children playing with toys on YouTube that make millions a year

Instead of envying them why don't you join them and start your own youtube channel?

There is a big market niche for 'pessimism porn' and conspiracy theories.

Lots of Gen Yers like yourself who love to be told they are victims because they cant afford to buy a house, you can then recommend financial ideas to them. Youtube channels that are finance related have the highest revenue per view compared to all other types of channels.

[GigiBronz]

You do come over as a spoilt entitled snowflake.

You have it easy, compared to 99% of the world population.

F. the 99%, we were born with ambition and spent a lot of time in school (and in our free time) learning this trade.

I want to take what is mine. Not only some crumbles that get thrown away.

I am still humble in face of God but I want to make money so that I am not a slave for the rest of my life. And I can afford a comfortable life.

There are children playing with toys on YouTube that make millions a year and you are are calling 8k net in London and wanting to afford a bit more than eating in Greggs “entitled”?
it’s slave mentality.

[Fraidycat]

And the best benefit that came out of the pandemic (thanks China and Fauci) was WFH now is being taken away.
2 contracts and the risk is that YOU WILL BURN OUT in less than 6 months. Guaranteed.

You do come over as a spoilt entitled snowflake.

You have it easy, compared to 99% of the world population.

[SussexSeagull]

You’re wrong. You’re just spewing out the same old ‘jaded old man’ rubbish about fake roles etc.

It only takes 20 mins to tailor a CV.

Tailoring your CV is for the client, not for the recruiter

Get the clients name before sending your CV, if you can’t, it’s fake or you never bothered to learn to negotiate (usually the latter reading the posts around here).

I don’t even engage with agents asking for a CV before sending me a detailed spec. I’ve also never been out of contract unwillingly.

I agree about the benefits of a tailored CV. It's just if it is in a virtual pile with 200 other CVs it becomes a lottery.

Never been out of contract? Ok then.

[DrewG]

You’re wrong. You’re just spewing out the same old ‘jaded old man’ rubbish about fake roles etc.

It only takes 20 mins to tailor a CV.

Tailoring your CV is for the client, not for the recruiter

Get the clients name before sending your CV, if you can’t, it’s fake or you never bothered to learn to negotiate (usually the latter reading the posts around here).

I don’t even engage with agents asking for a CV before sending me a detailed spec. I’ve also never been out of contract unwillingly.

[GigiBronz]

I think people are not grasping the basic concept that central banks print money out of thin air and give it to companies for basically free. Companies in exchange hire people because more people more money. Governments are happy because people have a cubicle cage.

Now that the free money has ended an everything around us is crumbling, everyone is laying off people, maybe to get back the cheap money (everything works on debt). Maybe some other reasons... (I do not want to say because then I will also get called a conspiracy theorist)

Everything is basically a scam and inflation has been created by the government.
"People don't want to work anymore" - no, people want to work, people are purpose driven, people do not want to work for nothing while everything costs an arm and a leg. And the best benefit that came out of the pandemic (thanks China and Fauci) was WFH now is being taken away.

The other points mentioned: 1) working 2 x £300pd outside contracts is stupid, they might be both £500pd and agent pocketing the rest. Or usually cheap clients are more demanding than clients that can afford a healthy budget. 2 contracts and the risk is that YOU WILL BURN OUT in less than 6 months. Guaranteed.

2) over-tailoring your cv is stupid, you'd spend hours only to apply for maybe 10 gigs that might be fake or cv harvesting exercise. Who is recommending that probably doesn't have a clue.
If it is a direct role or you know someone in then maybe.

Regarding the state of the market, unfortunately I have caught a stomach bug and would be on a strict diet for the next few months. This would complicate travel very much so would be 1/2 days per month / remote only for now. I haven't seen a role like this in months so I guess I am benched for now.

For people that suggest 300pd, good luck with that, you are also assuming taking some risks. Getting a stomach bug in London is a genuine risk and if you have financial commitments you do not want a stomach bug to bankrupt you. If you are tight financially you should act now and not engage in hopeful thinking. ( I don't and I can stay abroad for a while where everything is cheaper and better)

[SussexSeagull]

Who cares what the ad specifies? If the client is a chain of supermarkets and they want a Java developer to work on an order management system, at the very top of your CV you should be talking about how you've worked end-to-end logistics and order management processes before you start talking about Java, Spring, and all the other tech you know.

The context of the application you're building is very important and somebody that has that context will often be favoured over someone that doesn't.

I don't understand people in tech that are out of contract for months at a time, I bet those same people have incredibly vague CV's. I never even send a CV until I get to spend an hour tailoring it to the spec. When a recruiter asks for my CV, the answer is "send me a spec first and tell me what industry the client is in".

Nobody cares that you know Java, they care that you've used Java to build a low latency trading platform or used Java to build a high throughput order management system. Understand the verticals in which you want to operate, if you don't have one in mind, I suggest you come up with a couple and base your CV exclusively around those verticals.

In the boom times, any muppet can get a contract. In the lean times, you really need to show value and deep understanding of the clients actual problems. Talking me to death about your SOLID design understanding is great but you really need to map that back to the actual business and its problems.

If you can't sell, you're going to starve in the winter and the snow is certainly falling right now.

All very well and good but if there are several hundred contractors - or more - chasing each contract it turns into a lottery where you are lucky if someone even reads your CV.

People have been out of work recently because there is a lack of opportunities around. There are people here with decades experience, or as you would call them 'muppets' struggling and to suggest it is a mass failure of job hunting technique by all of them is massively lacking in knowledge of the current climate.