Reply to: State of the Market

[SchumiStars]

I wrote a long reply, but thought I would go to the gym instead. Usually takes me between 45min-60min about the same time to read a 9 page CV. 😀

[budgetastronaut]

Not really - just a different way of building software. Not everyone is writing software for a nuclear reactor or a passenger jet.

Definitely, I agree!

[TheDude]

Utterly dreadful.

Not really - just a different way of building software. Not everyone is writing software for a nuclear reactor or a passenger jet.

[caminito]

Waterfall is never going to go away and is 100% the correct choice for some projects but (say) your entire career has been in safety critical and/or defence then hiring managers are not going to suddenly think - hey this guy is going to fit right in with our two week sprint cycle writing code from two sentence Jiras.

Utterly dreadful.

[TheDude]

I've seen several ads recently where the requirement is for experience of both waterfall and agile.

Waterfall is never going to go away and is 100% the correct choice for some projects but (say) your entire career has been in safety critical and/or defence then hiring managers are not going to suddenly think - hey this guy is going to fit right in with our two week sprint cycle writing code from two sentence Jiras.

[caminito]

Correlation != Causation

If you reduce the number of words in your LI profile, none of the AI bots are going to highlight it as a positive change. If you increase the word count, they see a change and it gets flagged as worth responding to.

Your conclusion - that the old skills are the thing to leave out as they make no difference -that is an incorrect conclusion to draw based on a very limited and unscientific test.

Nobody is interested in COM+

On a brighter note, Friday morning and two telephone calls already regarding work.

[uk contractor]

US getting a big taste of what may of us in the UK have had to endure & swallow for many years now! Microsoft approves thousands of H-1B visas while Xbox cuts 1,600 jobs | Fox News

No conflict of interests either.....the person who wielded the axe on all those jobs is also now hired by Uncle Sam as an advisor....you could not make it up! US Federal Reserve taps Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who just laid off 3,200 employees, to lead task force on jobs | PC Gamer

[WTFH]

Obviously I have as I keep getting work. You do know there are soft skills not just technical ones - I think I know which you lack.

Very true.
Many people on LI who are looking for work seem to be very lazy - they see a post by an agent and just reply publicly with "I'm interested, hit me" or some such short phrase.

There are some simple things that people can do (particularly those with a bit of experience), but it requires effort.
1. Cold calling. Yes, you're trying to sell yourself and your skills. Phone the agents you've worked through in the past - not just the generic office number, but the actual person. Talk to them and get your name in their head. Make sure you call each one at least once a month.
2. Talk to your contacts - other contractors and even staff at companies where you have worked in the past.
3. When a job is advertised, reach out to the advertiser directly - by phone or email - do not just reply to a post on social media.
4. After you have reached out and applied for a role, follow up your application with a phone call. Keep your name in their head.

...all of the above requires soft skills as gables has mentioned. When you're in a role, that's when you get to build up relationships with others, but it requires professionalism, politeness, time and effort.

[WTFH]

That was the view of ChatGPT with my initial rewrite. It removed 10+ years of Lloyds Banking Group x 2, RBS, EDF Trading, Barclays x 2, BNP Paribas, Schroders, KPMG, etc., gained between 2007 and 2018, and replaced it with literally one sentence including those company names. That's it. Engagement on LinkedIn dropped like a stone, if that were even possible. I had Claude take a look and that's the main thing it criticised, so we added those companies back in, minus the bullet points of skills, just adding what I delivered there, a short paragraph. The names were important, the skills of yesteryear were not. Within a few days, engagement returned. Massively.

Correlation != Causation

If you reduce the number of words in your LI profile, none of the AI bots are going to highlight it as a positive change. If you increase the word count, they see a change and it gets flagged as worth responding to.

Your conclusion - that the old skills are the thing to leave out as they make no difference -that is an incorrect conclusion to draw based on a very limited and unscientific test.

[gables]

Skills which are 20yrs old are not relevant for today's market place.

As I said, you have to move with the times. Anyway moving on, market is dead. 😀

Obviously I have as I keep getting work. You do know there are soft skills not just technical ones - I think I know which you lack.

Yes.

I'd agree on the technical side to a degree, although I'm using using technical skills learnt over 20 years ago. But as I'm sure you know there are other skills that stay relevant.

That might not go too well for him.

Indeed. And yet he still goes on giving advice to people who have never been out of work, you couldn't make it up.

[Smartie]

The obsolete hardware and programming languages you used 25 years ago and the waterfall methodology you followed are pretty much irrelevant today unless you are lucky enough to be one of those people paid a fortune to maintain legacy stuff.

Remove them from your CV and highlight what you have been doing for the past five or so years.

I've seen several ads recently where the requirement is for experience of both waterfall and agile.

[sadkingbilly]

degree? - wossat???

[avonleigh]

FTFY

What people put on LI in their education section can often be a work of fiction.

Also, how do you know that the degree is relevant to the role? Having a bit of paper from the local poly doesn't mean the applicant isn't a chancer.

Wasn't so much about degrees but the pure number of applications. Madness.

[ladymuck]

Saw some stats on LinkedIn - a recent operations manager role had 5,629 applicants. And 100% of the applicants say they have a degree, so isn't made up of chancers trying their luck. We all know the market is bad but this is off the scale.

FTFY

What people put on LI in their education section can often be a work of fiction.

Also, how do you know that the degree is relevant to the role? Having a bit of paper from the local poly doesn't mean the applicant isn't a chancer.

[avonleigh]

Saw some stats on LinkedIn - a recent operations manager role had 5,629 applicants. And 100% of the applicants have a degree, so isn't made up of chancers trying their luck. We all know the market is bad but this is off the scale.