Reply to: Best approach to finding your next role?

[uk contractor]

Sounds like we're all doing pretty much the same thing, but the roles just don't seem to be there.

This x 100!

[jmercer]

Sounds like we're all doing pretty much the same thing, but the roles just don't seem to be there.

I'm thinking my CV might be too specific and needs to be generalised a little to open up further opportunities.

[uk contractor]

I'm not sure I'd go that far, there was the small issue of the 'great recession'.

Having said that I got replaced by a permie last week and I haven't had a phone interview yet despite speaking to ~8 recruitment agents. A little bit scary compared to my other experiences.

As your finding out now this worse than the "great recession" which never actually ended either BTW its why so many zero hour contracts & part time workers abound!

[rjoe]

has anyone tried iContract?

I've been on it since launch, platform has some potential, not much of a comparison to jobserve in terms of quality postings as far as I can tell...

[Stevie Wonder Boy]

My LinkedIn feed seems to be full of recruiters with contracts at the moment, has anyone tried iContract?

Yes, loads of adverts, requests for CV's etc... no roles.... My experience is talk to the people you know. Don't bother too much with people you don't.

[Smackdown]

Its not just you the IT market for several roles (generic support & dev & PM roles especially) has been poor for a long time. Read here backwards to get a flavour of that http://forums.contractoruk.com/busin...arket-135.html
....but a lot of it is down to what you do. Unless you have a niche skillset right now its a very tough job market probably the hardest its been since post 2001.

Experience is less attractive right now to many clients it seems to boil down to rate first then experience 2nd due to how many foreign IT workers are here & happy to take lower rates which then dilutes future rates as many agents look and see what rates were offered in recent job ads before basing their rate card on that for the current ad! Which leads to constantly diminishing returns for the IT contractor obviously!!

I'm not sure I'd go that far, there was the small issue of the 'great recession'.

Having said that I got replaced by a permie last week and I haven't had a phone interview yet despite speaking to ~8 recruitment agents. A little bit scary compared to my other experiences.

[Darren at Fox-Bartfield]

Contracts

My LinkedIn feed seems to be full of recruiters with contracts at the moment, has anyone tried iContract?

[pauldee]

Postage would cost a fortune...

I used to do this back in the day. It worked when everything else failed during the dot com crash.

[northernladyuk]

Postage would cost a fortune...

Some kind of electronic mail capability would provide significant savings.

[mattfx]

Gosh - how many times have we all thought that ?!!

Yep - I'm still pretty green around the ears, don't worry; the optimism is being beaten out of me on a daily basis!

[kaiser78]

mass mail all possible vacancies

Postage would cost a fortune...

[Eirikur]

mass mail all possible vacancies

[kaiser78]

Currently in the middle of negotiating a contract extension at the current gig, after a rate rise (12.5%) and as such, thought i'd best have a fallback so started reaching out for roles this past week. Got put forward for a role which frankly I thought i'd have in the bag given the day rate on offer being on the low side and being outside of London, but the client came back and passed on my CV! I was gob smacked. However their feedback was useful; I didn't entirely interpret the job spec correctly and didn't emphasis enough experience in a particular area they're after.

I think you're right OP, it's a very competitive market.

Gosh - how many times have we all thought that ?!!

[BrilloPad]

Look for permanent roles.

[mattfx]

Currently in the middle of negotiating a contract extension at the current gig, after a rate rise (12.5%) and as such, thought i'd best have a fallback so started reaching out for roles this past week. Got put forward for a role which frankly I thought i'd have in the bag given the day rate on offer being on the low side and being outside of London, but the client came back and passed on my CV! I was gob smacked. However their feedback was useful; I didn't entirely interpret the job spec correctly and didn't emphasis enough experience in a particular area they're after.

I think you're right OP, it's a very competitive market.