Reply to: Any one feeling the pinch ?

[Moscow Mule]

I am looking for a contract as Oracle DBA . Lots of response and cv forwarding ,but no company is yet taking any decision to take it further. Its pretty bad.

That just because everybody has seen the light and is moving to DB2.

[Andy2]

I am looking for a contract as Oracle DBA . Lots of response and cv forwarding ,but no company is yet taking any decision to take it further. Its pretty bad.

[Devlin]

That's a tough go. Hope you find something soon. You may not want to burn your bridges but if the contract had a 2 week termination clause you may be able to invoice based on the lack of notice.

Cheers.

I looked into it already, as it was a very IR35 friendly (through agent) contract it had a clause saying they could terminate with no notice in the event that their client terminated. Fair enough really, but obviously disappointing for me.

[backlight]

J2EE/Java Design/Dev. The reason is that the bank is laying off perm jobs and has now frozen contractor recruitment pending a probable re-org.

That's a tough go. Hope you find something soon. You may not want to burn your bridges but if the contract had a 2 week termination clause you may be able to invoice based on the lack of notice.

[Devlin]

If you don't mind - what type of work do you do? Any reason provided by the IB?

J2EE/Java Design/Dev. The reason is that the bank is laying off perm jobs and has now frozen contractor recruitment pending a probable re-org.

[bobhope]

What you should be concerned about is that the peak of the sub-prime resets hits Q4 2007 / Q1 2008, so we may not have seen anything yet.

[Moscow Mule]

Not to discourage you.. but the grim fact is that... UBS predicted 3rd quarter losses and job cuts incuding its CEO and CFO.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...rt_by_subprime

With big shots leaving , where is the oppurtunity for a short term employees like contractors...

i believe same is the situation in other IBs...

I've spoken to a couple of folks at places I used to work and there is no freeze on recruitment of permie or contract staff.

I think this is very much related to exposure to sub-prime lending, UBS being the worst end, Goldman Sachs being the best end and all stops in between.

I'm not worried yet.

[HankWangford]

I am 50 and until recently spent a year in the City of London working for a large insurance company.

I think it's all about attitude and a willingness to learn.

all is well it seems, with rates like this I think we have gone beyond the pinch

http://www.jobserve.com/W7DE1C200AB4F8EEE.job

[castoff101]

I am 50 and until recently spent a year in the City of London working for a large insurance company.

I think it's all about attitude and a willingness to learn.

[backlight]

My contract with an IB just got pulled even though I'd already signed a contract! I had declined a renewal to take it too.

If you don't mind - what type of work do you do? Any reason provided by the IB?

[Churchill]

There are 2 things against me:-

1. I'm coming up 40
2. I've only worked for a couple of weeks (doing consultancy work) at an investment bank before. I've worked for 4 of the main software vendors, a couple of consultancies (multiple financial services clients) and the rest have been blue chip clients. Never figured why I've failed to crack the IBs when the rest of my client portfolio is impressive.

On the positive side, I have a confirmed interview with the retail bank set up now.

What the hell has that got to do with anything?

The only thing against you is your attitude. You may as well do this

[Devlin]

My contract with an IB just got pulled even though I'd already signed a contract! I had declined a renewal to take it too.

[tester_uk]

Profit Warnings !!!

2 of the clients are investment banks (whom I'm told are always slow and are slower because of the turmoil in the market),

Not to discourage you.. but the grim fact is that... UBS predicted 3rd quarter losses and job cuts incuding its CEO and CFO.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...rt_by_subprime

With big shots leaving , where is the oppurtunity for a short term employees like contractors...

i believe same is the situation in other IBs...

[mcgeeky]

...
I've been looking since mid-August now. My CV is apparantly with 6 clients, the longest of which I sent my CV to in July.

2 of the clients are investment banks (whom I'm told are always slow and are slower because of the turmoil in the market), 2 with insurance companies, 1 with a retail bank and 1 with an entertainment company. I live in London.

I've been told that I've been short listed for interview for the 2 investment bank jobs but have heard nothing since (over a week in both cases, just keep on being told that they've still not heard when the interview will take place).

People are going to have different experiences, I imagine. I'm not flexible on location and my rate is in the upper quartile. That said, 6 clients having my CV is a lot better than how it was back in 03/04, the process is however much slower than I've ever experienced.

This is very similar to my experience to date.

[ContractIn]

3 years contracting and only 2 months worth of expenses saved up? How did you get into that precarious position?

In a contract you should have been earning around 2x your permie salary, so really you should have stuck to your original expenditure and saved up 36 months worth of expenses funding. I know that's an ideal world but 2 months savings is very low.

Yep, I know...earlier this year I could have took 18 months off if wanted to, but decided to pay off a chunk of the mortgage and embarked on completely refurbing the gaff, no going back now!! My original thoughts were that the markets were good and that I should not be out of work for more than 2 months..that was 4 months ago! Different opinion today!!