Turnaround averages after agent says he's put CV forward

[BolshieBastard]

Left my permie role last Dec to get in to contracting in telecoms project management.

Been applying for jobs for almost a month, and in the past 2 weeks alone at least 5 agents said they were putting my CV forward, however I've not got a single interview yet or even feedback from the employer, the agents keep saying "the employer is still considering". Not sure where to go from here as it's frustrating. Any views on improving my strategy would be appreciated.

Cheers
BB

You need to determine exactly who you are speaking to at the agency. In other words, are you speaking to a drone, someone who just phones you up and says you're a good match to gather cv's etc or, are you speaking to the account manager ie the person in the agency who will take the final decision on which cv's will be submitted.

So, when an agent phones you, one of your first questions must be 'Are you the account manager who will make the decision which cv's will be submitted to the client?'

You then need to know if the agent is on the client's preferred supplier list. If they are not, this may lessen your chances of getting an interview even more and you need to make a decision whether to continue with them ie if they have a lesser chance of getting an interview for you because they arent on the PSL, is it better contacting another agent?

Once you have this information and discussed suitablity for the role, you can tell the drone \ AM that you'll give them exclusivity to represent you for this role up to a maximum 72 hours. If it is a drone, I give them a maximum 24 hours for the AM to contact me and discuss the role then get him to commit to submitting me. If they AM will not say Im being submitted, I give them 24 hours exclusivity else I'll go to another agent.

Of course none of all this is foolproof as some agents may not tell the truth! And, even if you do get submitted, there's no guarantee the client will select you for interview. It is in aprt a numbers game plus, having a cv that stands out while not forgetting how your rate reflects your experience and the client's budget.

Finally, we all go through it, lots of calls but no end result. This, is contracting.

[bluedeyedboy]

I'll let you reach your own conclusion here...

[bluedeyedboy]

Didn't realise you were looking for a permanent job.

I have clients whose projects I work on not employers.

[bluedeyedboy]

The other thing I picked up on is that you seem to be narrow in aspect. If you're a project manager then you're a project manager, you've narrowed it to telecoms project manager. Be as wide as your skills will legitimately allow until you've carved a huge niche for yourself through lots of contracts, a thick contacts book and proven successful projects. The telecoms industry is especially poor just now, that market normally opens up again a bit in the late spring in a typical year when budgets are approved.

In peak markets, you can go narrow and niche, in poor markets, you need to look a lot wider.

I did start off applying for all PM roles and didn't get noticed, so decided to fall back on to specialist telecoms PM jobs as most of my career has been in the telecoms industry. I do appreciate that at the moment there are only a few jobs going in telecoms, but I don't have much of a choice as the 90% of the PM jobs seem to be asking for sector specific experience! Any suggestions for getting around this?

[SueEllen]

As far as the CV customisation goes, I do heavily customise it as per the requirements and the agents are definitely interested, so it's either I'm getting b.s from the agent about the CV being sent to the employer at all or the employer does not like me . Now the latter is what concerns me more, when I apply for the job purely based on the 3-5 line job-advert it's hard guess what the employer is really looking for to enunciate those points in the CV.

Didn't realise you were looking for a permanent job.

I have clients whose projects I work on not employers.

[craig1]

As far as the CV customisation goes, I do heavily customise it as per the requirements and the agents are definitely interested, so it's either I'm getting b.s from the agent about the CV being sent to the employer at all or the employer does not like me . Now the latter is what concerns me more, when I apply for the job purely based on the 3-5 line job-advert it's hard guess what the employer is really looking for to enunciate those points in the CV.

The other thing I picked up on is that you seem to be narrow in aspect. If you're a project manager then you're a project manager, you've narrowed it to telecoms project manager. Be as wide as your skills will legitimately allow until you've carved a huge niche for yourself through lots of contracts, a thick contacts book and proven successful projects. The telecoms industry is especially poor just now, that market normally opens up again a bit in the late spring in a typical year when budgets are approved.

In peak markets, you can go narrow and niche, in poor markets, you need to look a lot wider.

[SteelyDan]

/... so it's either I'm getting b.s from the agent about the CV being sent to the employer at all or the employer does not like me

I'll let you reach your own conclusion here...

[bluedeyedboy]

KUATB - do some reading http://forums.contractoruk.com/busin...t-just-me.html

As far as the CV customisation goes, I do heavily customise it as per the requirements and the agents are definitely interested, so it's either I'm getting b.s from the agent about the CV being sent to the employer at all or the employer does not like me . Now the latter is what concerns me more, when I apply for the job purely based on the 3-5 line job-advert it's hard guess what the employer is really looking for to enunciate those points in the CV.

[SteelyDan]

KUATB - do some reading http://forums.contractoruk.com/busin...t-just-me.html

[bluedeyedboy]

Left my permie role last Dec to get in to contracting in telecoms project management.

Been applying for jobs for almost a month, and in the past 2 weeks alone at least 5 agents said they were putting my CV forward, however I've not got a single interview yet or even feedback from the employer, the agents keep saying "the employer is still considering". Not sure where to go from here as it's frustrating. Any views on improving my strategy would be appreciated.

Cheers
BB