Reply to: Contracts in the City seem to be few and far between at the moment

[alreadypacked]

[QUOTE=yellow]I was going to post this as a separate thread

Sorry yellow, suffering for a bit of demob fever at the moment

[Ruprect]

Absolutely Euro-commuter, that wasn't the question though and why are you apologising?

The question was "How do you get that experience in the first place?"

Maybe an answer might of been for example (I'm just making these up)

- Previous experience in the financial sector in another (possibly non-IT) role before becoming a developer.
- Getting yer foot in the door is what not what you know, but who you know.
- Taking a pay cut outside of the City and trying to get any gig elsewhere which would provide relevant experience.
- Relevant qualifications that could marry a computer science and finance skills.

As Xenophon said, you have answered your own question quite well, a question which has been asked and answered countless times on these forums already. you forgot "get a perm position in the industry for a couple of years and then go contracting" tho.

[Xenophon]

Absolutely Euro-commuter, that wasn't the question though and why are you apologising?

The question was "How do you get that experience in the first place?"

Maybe an answer might of been for example (I'm just making these up)

- Previous experience in the financial sector in another (possibly non-IT) role before becoming a developer.
- Getting yer foot in the door is what not what you know, but who you know.
- Taking a pay cut outside of the City and trying to get any gig elsewhere which would provide relevant experience.
- Relevant qualifications that could marry a computer science and finance skills.

You appear to have answered your own question quite well, yellow.

The 'General' forum is the busiest, but not the best place for serious replies (see my earlier post in this thread...).

[yellow]

If it were easy to get, it wouldn't pay more. Sorry.

Absolutely Euro-commuter, that wasn't the question though and why are you apologising?

The question was "How do you get that experience in the first place?"

Maybe an answer might of been for example (I'm just making these up)

- Previous experience in the financial sector in another (possibly non-IT) role before becoming a developer.
- Getting yer foot in the door is what not what you know, but who you know.
- Taking a pay cut outside of the City and trying to get any gig elsewhere which would provide relevant experience.
- Relevant qualifications that could marry a computer science and finance skills.

[dotnetter]

The week before last I had 2 interviews and 2 offers after being back from holiday for 2 days

Both in the city, one for a large bank using VB6 (yes VB6 ) and I have no previous banking experience, and one for a smaller company using .Net C#, SQL 2005 etc

I found the market to be slower than usual but still lots about.

The funny thing was both offers came from the same agency (which i didnt realise at the time), I accepted the smaller firm because it was more interesting and wasnt using legacy technology, then the bank upped their offer another £75 a day , So I did a U-Turn and accepted their offer.

tulip hit the fan at the agency because I was under offer from one consultant and another one came in and tried to steal me. So the directors made the second one withdraw the offer so in the end it worked out ok (except I was on a lower rate which I'm not to fussed about)

[Euro-commuter]

I was going to post this as a separate thread, I'm an experienced C# developer - plenty of roles outside the City in London, which is fine at the mo, but obviously rates are higher in the city, getting these contracts seems to be a Catch 22 situation regarding financial experience; experience is required (derivatives for example) - but how do you get that experience in the first place?!

If it were easy to get, it wouldn't pay more. Sorry.

[Jog On]

Do they have canteens in the city, or is it sambo at your desk?
Place I am currently at has cheep canteen, good food, I am going to miss it

The canteen is good and subsidised but Fuzzy's Grub reigns supreme.

This is actually my first city gig, but I did get called about quite a few when I was looking the week before last, got passed up on one in the gherkin because I wasn't ITIL certified.

Maybe that would be a thing to do if you haven't got it already - regardless of how relevant you think it is or if you need it or not - it's the kind of thing that get's your CV looked at from what I can tell

[Xenophon]

n5Gooner do you do contracts in the City - you are rarely out of a job for long I hear .. what is the secret of your success ?

He sleeps with his clients and agents.

HTH

[BlasterBates]

Hey that's interesting just over a month ago the agent I spoke to was was overwhelmed with C++ roles. In fact I was under the impression that the market was so good, I was considering ending my contract prematurely and demanding top rates. Hmm so the contract market suddenly died.

[yellow]

I had a few calls for city roles when I was looking 2 weeks ago. I'm in one now - there's tons to do and no way the work could be outsourced to someone not physically on site.

I was going to post this as a separate thread, I'm an experienced C# developer - plenty of roles outside the City in London, which is fine at the mo, but obviously rates are higher in the city, getting these contracts seems to be a Catch 22 situation regarding financial experience; experience is required (derivatives for example) - but how do you get that experience in the first place?!

[Let-Me-In]

Do they have canteens in the city, or is it sambo at your desk?
Place I am currently at has cheep canteen, good food, I am going to miss it

I am afraid you cannot call them Sambo's now...that went with gollywog etc!!!

[alreadypacked]

I had a few calls for city roles when I was looking 2 weeks ago. I'm in one now - there's tons to do and no way the work could be outsourced to someone not physically on site.

Do they have canteens in the city, or is it sambo at your desk?
Place I am currently at has cheep canteen, good food, I am going to miss it

[Jog On]

I had a few calls for city roles when I was looking 2 weeks ago. I'm in one now - there's tons to do and no way the work could be outsourced to someone not physically on site.

[alreadypacked]

Is this the end of Contracting in The City ? I know alot of the banks now have cheap Indian IT guys but hey ..often they aren't the best candidates for business facing roles ..

Feeling a bit depressed now, I was hoping to land a job in the city in about three weeks. Plan B anyone?

[donaldduke]

How long you been looking?

How many interviews you had in that time?

What rate are you asking for?