Reply to: Any one benched here for more than 3 months..??

[tim123]

Security clearence you can do little about, but in 9 months you could have become a linux specialist.
.

I know, but I hate Linux with a passion, so going down that road is not something that I want to do unless absolutely necessary

tim

[HeadOfTesting]

One thing I would bear in mind is this forum, whilst full of highly skilled contractors etc. is likely to be frequented by benched people who have a lot of free time on their hands.

There are still many contractors out there doing OK, happily on assignments, too busy making money and enjoying life to post on a discussion board.

Of the 8 or 9 contractors I know in 'real life' everyone is in paid (contract) work.

Yes - the market is crap - but work still needs doing and sooner or later, something will turn up for everyone, fingers crossed.

I agree - the issue here is that if you come on to the market it is virtually impossible to get off it again. It was the same in 2001/2. So yes - lots of people in work - I'm the only real-life person I know who is benched - but there's no denying that the market is truly dire.

[jim2406]

One thing I would bear in mind is this forum, whilst full of highly skilled contractors etc. is likely to be frequented by benched people who have a lot of free time on their hands.

There are still many contractors out there doing OK, happily on assignments, too busy making money and enjoying life to post on a discussion board.

Of the 8 or 9 contractors I know in 'real life' everyone is in paid (contract) work.

Yes - the market is crap - but work still needs doing and sooner or later, something will turn up for everyone, fingers crossed.

[Dark Black]

Been out 4.5 months, treated first 2-3 months as a holiday, been looking casually since August. Like others, I've never known it so dead. And again what contracts that are around in my field require security clearance (and unfortunately mine lapsed about 3 years ago).

Currently renting at the moment and starting to burn the equity from the house we sold last year...

Was also hoping for a surge this month but it doesn't look good so far

[Sysman]

Odd to read of how so many here accept rate cuts whilst one read sthe Captains of Indsurty have been awarding themselves uptp 10 per cent pay increases irrespective of the Credit Crunch .

Where do you think their pay increases have been coming from?

Thousands of us world wide took rate cuts to pay for exit bonuses for Carly Fiorina and Mike Capellas.

HP were also busy buying Gulfstream jets at that time too.

[BoredBloke]

Yep,

Nine months in 4 days time.

Only secured one interview in that period. What I do is completely dead (unless you are already security cleared or a linux specialist)

tim

Security clearence you can do little about, but in 9 months you could have become a linux specialist.

The most I've had out of work was way back in 1999-2000 when I was out for a long while. Since then I have worked pretty much straight through - probably had about 2 months bench time all told since, but I have done some seriously crap jobs.

[PorkPie]

Odd to read of how so many here accept rate cuts whilst one read sthe Captains of Indsurty have been awarding themselves uptp 10 per cent pay increases irrespective of the Credit Crunch .

Is that the good ship Indsurty?

[AlfredJPruffock]

Odd to read of how so many here accept rate cuts whilst one read sthe Captains of Indsurty have been awarding themselves uptp 10 per cent pay increases irrespective of the Credit Crunch .

[rb621]

2.5 Months here

I was benched for 2 months from middle of June then spent the first couple of weeks taking a holiday. After about a month I decided it wasn't looking good so got my Job Seekers Claim in - got to say they were quite helpful and responsive.

Thankfully got a 12 month gig end of August. Rate just about pays the bills without too much adjusting and is between 30 to 40% down on what I would expect to get before this credit crunch.

Yes its tough and I'm very thankful I've got work but I just kept learning and training (Microsoft WPF and Silverlight plus Open University mangement courses) which I think helped me stay sane and have hope.

Rich.

[The Coal Man]

Was benched for 12 months until March this year then landed a contract totally out of the blue as I applied "on-spec" via email offering my services etc to various IT based companies in my local area and 20 mins later got a phone call from one of them offering me work, never tried that before so maybe it could be useful for others to give it a go.

It lasted 4 weeks before they turned around and said they could not carry on paying me at that rate, as I was the highest earner at the company ! ha!

They liked me enough to offer me a permy role, and I have been here ever since.

HTH.

[HeadOfTesting]

What's stopping you go all out for it now, and keeping one eye on job ads at the same time?

nothing - I'm just the kind of person that likes to focus on something fully (whatever that something is)

[Slumdog]

Will be joining the bench in a few days.

Prospects not looking super, time for plan b or even c

[OwlHoot]

No - business idea(s).

Dabbled a bit in the early part of this year but lost a bit of momentum for various reasons. Will go all out for it in 2010 if my Q4 re-launch is fruitless (as I expect it to be).

What's stopping you go all out for it now, and keeping one eye on job ads at the same time?

[OwlHoot]

... I've run out of things to do at home (DIY upto date) and there's only some many times I can walk the dogs in any given day...

That's one of my plan bs. Touch wood I'm sorted for the next few months, barring uncertainties, but I imagine one could make reasonable money dog walking in Kensington, and get plenty of exercise to boot.

[tim123]

Yep,

Nine months in 4 days time.

Only secured one interview in that period. What I do is completely dead (unless you are already security cleared or a linux specialist)

tim