Contract advert of the day

[kal]

I salute your infinite patience.... In my working day, seeing £200 a day on the advert would have stopped me reading any further, much less discussing it with anyone.

If an agent told me the client wanted to pay £200 a day I would just say oh, I'm glad you have let me know as I we won't waste each others time any further... followed by a click ...

Life is too short to talk to these

As an aside it is amusing when they big up the client, multi national global client turning over billions of pounds.... but too cheap to even pay the market rate ...

Had 5 mins so decided to humour him, had to laugh at his attempts to 'big up' the role, either he believed his own pitch or (like any pimp worth his salt) he was a good liar.
Yeah I know what you mean about the sales pitch, its always a fantastic role at a top drawer client... paying feck all

[SueEllen]

Do firms still do this knowing they'll get no takers, enabling them to get Bobs?

Even Bobs complain about rates like that now - the UK is expensive. What was OK for them in 2007 isn't enough for them in 2013.

[AtW]

As an aside it is amusing when they big up the client, multi national global client turning over billions of pounds.... but too cheap to even pay the market rate ...

Turnover is not the same as profit...

Anybody who thinks rate of XXX is too low should start their own plan B and hire people at that rate (if it's so low!) and make £££ instead of whining on Interwebs about it.

[d000hg]

They probably will get takers, graduates or people who have got laid off their first job out of uni after a year or two. For them, £200/day isn't far off the appropriate permie/salary considerations.

You never know, you might even get someone who isn't hopeless.

[AtW]

Why is it half the market rate?

What's the "market rate"?

[eek]

Do firms still do this knowing they'll get no takers, enabling them to get Bobs?

And our survey says.........

[Doggy Styles]

Why is it half the market rate?

Do firms still do this knowing they'll get no takers, enabling them to get Bobs?

[kal]

Great phrase!

True dat, I had a pimp contact me out of the blue recently to try and sell me a £200 a day senior dev role in the midlands on the basis that the reason why the rate was so low was that the client had lots of work on and several large projects and were offering 12 month contracts with high probability of extensions, hence the lower rate reflect the stability of the role! ... beggars belief... So the selling point was a longer commitment for a lower rate working on a project where the client values their techies so little that they want to pay them half the market rate?, I imagine the projects a nightmare (probably surrounded by a load of bobs with any half decent dev swamped and dealing with tulip from all sides)...needless I told him to jog on.

[russell]

Could be, but as a pimp myself a few things like this have bounced my way, client is adamant that this is what they will pay, sometimes because the contractor is being sold on and a silly rate was agreed on and the person who will have to use the end result has no say in what they get.

Years ago I was sold on like that for a week, part of the deal was that they got "someone like me", there was no spec, not even an ambition that I might actually do anything useful, but the contract said a consultant for a week and that was me, the rate was good, but that was nothing to do with it.

Also there is the idea of a "trainee contractor", which many here will see as contradiction, but occasionally there is a role for someone who needs to change track from a dying skillset and has read the books but hasn't done the new thing in real life.

Back when I had a real job I hired a couple of contractors on that basis, both sides came out ahead.

...or it could be the other way round. I have noticed that when the client is very insistent about the high level of skills, 3 years experience of Windows Server 2013, 1sts from both Oxford and Cambridge, etc they often pay badly because they begrudge paying "techies" and thus want everything they could possibly wish for. Sadly the star they wish upon is a meteor come to destroy them.

Great phrase!

[Dominic Connor]

Aah its from our old friends at Computer Futures, I expect their 50-100% mark up on the rate is the reason its £200 rather than £300/400 a day

Could be, but as a pimp myself a few things like this have bounced my way, client is adamant that this is what they will pay, sometimes because the contractor is being sold on and a silly rate was agreed on and the person who will have to use the end result has no say in what they get.

Years ago I was sold on like that for a week, part of the deal was that they got "someone like me", there was no spec, not even an ambition that I might actually do anything useful, but the contract said a consultant for a week and that was me, the rate was good, but that was nothing to do with it.

Also there is the idea of a "trainee contractor", which many here will see as contradiction, but occasionally there is a role for someone who needs to change track from a dying skillset and has read the books but hasn't done the new thing in real life.

Back when I had a real job I hired a couple of contractors on that basis, both sides came out ahead.

...or it could be the other way round. I have noticed that when the client is very insistent about the high level of skills, 3 years experience of Windows Server 2013, 1sts from both Oxford and Cambridge, etc they often pay badly because they begrudge paying "techies" and thus want everything they could possibly wish for. Sadly the star they wish upon is a meteor come to destroy them.

[kal]

Minimum it says, but that's all they will get, pay peanuts get monkeys.

Aah its from our old friends at Computer Futures, I expect their 50-100% mark up on the rate is the reason its £200 rather than £300/400 a day

[russell]

2 years experience

Minimum it says, but that's all they will get, pay peanuts get monkeys.

[RedSauce]

2 years experience

[russell]

Why is it half the market rate?

Dear XXX,

.NET Developer - 2-3 Month contract - London (Sutton) - £200 per day

My London Based client has developed a requirement for a .NET developer to join their development team on an international project.

The successful candidate will be working on large scale web based application for a global leader within their prospective field.


Requirements:

Minumum 2 years experience on .NET 3.5
.NET
C# 3.5
ASP.NET
CSS

Experience in Financial or government sector projects would be desirable

To apply please send through your updated c.v


With regards




Daniel Fraser
Computer Futures
33 Soho Square
London
United Kingdom
W1D 3QU