Newbie saying Hello!

[VirtualWorldIT]

Hello, and great to meet you all! I am new to this site and soon to be a new IT Contractor...

After 17 years in permanent positions, I am about to embark on my lifelong ambition to become a specialist IT Infrastructure Contractor, bringing my VMWare, Microsoft, Cisco and NetApp support skills to a wider market..

I am interested to know which sites you all use and recommend for searching for Contract positions?

This is a new world for me and any advice you can offer is greatly appreciated.

Have a great day!
Nick

[malvolio]

Hello, and great to meet you all! I am new to this site and soon to be a new IT Contractor...

After 17 years in permanent positions, I am about to embark on my lifelong ambition to become a specialist IT Infrastructure Contractor, bringing my VMWare, Microsoft, Cisco and NetApp support skills to a wider market..

I am interested to know which sites you all use and recommend for searching for Contract positions?

This is a new world for me and any advice you can offer is greatly appreciated.

Have a great day!
Nick

Welcome to the madhouse. Brave of you to embark on a new career without knowing how to find work...

Jobserve is still king, maybe Totaljobs second, but agents tend to dump all their jobs everywhere these days (it saves them having to think) so there's a lot of duplication. Or get on LinkedIn and milk your network of contacts. And good luck; just remember that you might have 17 years experience as an IT guy, but you have zero as a contractor which is now your job.

[NickFitz]

Greetings

Jobserve is still one of the major contract listings boards - most of my contracts in the last fifteen years have come through there, the rest being either agents or former clients contacting me directly. Be prepared for a deluge of imbecilic "recruitment consultants" phoning you as soon as you put your CV on there, all wanting two references and never calling again after they've got - or better, failed to get - them.

TechnoJobs is also worth using. (It seems to shove a number of permie roles at the top of listings with the caption "Premium Job", but you can hide them using the small link at the top.)

Beware of the weird people in the General forum

In the other forums, the sticky threads at the top are full of useful advice, so be sure to check them out.

That even applies to TPD, though the useful advice is scattered at widely-spaced random points in its 258,000+ posts. Start around June 2007 and work through, the next time you have six months or so free