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My first post...seeking advice

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    My first post...seeking advice

    Hi Everyone,

    This is my first post, so wanted to say hello. I'm Graham. 38 years old and live near Southampton with my wife and 3 young children.

    I've been working in IT 18+ years now and went contracting over a year ago. My first year of contracting went pretty well, 7 months at my first contract, finished on the Friday and started my next contract on the Monday. Did almost 6 months at my 2nd role, which finished back in September. Since then, I've struggled to get something. I have 3 young children so its important for me to see them each night.

    I live near Southampton, so want to find work within Hampshire ideally or Dorset and Berkshire. My main passion and strength is PowerShell, even have my own blog site to share this, https://graham-beer.github.io/. I'm certified in SCCM, but looking to move my skills into a DevOps area. I self-funded and Azure course last year with QA.com and in my time off been studying to get a few exams (in Azure).

    I have a strong Windows skillset, but just been harder this time. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Be good to have a few agencies who I can build up a rapport with who understand me and I know them. But it doesn't seem to work this way ! Maybe a bit of inexperience on my part. Back in April I help co-organised the start-up of a PowerShell user group in the South. This has helped build up some contacts, and a great learning platform.
    Enough of my rambling, any pointers and advice would be great.

    #2
    Originally posted by Gbeer7 View Post
    I have 3 young children so its important for me to see them each night.
    The risk of working for yourself is that you won't find local work and you'll have to travel to get it. It's difficult with young children - it's generally heartbreaking unless you have baby Satan who you can't wait to get away from. But that's part of your life now. You made the choice to work for yourself and that always has the risk that if there isn't that work available you get on your bike and find it.

    If you cannot make that work-life balance work, then I would seriously consider moving back into a permanent job that means that you will be at home most if not all nights. What were the drivers for working for yourself rather than someone else? Do they still hold true, and are they more important than the desire to see your children every night?

    When my elder daughter was little, I worked away a lot. When my younger daughter was born, I was in the middle of a contract away from home, and I didn't get any work near home until she was 4 and the elder one was 7. My younger daughter rolled over for the first time not at home, but in a flat that I'd rented for the week in Edinburgh. But that's the nature of contracting - you either take it warts and all, or you look for something permanent that puts you at home every night.

    Originally posted by Gbeer7 View Post
    Enough of my rambling, any pointers and advice would be great.
    Disclosing your real name and location here might not be the wisest move, Graham.
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      #3
      Graham,

      Unfortunately you're finding that the market is a buyer's market and not as strong as it used to be; I'm based in Manchester but out of 9 years of contracting, I've only spent about a third within commuting range, the rest in London and Edinburgh.

      Depends what you want from life but with three young kids and a desire to stay closer to home, I'd say that contracting isn't necessarily for you.
      The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by LondonManc View Post
        Graham,

        Unfortunately you're finding that the market is a buyer's market and not as strong as it used to be; I'm based in Manchester but out of 9 years of contracting, I've only spent about a third within commuting range, the rest in London and Edinburgh.

        Depends what you want from life but with three young kids and a desire to stay closer to home, I'd say that contracting isn't necessarily for you.
        +1.

        Sadly contracting is a job where a physical presence on site is required and that can be a problem if you are not very close to a suitably large city with a large number of possibly clients.
        merely at clientco for the entertainment

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by eek View Post
          +1.

          Sadly contracting is a job where a physical presence on site is required and that can be a problem if you are not very close to a suitably large city with a large number of possibly clients.
          Even if not full time, I've only ever had one fully remote contract in all this time; that required only 3 days at site for business interviews and workshops. These days a lot of the banks offer 2-3 days WFH but you're still committing to travel for the other 2-3 days.

          Contracting, like agile, is a change in mindset from permanent/waterfall.
          The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist

          Comment


            #6
            Hi Graham, I have no children but have always tried hard to find commutable contracts. In 10 years, about half my gigs have been truly commutable, and with the others I stayed away. Even those further ones would have been commutable for a more determined person (furthest was 1.6 hours each way).

            The price of trying to stay commutable has been that I regularly have a break between contracts. Often it takes 3 months to find something. If I travelled UK wide, it would take a week or less. Even so, in 10 years, I have spent a total of 1 year "on the bench", not a bad ratio.

            With distant gigs, I have found that staying 2 or 3 nights, and coming back on (say) Wednesdays allows the maintennce of a reasonable home life. Perhaps you can balance the travel and Fatherhood that way?

            Nice blog by the way. Make sure it linked from your CV, and your linked in page.

            Comment


              #7
              Thank you all for your kind words and advice. I was lucky the first year of contracting and having two close together. Its strange being out of work as I've not experienced this before. Any recommendations for any agencies ?

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Gbeer7 View Post
                Thank you all for your kind words and advice. I was lucky the first year of contracting and having two close together. Its strange being out of work as I've not experienced this before. Any recommendations for any agencies ?
                Not familiar with the Hampshire area - whack your cv on Monster and Jobserve and brace yourself for the agents wanting two references before they do anything else.
                The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by LondonManc View Post
                  Not familiar with the Hampshire area - whack your cv on Monster and Jobserve and brace yourself for the agents wanting two references before they do anything else.
                  IBM were in Farnborough (dump) but they've finally closed it now. Red Hat have a big place there, near this airship hanger frame at the airport, but Powershell not much use there.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by stek View Post
                    IBM were in Farnborough (dump) but they've finally closed it now. Red Hat have a big place there, near this airship hanger frame at the airport, but Powershell not much use there.
                    Tesco are based down that way too. Plenty of big firms about I understand, I just don't know what the commute is like from the OP's house to these places.
                    The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist

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