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Testing’s great, isn’t it? Especially when it’s on a live system. Lloyds Bank had an incredible test team, plus a usability lab. I suppose when it’s going out to 20,000+ users it has to have a decent bashing. We’ve been testing the latest version of www.morejobz.com and, because it’s live, we have to be very careful that people don’t receive non-existent jobs, while still keeping the site going. So we’ve posted jobs like “Dummy Smuggler”, “Ant Trainer”, “Seasoned Dork” and “Aardvark Nose Wiper”, amongst others, while we’ve been testing, in the hope that no-one is searching for that sort of job. Some of these vacancies are now filled. But not all… Have a look for “vole strangler” Strangely, while I was testing I searched for “vole OR strangler” I got two results! Someone had mistyped “involved”. So – here’s a competition – and it’s worth a bottle of bubbly to the winner. Using the www.MoreJobz.com search facilities, find the strangest job on offer. Vole Strangler doesn’t count, but there are dozens of mistypes out there in job world, along with strange job titles. My decision is final. Email your findings to alan.potter@webalertz.com along with an address to send the bottle to if you’re the winner. Results will be posted in two weeks time – so those of you who read this from the news letter better hurry up – cos you’ve only got a week! This only applies to registered users of morejobz, so if you’re not one already – do it now – it’s free! This week, I thought I’d write about things I know nothing about. Yes, yes, I know – no change there. Anyway I’ve been looking at current contract postings and looking for areas that I haven’t covered before. One of the most popular that I’ve come across is PeopleSoft and the whole arena of CRM. So what are average rates like there? Well, last month was not a good one for someone with PeopleSoft experience as the rate hit a nadir of £27/hr after a peak of £69/hr in September. The rate dived from there, picked up a little in January, dipped again, and is now standing at around the £47/hr mark. CRM generally has been picking up from October when it was only £23/hr to where it is now at £37/hr. As for demand, Peoplesoft contract postings have been increasing at a giddy rate with June doubling the postings of May with 104 contracts being posted by 28th of June. Considering that there were only 14 postings in September and 16 in October, that’s not a bad increase. Things did dip a little in April but have zoomed ever since! CRM has also done not too badly, although nothing near the meteoric rise of Peoplesoft. This month we’ve seen over 130 contract postings for CRM but that’s almost half the postings that were sent out in February. Having said that, there were only 8 postings in September and October last year so it doesn’t look quite as bad. Even last month there were only 87 postings so it’s almost doubled this month! What about other “Customer Relationship Management Software” (don’t you just want to do the Doctor Evil double quotes with fingers thing when you read those words?) requirements? Well Seibel is proving very popular at the moment with 65 contract postings this month, although there were 99 in April. Rates-wise, they’re around the £42/hr mark after peaking at £48/hr in December. VisionPlus on the other hand is not so popular. Rates are around £33/hr at the moment and demand is not something to get excited about. Last month there were apparently no postings, this month there have been three, and April hit the max for the last 10 months with four postings. By the way – I hate sites that think they’re so clever that they can hijack your “back” button and force you back onto their site – not mentioning any names – VisionPlus… (to get round it, just click the mouse button quickly twice on the back button – not quite a double click, but close) Blimey! I’ve been trying to research this field of IT and almost everything I read feels like a script of “Yes Minister” – only worse! Samuel Johnson would be turning in his grave at the torture inflicted on the English language! Sorry – I’ll get off my soapbox once again. Anyway, good news if you have BSI experience – rates reached £99/hr in February and still stand around the £73/hr mark – blimey again! What’s more, they really have climbed since November last year when they stood at £22/hr. There’s even a decent demand, although it’s dropped a little since February when – strangely – demand was the same as the rate! Interestingly (and blowing last week’s theory out of the water) demand and rate have followed each other with a dip in May and a pick-up in June. The average rate for BSI skills now is over £70/hr. I also searched for “Money for old rope” but was unable to find any matches. But it does look like CRM and so on are really good things to have on your CV. So add them! Nobody will notice… Alan Potter Jul 1, 2004 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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