Aussie Contractor looking for advice

[mikemudd]

I am an experienced contractor (30+ years) and I have been in London for the last 2 weeks scouring the job boards and other contacts looking for test manager/performance tester/technical architect roles (for which I have loads of relevant experience).
I get plenty of calls from various agencies, get positive feedback, get told that my CV is being sent to the client..then silence, or "they filled the position internally" or "you needed skill x" (i have skills a-s) or you asked for 450, they will only pay 375" etc.
Any advice as to how I can get to a first contract? Am i asking too much, taking the wrong approach, not being aggressive enough, being too aggressive, being unrealistic??

Thanks.

[oaksoft]

There are several problems here:-

1)The vast majority of agents are not skilled in the roles they are recruiting for and so any comment on your technical suitability for the job should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

2)You don't seem to know how much you are worth. To solve this you can simply phone X agencies and ask them all how much you can expect to fetch with your skillset. Then you have a "SELL" average. You then wait a week or so and call up the same agencies pretending to be an employer and ask for rough prices of people with your approximate skillset. You'll now have a "BUY" average and you'll also know the agencies margins. More importantly, you'll know what to bid at to get to the interview stage. This should be a rough range of A to B "depending on how the interview goes and the nature of the work". You then get the client's details including phone details "in case you need to ask supplementary questions" and if you are dropped by the agency you can talk to the client directly to get the true story.

3)Your CV could be pants. I am happy to give it the once over for free if you send it to me at [email protected] and promise you'll accept brutally honest feedback.

4)You are being put forward for jobs you are not skilled in. You should really plague the agent for details prior to your CV being sent in.

5)You are rather impatient. 2 weeks is a short time in interview land.

Hope this helps.