So, how's the recession for you?

[Cliphead]

Left the world of contracting for Plan B (A), as ya'll know. Going well so far and working my balls off for a change but no real hardship cos it's for me.

Calls from pimps have been more frequent recently than in the past year so there's some movement in the market that's my niche but nothing to tempt me back and I tend to go direct anyway.

Despite the doom and gloom there's business out there if you can find it, as I've mentioned before there's more work out there than I can handle and with the current clients I'm dealing with I've already added to the skillset in ways I didn't expect but coping well.

So, how's it working out for you? Recession, bobs, lack of current skills, inability to move on or riding the wave?

[suityou01]

Left the world of contracting for Plan B (A), as ya'll know. Going well so far and working my balls off for a change but no real hardship cos it's for me.

Calls from pimps have been more frequent recently than in the past year so there's some movement in the market that's my niche but nothing to tempt me back and I tend to go direct anyway.

Despite the doom and gloom there's business out there if you can find it, as I've mentioned before there's more work out there than I can handle and with the current clients I'm dealing with I've already added to the skillset in ways I didn't expect but coping well.

So, how's it working out for you? Recession, bobs, lack of current skills, inability to move on or riding the wave?

Well I'm glad to hear you're ok and plan b is going well.


Market is (for me anyways - business analysis, bpm, data migration) starting to pick up. Getting at least 2 calls a day for contracts, and have been put forward for a couple of gigs this week.

I do believe it was young ChurchillSpod who said to me in one of my many brown-trousers threads, "wait til April".

[Cliphead]

Well I'm glad to hear you're ok and plan b is going well.


Market is (for me anyways - business analysis, bpm, data migration) starting to pick up. Getting at least 2 calls a day for contracts, and have been put forward for a couple of gigs this week.

I do believe it was young ChurchillSpod who said to me in one of my many brown-trousers threads, "wait til April".

Hang in their Suity, biz is always there for those willing to seek it out and that might include bypassing pimps and going your own way.

[suityou01]

Hang in their Suity, biz is always there for those willing to seek it out and that might include bypassing pimps and going your own way.

Yeah I had a go at bypassing pimps, and targetted doing ITTs for government projects. I'm used to sifting through ITTs so to be the other side of the desk should get results.

I submitted an ITT response to a well known NHS trust in the West Midlands a few weeks back. Sadly, they only set a deadline for the ITT, give absolutely no clue when they will be reviewing said responses, don't communicate, and the bloke from procurement doesn't even dignify an email with a response.

Don't get me wrong CH, and I know that I rub a lot of people up on here the wrong way - mostly not intentionally - I'm a fooking serious grafter. Maybe that's why in the flesh we get on? One thing I cannot stand about the ITT process is when they sit in their ivory tower ignoring every entrant for weeks, getting high on the power.

When I was going out to ITT I was always explicit about time frames and extremely courteous to the participants.

This choob in the NHS needs slapped.

[Cliphead]

Yeah I had a go at bypassing pimps, and targetted doing ITTs for government projects. I'm used to sifting through ITTs so to be the other side of the desk should get results.

I submitted an ITT response to a well known NHS trust in the West Midlands a few weeks back. Sadly, they only set a deadline for the ITT, give absolutely no clue when they will be reviewing said responses, don't communicate, and the bloke from procurement doesn't even dignify an email with a response.

Don't get me wrong CH, and I know that I rub a lot of people up on here the wrong way - mostly not intentionally - I'm a fooking serious grafter. Maybe that's why in the flesh we get on? One thing I cannot stand about the ITT process is when they sit in their ivory tower ignoring every entrant for weeks, getting high on the power.

When I was going out to ITT I was always explicit about time frames and extremely courteous to the participants.

This choob in the NHS needs slapped.

Fck the public sector been there done that and nothing but frustration. Go seek out greenfield biz that hasn't a clue and build rep getting them out of the tulip
and amazingly get paid to do that.

[MarillionFan]

God knows, I've given up contracting and Plan B's to have a shot at corperate management & politics.

Approaching a year. The road has been hard. Time away, hours, hotels, niggling but the politics have not really been too bad so far. Everyone was new and so the jockeying on the whole hasn't been too bad, just long hours. Until this trip....

OMG! After a year everyone is settled in. The dust is settling & the knives are coming out. Having had two classic 'now you listen to ME!', 'no you listen to ME!' debates, I lost one project to someone who came in from the side of me, lost another responsibility to a hire above me, then landed up inadvertently teaming up with a 3rd up and coming star, flying to head office only to accidently knife them in the back & steal two of their resources, one of their projects and having the other cancelled. On arrival off the plane, it was decided to give me the latest failing project as Im managing 2 out of 3 major projects on time, much to the chagrin of the present owner, and the second who was waiting to step in. So I lost one project, lost one headcount, gained two????

Et tu brute.

[doodab]

The is plenty of work around, seems to be a real shortage of people with certain niche skills and common or garden stuff that enable them to get on without needing a lot of support from others. Consequentially I've picked up some new skills on client co time and done them a favour, and I'm getting enough calls that I've started asking for considerable rate increases.

[mudskipper]

Haven't looked seriously, but market looks a bit tulip. Enough so that I'll take an extension if it's offered.

[MyUserName]

Seems to be fine, I have had a couple of calls this week for a gig in London paying approx 650 a day. Have had the same call from 2 different agencies so it looks genuine, agents like me for it because I have worked there before and know people in the team.

A few weeks ago got an extension at current client and a perm job offer in a company I can walk to. Current client then extended anyway so I decided to stay put.

There are so many variables that I, basically, ignore what 'the market' says.

Sometimes 'the market' is terrible but I have a couple of connections or a certain skill which means I am fine (like when BNPP need to implement Credit Default Swap stuff in a trade capture system and I had years of experience doing something similar in a far more complicated system - I also knew two of the team's engineers who could vouch me) and sometimes there are gigs left right and centre but nothing which suits me or they suit me but I do not seem to get any traction with them.

[formant]

Hm, market in my niche is always tiny (but there's also pretty much no competition), nothing to do with the recession. Did a rubbish temporary employment contract on a software deployment project outside my niche last year. Finished that in summer, had a decent local permie testing role lined up (though also not within my niche) that fell through at the last minute, when the company was bought up and they decided not to onshore testing after all.

Then successfully interviewed for current contract (great rate, very much my niche) when already 19 weeks pregnant (following a soul-sucking four months of unemployment), started 3 weeks later, and against all expectations didn't lose said contract upon revealing my pregnancy on my first day.

But yeah, not really affected by the recession I guess. And it all worked out in the end.