Interesting discussion on another forum at the moment. On the one side there are those saying work is still available, I’m getting calls from agents at much the usual frequency, rates are holding up, what’s the problem. On the other there are those who can’t find anything to apply for and if they do there’s another hundred or so people with the same idea.
So why two opposite views of the same market?
Clearly it isn’t the same market though, is it. It’s a reflection of the over supply of candidates, which means you have to apply some filters or get swamped. And the easiest filter is to look only for people already in that particular line of work. Hence, no defence work without clearance (and don’t get me started on that one again), no finance work without current experience in finance, ditto NHS work (Why? It’s an application delivery…), Local government, and so on and so on.
But, while this is understandable, it is just another symptom of the box-ticking approach to recruitment. In my case, I specialise in Service Management and have done for around 20 years. That’s something that is almost entirely industry independent – you don’t get books on “ITIL for Finance” and “ITIL for the NHS”, do you – and my skills and experience are easily transferable across industries. However, my last two serious roles were in manufacturing and Oil and Gas, neither of which have much work at the moment, so I’m shut off from the bulk of the work available. Which can’t be good for the clients who aren’t getting the benefit of my experience (only kidding. Well, only slightly…).
What we need is for agencies to be able to sell people directly to clients, so they get the best guy for the job, not the most available guy in that current corner of the market. I’d happily pay their margin if it meant I was getting high-quality roles and after all, they’re the sales and marketing experts.
Except you can’t do that (unless you’re in entertainment, for some reason) because the famous Agency Regs say you can’t charge work seekers for finding them work. If you could, then agencies could go to clients with zero margin offers, you could easily separate sales and back office functions, agents would actually know and understand the freelancers skills and abilities and clients would start to get the best candidates available. Wouldn’t really be worth it for the bulk skills (which are mostly getting exported anyway), but would work for most of the more specialist roles. Shame it can’t happen.
But hang on. If I’m opted out of the Agency Regs, where is the restriction on me doing exactly that…?
The thing that strikes me when I think about this and the forum postings is that there seems to be a general consensus work is down as are rates when talking generically. What I find that muddies the water is that an indivdual will then post a ‘I am ok I got this I got that’. This tips the balance and message of the thread but unfairly. I don’t think anyone for one minute thinks the odd role is still out there at top dollar etc but when putting over a fair and reasoned opinion about the market in general you assume this. This one post then makes it appear there is a half and half devide as you mention but this isn’t the case. It’s one over enthusiastic poster quoting his view on his one role and thats it.
I would still say there is a definate shortage of work at the right rates in general and this is based purely on my experience of finding, and applying to 6-7 roles I could realistically do 12-18 months ago to maybe 2 a day at varying rates.
Good luck to those who landed a doozy but I would ask them not to muddy a good debate on the general state of the market.
Awesome blog!
I thought about starting my own blog too but I’m just too lazy so, I guess I‘ll just have to keep checking yours out.
LOL,