Saw a job the other day where one of the mandatory criteria was a “demonstrable history of long engagements with frequent renewals”. Fine, except the role was for my kind of skill set and all about identifying weaknesses in process and correcting them, or introducing new (hopefully better!) operating practices. So I would love to talk to that particular hiring manager and ask why he wants to take on someone who has to have several renewals over a long period in order to effect an improvement? Personally I try to go in, identify the problem, sort it out, get the team up to speed on doing it the new way and getting out.
Heigh ho, just another example of UK’s middle management culture I suppose.
I was also asked recently why I had gaps in my recent history. Couldn’t see why that was relevant, although the most recent one was because I finished the job ahead of time and was let go early (good for IR35, if not so good for the company bank account). I thought about answering “Because I’m an old git who doesn’t want to work 370 days a year any more”, which is at least true, so talked about the other things I do that are nothing to do with IT and not all that much to do with process improvement. Since I only do them when I’m out of contract, why are they relevant anyway? You’re buying 30 years of focused experience by hiring me, but if you want a wage slave get a permie.
Still very quiet on the job hunt right now, for some reason. I’m up for four roles at the moment, all advertised with “Start date: Immediate” but a call round the various agents yesterday showed that they hadn’t had any feedback themselves as yet. Which is why I have breaks in my work history; I spend ages waiting for some inefficient hiring manager to find time to think about how to get the resource he needs to let him get on with his own job. The guy asking the question about the CV gaps took three weeks to get from initial CV submission to arranging the interview, for example.
Don’t think I’ll use that as a reason the next time I’m asked though…
I’ve always been amused by the contract market: I’ve been working 15 years in IT and only worked once on a contract lasting 3 months (for a company I had previously worked as a permie), all my other roles are permie. In my experience being hired as a permie has been a much quicker process than contracting, even for immediate starting roles!