Well then he hooked up with some slut from the same game. Black snow! Black snow!

[reddragdiva]

Information Technology call girls have our pimps, and the pimps have been going batshit of late. I get three or four recruiter calls a day; if it's a withheld number, I let it go to message, which tells them I'm free in March and to email me. Half of them leave a hopeful message anyway. These appear to be recruitment cannon fodder, tasked with cold-calling the entire CV pile.

Does a swarm of recruiter calls mean lots of jobs, or hardly any jobs? I'd think hardly any since it's December. (I know one recruiter who reads this journal, I'm sure she can give a conclusive answer.)

Comments

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

It's coming up to year-end, and in banking terms at least that means bonus announcements, which leads to people either thinking:
'Thanks for that [ker-ching!] now I'm off to see what else I can get'
OR
'Thanks for that, you miserly fucks, I'm off'.
Whether the same is true within IT, I can't comment.

I get calls semi-annually from agencies I dealt with years ago because they try to keep 6-monthly tabs on people.

[jhaelan.livejournal.com]

This may be why our place does bonuses in March

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Most banks *pay* in Feb/March, but the announcements tend to be at year end. With an average lead time of 3 months for a senior banker to get a new role, Christmas is the perfect time to start looking if you're unhappy with what you're likely to receive.

[jhaelan.livejournal.com]

Our place announces in February and pays in March (but probably decides now)

[reddragdiva]

In IT, I think everyone is still too shaky from the dot-com crash to casually go job-hopping. Sizable bonuses tend not to be the rule either (except in the City, and even then).

I've had literally three or four calls almost every day since August. Why I couldn't get this many when I was actually looking ... I think maybe my CV has some magical quantity of experience on it - I'm now at Five Years' Solaris, for example. A number that sounds good.

With IT contracting, one will generally really really want a short contract to be renewed at least once, even if one despises the job - as well as on the CV, I was told by my bank account manager that it's a tickybox when assessing mortgage applications from contractors.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

When you're out of work, nobody wants to know you. Employed, and you're clearly employable... Something Arkady might know very well indeed: the moment someone gives you some voluntary work or vague consultative association with their company, charity or basement web-hosting project, anythging that *sounds* like work, you're 'Employed' enough to get calls and interviews.

[reddragdiva]

But I didn't actually update my CV!

[chrysaphi.livejournal.com]

We have been interviewing a number of people this month. I think that the "no one hires in December" thing is turning into a myth.

[korenwolf.livejournal.com]

Wish it was happening here. F*ck all atm

[reddragdiva]

Not much IT in Zumerzet ;-) Nothing in Brizzle? (That's your nearest metropolis, yes?)

[korenwolf.livejournal.com]

Searching as high up as Cheltenham (up the M5 the other side of the M4) and out as far as Swindon to the East. There's some interesting things cropping up, looks like I need to shout at the pimps in the new year.

IT in Bristol

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I'll give you a hint - Jason works in Chippenham.

[vampwillow]

Haven't had a pimp call for a couple of months now :-(

[reddragdiva]

Get some work and then they'll be swarming like maggots on horseshit. That's how it worked for me.

[vampwillow]

am doing some werk at the moment (and was asked last night to extend). so how should I let pimps know I might be available at some future point in time?

[reddragdiva]

Put a CV with "-present" and the current job on the jobsites (particularly jobserve, jobsite and planetrecruit) and list your availability date as end of the present contract.

usericon

[sheridanwilde.livejournal.com]

I've got to look up ultraedit now :)

Re: usericon

[vampwillow]

my favourite code-hacking/viewing/editing interface (even in preference to most IDEs...)

ultraedit.com

[alixandrea.livejournal.com]

If you get anything for Linux-geeks in Cambridge come up will you let me know? Erik's still looking and hasn't been having much success. :-(

[reddragdiva]

There are a few in London, but I know he's had quite enough of that fucker of a commute! Get him to email me a CV as well.

[redcountess]

Wasn't N's work looking for people?

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

Well, Christ, ask them if they have any QA jobs they'd hire unvisaed furriners for, would you?

[reddragdiva]

Oh yes! You need to put your CV in with them too ;-D

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the UK, but here in Dallas it means that the pimps had best look busy or they'll be out of a job come January 15. I just had a particularly nasty one last week, who called about a job at Intel's Dallas branch (which, mind you, hires nothing but H1-Bs for anything unrelated to upper management) where I was supposed to give my notice right then if Intel had any interest. The tipoff that even they knew it was a sucker job was that the pimp not only asked me for the names and phone numbers of any other people still involved in the tech industry faxed to him, but also a separate fax with at least six references and contact numbers. Oh, he was chewing-nails angry when I told him that I wouldn't give him the references unless the company wanted to hire me and that I wouldn't give him any recommendations at all...