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10 Good Tips For Long Term Unemployed It Contractors
However, those who have been out of work for many months and even years should not give up. Here are 10 pieces of advices for them:- If you have been out of work for 3 or 4 years, or even less, it is absolutely crucial that you fill this gap. As you well know, agencies who are interested in your skills just completely lose interest of you tell them that you have been out of work for 3 years. You must, must do something to counteract that. We would suggest a few here. 1. Training Take a training course, whether it is in a class or online either to refresh your own skills or to learn new ones. We know that it is difficult to get a contract after just a training course, but of it augments your skills it may be possible as the market gets tighter 2. Local Help Use your skills to help someone local who will say you worked for them and will give a reference. If there is a local charity who could use your skills you can kill two birds with one stone 3. Build a Website Build a website that uses your skills or creates new ones. It is something very tangible that potential clients can see and it will show them that you have kept busy and learned new skills. 4. Related Tool Take a course on a new tool in your skills area. Make it a tool where there is a big shortage of skilled people. Ask the tool vendor if you can take a place on the course when someone pulls out and that you’ll pay for the course out of the fees that the tool vendor will charge you out to clients. 5. Help a Friend Help a friend who is being employed by a client using your skillset on condition that he or she says that you worked for him or her and that they will give you a good reference 6. Good Excuse Have a good excuse for the missing years – otherwise agencies and clients will think that you were in jail, or even worse that there is something wrong with you that makes you unemployable 7. Cut your Rate You have a risk premium that needs to be taken care of in terms of cost differential That will give the opportunity for the client to take you cheaply, the agency to take a high margin for placing you, or both. If your skills normally get rates of 2 grand a week, cut your rate to 60% of that. That may get individual recruiters salivating at the mouth at the chance of a juicy mark-up. They have targets which they are under pressure to achieve - and they are on commission 8. CV Assessment Perhaps it is your CV that is letting you down. Ask successful contractors what their CV looks like. Ask agencies that call you how they would assess your CV and how they would like to see it. 9. Your Attitude Brush up on your attitude when agencies call. It’s very easy to think of them as a common group, i.e. that crowd who keep letting you down. Try to think of them as the cavalry that can ride to your rescue. Be positive, friendly cheerful and helpful on the phone and don’t sound as glum as you probably feel after 3 or 4 years without work 10. Don’t give up It’s easy to lose morale and sit watching daytime TV every day. Set yourself some job seeking tasks every day. Do it in the morning for a couple of hours and then you’ll feel that you’ve achieved something even if you have the rest of the day off. Get a Contract Find some good tips in the search for contracts and jobs in our new Job Search section - Job Search which has thousands of IT vacancies from multiple job boards and agencies. It also has a series of articles to help you find the best contracts and jobs. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com IT Contractor - Umbrella Company is a one-stop shop for IT contractors with news and advice e.g. on IR35 and the IT Contractsmarket. We have Umbrella Companies, IT Accountant, IT Contractor Mortgages, Pensions and Insurance and a Limited Company Set-up facility. |
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