[Tony McCrory]

#18624

To all you people looking for work either inside/outside IR35 let me share my story and thoughts having just gone through the process.

My last contract finished (no renewal) end of Sep ’20. I wanted to get straight back in there and started hunting the very next week. I also took NHS advice to have my first ever flu jab due to underlying health condition which if Covid added to the mix could prove terminal in the worst scenario. Well it gave me a full on dose of the flu and wiped me out for the month of October. I did not bother looking Nov/Dec as pretty dead months in the PM market space. Come January this year I was all geared up to go and then lockdown 2 was introduced and I took the decision that my son’s education was more important than me having a job (and luckily enough I had enough rainy day money in the company to see me through a good few months). I home schooled him with the assistance of his school for 3 months. During that time I took decision to 1) have my CV professionally revamped with an added LI profile and 2) create a company website. Both were completed around the end of March and I was good to go in earnest come April. I had been contacted by an Agent who put me up for a role in Jan and it went on and on until finally the interview took place and I got pipped at the post in early April.

From start of April I registered on all the usual suspects websites and with a company that specialises in compiling all outside IR35 roles and send them out on a daily basis.

What happened during the months of Apr/May/June was quite an eye opener…

1. I applied for many roles that I received from TotalJobs, CWJobs etc… and cannot remember getting one response
to take it further.
2. During this time I noticed that I was getting calls from head hunters who were predominantly finding my details on
JobServe
3. I was also getting calls direct from organisations own internal headhunters who seen my details

I am now in the process of onboarding for a PM role on a 3 month rolling contract, though unfortunately deemed inside IR35. This role was initiated by a headhunter finding my details on JobServe, giving me a call to discuss the role and moving forward.

During this spell I chose not to go further on a couple of roles as they were FTC and the commercials just did not fit. Around mid May I had accepted a role for a company which wanted to engage my services 2 hours after I had the interview with them. After a few weeks without a contract materialising and me chasing the Agent on a weekly basis (they in turn assuring me that this was the way their client worked), I was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to happen and this was confirmed by the Agent who said a new Exec had joined the company and suspended all new hires perm/contract.

In summary:-

1. Website build – I don’t believe it has helped me in finding a job at all, not one interviewer had even bothered
to view it
2. In my particular field (IT Project Management) applying for roles that I believed completely appropriate for me
did not result in one interview, majority of cases no response from job lister, others sent standard email saying “due
to the amount of responses we are expecting, if you do not hear from us within x days then we will not be following up
this role with you” or words to that effect
3. CV professionally revamped – I believe this should be done every 18-24 months, especially if you are job hunting online
via the standard resources. If you have your own network of contacts who provide constant work, then may not need doing as
typically do not have to go out and search for your next role. Having the 2 hour session with the CV writing consultant is an
eye opener and if you have the right CV consultant their input and guidance on what to do will vastly improve (I believe) your
chances of getting noticed by the online headhunters
4. LI profile update, I got a lot more hits on my profile than I would normally get, many from headhunters who would check me
out before approaching me with for a role (more often than not they would ask to connect with you before discussing a role)
I also joined LI Premium to get direct access to more job roles and hirers, I had a couple of interviews using this method.
5. When I first set out on my job search I was fairly adamant that I wanted a role outside IR35, however at this time the reality
is that I need income and if inside IR35 so be it. It’s still early days with this inside/outside IR35 process and I would
assume that over the next year or so we may see some tweaks to it by HMRC as the dust settles, whether good/bad for
contractors remains to be seen
6. Lastly – if you are looking there is work out there, but if you’re not getting work through your own network but relying on
Agents do get your CV professionally revamped as it will get the attention of headhunters and make it searchable by recruiters
on all the job sites

Wish you all well in your job searches

[Author]

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