Job hunting in the UK

Job hunting can be a fun experience, or it can be harrowing. The current hot skills in the UK at the moment, appear to be ASP.NET/C#, Oracle related, or SAP. If you have those skills £300/day is an absolute minimum in London.

If you can get investment bank or financial experience on your C.V. then upwards of £500/day is not uncommon.

The best thing you can do is apply for a lot of jobs online, using www.jobserve.com, or www.jobsite.co.uk or www.theitjobboard.com.

I would recommend creating a profile on these sites and uploading your C.V. as the recruiters do use this to find C.V's. Get a cellphone and put that number on your C.V. as recruiters prefer to call people, infact most won't email.

The reason you should apply for heaps of jobs, is that it gets your C.V. in circulation to all the recruiters. It's not really like in New Zealand where you want to get a good relationship with one recruitment company, basically there is so many in the UK that you just go where the best job / rate is.

Once you have been posted to a job, the recruitment company you have dealt with, will do their best to keep you with them, as you are a "known commodity".

To maximize your hit rate with the recruiters search engines, make sure to use a lot of buzz words. I for example on the first page of my C.V. have a table with all the skillsets I have used with a rating and a years used column.

The only downside to this is you will get a lot of recruiters ringing, but it's better to have heaps than none at all.

The recruitment process
If you match some of the skills needed, the recruiter will no doubt put your C.V. forward. They have to ring you and ask before they do, and make sure your C.V. hasn't been put forward from another company. 99% of recruiters won't ring back if you aren't going to get an interview. This takes a bit of getting used to, as recruiters in NZ always give feedback. I guess it's a numbers thing, but it can be annoying. If you don't hear back from the recruiter within 2 or 3 days, you aren't going to.

I keep a journal of who has rung and for what job, and the rate and contract length. Potientially, you could be dealing with several recrutiers per day until you find work, so it's important to remember what you have applied for and where and for how much.

Interview process
The interview process seems to vary from role to role. Some companies decide off the C.V. and just want to double check, some companies have a many stepped process.

Usually, they will either set a test, or ask for a phone interview first. Then if you pass this, they will ask you for a face to face interview. Punctuality is not a string point in the UK. Don't be worried if you arrive on time, and you are waiting for up to 30 minutes. My advice would be not to plan more than two interviews on the same day. I planned two interviews within two hours of each other and had to leave the first part way through because I was going to be late for the second if I didn't.

Always wear a suit to the interview. The people interviewing you will more than likely not be wearing a suit, and you'll almost certainly not have to wear one in the job, but wear one anyway to the interview.

Be prepared to do an technical test at an interview. Not all do this, but it is starting to be more common. I personally think they are a waste of time. Most of the ones I have seen are multiple choice type questions. IMHO it is better to set a programming test rather than a multi guess test as it shows more, and most programmers these days don't remember what method names are - intellisense.

Anyway, again if unsuccessful you may not hear from the recruiter, so be aware of that. Typically, you should here back within a week. I usually get a vibe from interviews and ask if I am still in the running, or when I should expect a decision.

I hope these tips are valuable to someone and good luck. There is a world of opportunities contracting in the UK and I highly recommend it. It took me under a week to get my first offer, and I wasn't really trying that hard.