I've been a consultant/contractor in the product mgmt space for 17+ years and I have always found "my next contract" sooner rather than later, but this job market is incredibly difficult. Anyone else experiencing the same?

2 Comments

1. AnonymousSeptember 16,2024 at 2:53PM UTC

   Not exactly the same, but when I was laid off in March I immediately starting looking for contract roles. Generally, I could land a contract role within a few weeks, even if it was just short-term. But, I found far fewer contract roles that were reasonable (some of the pay was terribly low, unrealistic expectations). The other thing that was happening is that some of the recruiters calling me seemed unprofessional and slightly desperate. They did not seem to know the role they were calling about and the actual tech needs involved. Many of them cold called and nearly all were third-party recruiters that were fighting over the same contracts. (At one point, I had two recruiters call me about the same role within hours). It was frustrating and chaotic. I actually ending up landing a FTE job before I found a contract role, which I am grateful for, but I found surprising.

2. AnonymousSeptember 17,2024 at 11:38AM UTC

   Yes, the market is very tough at the moment. I'm finding the media reports on job availability greatly exaggerated.