u/NectarineForeign6005

I’ve somehow ended up with two offers. Both are Inside. One is better as it’s a bigger company (company B), so the chance of having it on my CV even as a contract will be worth taking the role.

first offer (company A) was very slow to contact me, they contacted me 5 months ago, got in touch only just last week and arranged a call, made an offer that same day. Start date is this Monday. I sent them details to send contract, it arrived only yesterday. Not yet signed, it would have 1 week notice.

In the meantime, I had already been in contact with a few other potential clients, and had an interview last week with a much larger company (company B), they made an offer this Monday. they gave a start date for the coming Thursday. I’ve not yet received the contract. But have been through all their compliance checks, etc. I have asked the recruiter when contract may come, they said today or tomorrow hopefully.

So I am stuck in limbo. Worried the big company could pull the offer, so don’t want to yet say anything to the first company. But currently I have a start date Monday with company A, I’d probably need to tell them by tomorrow. No contract yet from company B, but a start date on Thursday.

any advice from seasoned contractors? they are both full time, in-house, inside. So I can’t do both, and the notice period of company A would be longer than company B’s start date.

Calling out an electrolyte brand called Sult who recently went viral on LinkedIn and in UK newspapers, being lauded by hiring managers and recruiters for “redefining” hiring, who are now milking how revolutionary this was.

What happened?

They were hiring a social media lead (and I’ll get to why this still isn’t ok even if the role is social media below). To apply you needed to post a mini advert video publicly on Instagram. No CV, no cover letter and no portfolio. A video of yourself, posted publicly.

The videos went viral, several young people trying to find their first role posted videos. Gaining thousands (and with the help of the press), millions of views for free for this company. Views and reach are not free in marketing, companies typically pay creators ££££ for a video to promote their brand.

A video recently came out from one applicant, saying they never heard anything back from the brand (so after the brand reaped the rewards of this free marketing on behalf of job seekers).

Fast forward: the brand has made their hire.

They have now posted a really smug video about how CVs and cover letters mean nothing. That job seekers just make these in seconds on chatGPT. That the only way to make a decent hire these days is to have people film & publicly post themselves (or even send a video of themselves to the company). Here’s their video about it: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcRUzyWI7z6/?igsi=bTkxNTJpbnpmNjY4

That part applies to all of us, whether you work in social media or not.

It’s no longer good enough to have sent a tailored CV, applied to 100s of jobs, have a portfolio of work, no, you need to sing and dance for some VC backed sugary rubbish company. To be honest, if anyone doesn’t want to work and has lost their attention span to chatGPT, it sounds like these founders who are unable to read a CV or look at a portfolio to make a decision.

This should make everyone feel uncomfortable with the state of hiring right now.

This next part is now going to be long, so… this is only for the people who think that this is acceptable for social media work.

Here’s what a social media lead does:

- manages a team (performance & development, mentorship)

- manages a budget (can be into the millions at some brands)

- often runs advertising across Meta/TikTok

- is the point of crisis for customers complaining about your brand, manages the community

- researches & analyses audience behaviour, backs data of performance against company growth & revenue goals, alongside brand awareness goals

- manages content creators & influencers

- posts, schedules content and copy-writes, edits videos or managers a videography team

- has now replaced graphic designers in many companies (thanks to AI/lack of forethought from companies) or briefs graphic designers if your company is still lucky to have them

- now apparently is the on-screen talent who is filming themselves too and the face/model of the brand (so has replaced actually models and hired actors)

- manages projects and campaigns & stakeholders, for large and small campaigns such as large retail events like Cyber Week (results of this are make or break week for many companies)

- has to continually defend why a brand would even be on social media and what is the return on investment on a regular basis to senior leadership

- often is doing a test task or has a portfolio anyway that they can send to brands

Calling out an electrolyte brand called Sult who recently went viral on LinkedIn and in UK newspapers, being lauded by hiring managers and recruiters for “redefining” hiring, who are now milking how revolutionary this was.

What happened?

They were hiring a social media lead (and I’ll get to why this still isn’t ok even if the role is social media below). To apply you needed to post a mini advert video publicly on Instagram. No CV, no cover letter and no portfolio. A video of yourself, posted publicly.

The videos went viral, several young people trying to find their first role posted videos. Gaining thousands (and with the help of the press), millions of views for free for this company. Views and reach are not free in marketing, companies typically pay creators ££££ for a video to promote their brand.

A video recently came out from one applicant, saying they never heard anything back from the brand (so after the brand reaped the rewards of this free marketing on behalf of job seekers).

Fast forward: the brand has made their hire.

They have now posted a really smug video about how CVs and cover letters mean nothing. That job seekers just make these in seconds on chatGPT. That the only way to make a decent hire these days is to have people film & publicly post themselves (or even send a video of themselves to the company). Here’s their video about it: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcRUzyWI7z6/?igsi=bTkxNTJpbnpmNjY4

That part applies to all of us, whether you work in social media or not.

It’s no longer good enough to have sent a tailored CV, applied to 100s of jobs, have a portfolio of work, no, you need to sing and dance for some VC backed sugary rubbish company. To be honest, if anyone doesn’t want to work and has lost their attention span to chatGPT, it sounds like these founders who are unable to read a CV or look at a portfolio to make a decision.

This should make everyone feel uncomfortable with the state of hiring right now.

This next part is now going to be long, so… this is only for the people who think that this is acceptable for social media work.

Here’s what a social media lead does:

- manages a team (performance & development, mentorship)

- manages a budget (can be into the millions at some brands)

- often runs advertising across Meta/TikTok

- is the point of crisis for customers complaining about your brand, manages the community

- researches & analyses audience behaviour, backs data of performance against company growth & revenue goals, alongside brand awareness goals

- manages content creators & influencers

- posts, schedules content and copy-writes, edits videos or managers a videography team

- has now replaced graphic designers in many companies (thanks to AI/lack of forethought from companies) or briefs graphic designers if your company is still lucky to have them

- now apparently is the on-screen talent who is filming themselves too and the face/model of the brand (so has replaced actually models and hired actors)

- manages projects and campaigns & stakeholders, for large and small campaigns such as large retail events like Cyber Week (results of this are make or break week for many companies)

- has to continually defend why a brand would even be on social media and what is the return on investment on a regular basis to senior leadership

- often is doing a test task or has a portfolio anyway that they can send to brands

Looking for advice, I can see that inside roles are hated by contractors, but with current job market needs must.

Currently working a contract where the workload and tasks do not fit into the hours contracted. I tried to suggest more days or hours but they said they do not have budget for this, so need to maximise the amount in the days we have.

i feel like every week, I am being stop/started on work, interrupted to do different things and then at beginning of week asked why I haven’t done X,Y, Z in the days I had. The team members seem to work weekends & 12 hour days, but I am on a set contract and they can’t pay more. They also say “oh it should only take 1 hour”, but don’t realise all the time wasted in meetings, emails, discussing/changing things - it then adds up to more than 1 hour.

I keep saying I don’t have time or I can’t do this, what would you like me to do instead of this? what can I cut out. but they say everything has to be done still.

How do you typically set boundaries? and say workload wont be met in hours? or something can’t be done/finished?

is this just freelancing? I have to drive myself crazy by saying the same thing every day? ”I am at capacity, which task should I drop?”

just started my first ever inside IR35 role. I am doing 3 days a week, office hours are 9-5pm. I have a timesheet where I fill out days only; and only have a day rate rather than hours.

The company‘a manager has put together a sheet of responsibilities and it says that I should be supporting out of hour work as needed (so doing 1-2 hours of work on days I am not contracted for or on weekends).

Would I be right to push back against this and say it’s not possible? As I am contracted only for certain days, and I wouldn’t have a way to charge overtime or outside hours, I only have the ability to charge per day.

The umbrella company signed the contract on my behalf with the recruiting agency, and hours or set days are not listed on the schedule agreement, it only has the day rate and then the notice period.

hey everyone,

Looking to hear from people who were on Accutane a long time ago and to hear about how their skin coped with side effects, and if they still get side effects.

3 years ago I was on accutane for about 9 months. My acne cleared up but my skin permanently became very dry on my face. That’s normal, I was never that oily. But it seems my skin texture has permanently changed, I am very dry on my face no matter what products I use. I am now someone who has to slather aquaphor on my mouth at night every night because my lips are forever dry too.

Some of the worse side effects of my accutane days have started to reappear now though. Last year and now again this year, I have been suffering with Angular Cheilitis (corner of my mouth sores/cracks by your mouth that open and look like you have some kind of infection - absolute worst thing to have). I only got this from Accutane, I never had it before I went on it, but now seems to be an annual visitor of my life every winter & spring. Now this week again nosebleeds, what I used to get almost daily on accutane.

Has anyone else suffered side effects repeating?

I’m going to go to the doctor and request some blood work as well.

We moved to a house last year, with two neutered indoor male cats. I usually take out their cat litter and put in bin outside our door on Fridays for bin collection, now tonight a male cat is outside our front door tapping on the door trying to get in for the last hour.

This is not the first time, the first month we moved in another cat came to our door and basically howled through our letterbox. We have also had cats come into our garden as well and look through the windows. Both cats at the front door, who never saw our cats through the window, seem to be unneutered.

I’m wondering if the smell of my neutered male cats is somehow appealing to these unneutered cats that are around. If their scent is now more like female cats? Does anyone know what might be happening?

hi everyone,

thanks to the terrible job market, I’m picking up freelancing in the UK, while looking for a permanent role. At the same time, I’m also looking forward to dipping my toes into freelancing, as after 10 years, I want to have more flexibility. I’ve freelanced before, but in another country, where as long as you only earned under a certain amount, it was a quick process to register and a “sole trader“/freelancer set up existed without much burden other than declaring your taxes once a year.

I had a call about a potential contract that should be outside IR35. Nothing is certain yet. Most recruiters like to ghost, and the market is so unpredictable that it’s very rare to come across many contract roles. Currently, I was planning to register as a sole trader at some point this year, as I also earn money via TikTok shop & some brand deals on the side (not yet at £1k per tax year, so didn’t register yet).

My questions are:

1. is it right to understand that the inside/outside IR35 contracts wouldn’t want to hire sole traders? but would want me to already be registered as a limited company? or could I be employed as a contractor while a sole trader?

2. what would be your approach in these uncertain times? register a limited company without revenue or contracts? is there a risk if I register and have 0 for years, maybe find a perm role and not freelance? or should I register only once a contract has been confirmed?

3. does it make a difference to the company if I only register once I receive a confirmed contractor offer? or do they prefer contractors who already have a limited company registered or are a “sole trader”?

overall, I don’t know how long I will be freelancing for and if this will become a permanent career move.