u/bluezee123

I'm adding a skill-based contractor directory to Outside IR35 Tech Jobs:

https://outsideir35.org.uk/contractors/join

I think the market needs a better way for recruiters and companies/startups hiring directly to find contractors who are skilled in the right tech stack and are available to start when they need them.

The reality is they have the same problem we do: cutting through the noise and finding the right opportunities/candidates to pursue.

They're not necessarily ghosting you because you're not a fit. Often they don't know you're a fit, or even that you exist. They have 1,000s of CVs and LinkedIn profiles to sift through across 100s of roles, and the information they really need - what you actually do, when you're available, what sort of rate you're looking for - is often missing, out of date, or buried in CVs and LinkedIn profiles rather than structured in a way they can actually search and filter effectively.

My theory is that recruiters would move more in the finding rather than posting direction if there were a large enough pool of high-quality contractor profiles to filter by tech stack, availability etc.

I think this could be a much better model for contractors too.

The dream for us is that we simply create a profile, highlight the tech skills we want to be hired for, privately indicate our desired day rate and availability, and relevant, well-paid contract opportunities start dropping into our inbox.

Rather than applying to 100 vaguely relevant roles and hearing nothing, the people with the work come to us because they already know we're a potential fit.

That's what I want to try to build.

I posted about this on LinkedIn last week and around 300 contractors have already created profiles.

I'm aiming to get that to 1,000 before launching the directory in September. I think at that point it'll become an genuinely useful resource for recruiters, as well as companies and startups looking to hire contractors directly, which is often where the best opportunities come from.

It's completely free to create a profile:

https://outsideir35.org.uk/contractors/join

What do you think? Would you be open to recruiters and companies finding you this way?

Evening all,

Some of you may recall I knocked out this site listing outside IR35 roles back in November:

outsideir35.org.uk

Many of you found it useful so I've been keeping it going and making lots of small and some not so small improvements based on your feedback, which I absolutely intend to keep doing.

I've just released a couple of new features:

• Multi-skill filtering - e.g. search for "python OR java", or "react AND typescript"
• Hourly email alerts - receive matching jobs as they're listed throughout the day

Full disclosure - both these features are part of a paid plan I've added, called OIR35+. The main site remains 100% free, though today's jobs are now shown to OIR35+ members first.

The price is (I think/hope!) modest and represents excellent value, especially if it helps you land your next role (a good few of you have reported it's done just that - which is fantastic!)

You can either upgrade for a couple of weeks (one off payment) to give your job search a boost, or go for a subscription if you need it ongoing. You can of course cancel anytime.

Take a peek and let me know what you think. As always I welcome any feedback you may have. My intention is to keep developing OIR35+ around your ideas and feedback. I have a few ideas of my own but if there are any features you'd like to see built, do let me know.

Thanks as always for your support.

Rob

p.s. I realise this post is a shameless plug, but it's only my third in nine months 😂 so I hope you'll forgive me! My hope is to turn the site into a modest business that pays its own bills so I can keep improving it. I genuinely think (and know, as a contractor myself) that it solves a real problem that LinkedIn, Jobserve and the other big job boards don't seem to care about.

The point is outsideir35.org.uk is contractor-first, not recruiter-first, and I want to keep it that way.

Evening all,

I posted this on here few months ago and don't want to plug it too often! But it's a free site I built which allows you to filter outside IR35 roles from LinkedIn by skill, day rate, remote etc:

https://outsideir35.org.uk

Could come in handy if/when you're on the look out for a new role!

Also keen to hear if anyone has any suggestions for improving it - new tools/features etc.

Cheers,

Rob