How to find contractor jobs in a saturated market

Working as a contractor can be great as it gives you all the freedom you could hope for to choose exactly what kind of work you want to do, when, and how long for. You can name your own price for your services and are in control of your work environment and experience. The downside to this comes when, in a market that is already so full of contractors, you find yourself going up against hundreds of other applicants with similar experience and skills to try to get at least one contract to make your decision worthwhile.

So how can you stand out from the crowd? The key element is marketing. You need to be able to market yourself, playing on your strengths and skills as well as making sure your name is everywhere so that recruiters cannot fail to have you in the forefront of their minds.

Firstly, make sure you CV is up to date and a good marketing document that will interest potential employers. In many cases employers receive so many CVs that they will only browse the first page, meaning your CV needs to be short and have an impact within just once page. In this case don’t bother listing your personality traits or hobbies as employers want to know what your specialist skills are. Just focus on what work you have done in the past, things you have implemented that have benefited a company and so on. Make sure your references are good and then start sending it out to as many places as possible.

Join plenty of job sites and browse these every day. Try to apply for jobs as early as possible to ensure that you are one of the first people considered and make your cover letter/statement tailored to the role. Laziness can be many a contractors downfall as they will often apply for so many jobs that they just copy/paste the same cover letter over and over again. This will not please any potential employer and it is better to apply for five jobs you really want with a well researched and interesting cover letter than to apply for hundreds with a generic response.

Do an Internet search to try to find sites that cater for your niche (especially in creative industries), but don’t discount major job sites as well, as many companies will use these as they are the most well known.

You can also speak to contractor friends and ex colleagues to see what work might be available – as this may help you to beat the crowd and get an interview before the job has even been advertised. Networking is key!