Has anyone actually managed to get any response or work from the contracting pages on this website. I payed up and joined last year, and have not been able to get any responses, and struggled to contact some of the recruiters. any ideas?

No but I was just about to part with some cash to join up, so thanks for the feedback, saved me some money...

I am a fan of this forum a contractor and twice paid for access to the contractor area, but would sadly NOT recommend it. I made no serious inroads and I found that almost all the ads also appear on other well know sites that do not charge for access. Sadly because the ads are free to place, I also found that some of them, though not entirely false, were submitted without having budget signed off (toe in the water jobs).I for one won't be payign a third time.

Bartman & Mr Cool - sorry to hear of your experiences with the contractor section of the site. I know of many firms who are thrilled with this contractor area and the contractors they are able to find by advertising here. There's also a significant number of readers who are regular repeat subscribers (and as you know the service doesn't auto-renew). So lots of contract assignments are filled this way.On the flip side, it is certainly true to say that by making it free to post on the site (so that budget never stands in the way of us bringing you the opportunities), there are often recruiters who leave their adverts live beyond the date at which they've found the contractor they needed. We police this and remove older adverts ourselves, but clearly them not having to pay for adverts to remain on the site does make this problem worse.It's also fair to say that at any point in time there are 100-200 openings but thousands of contractors subscribed to the service - and recruiters often only respond to those candidates they are interested in seeing rather than to everyone who applies.I can't contest your experiences and have no doubt they are valid - but equally I would like to convey that contractor assignments are filled via this service and we have a team here proactively out in the market uncovering new contract opportunities that organisations are looking to fill.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

contract roles - go to jobserve...eos

I have successfully followed up on a few of these contracts, but unsurprisingly the quality & quantity of opportunities posted over the past year or so has been low. However we need to bear in mind that when selecting a contractor the client is able to be extremely specific about their needs, even more so in the current climate. If we don't match these, we're hardly likely to get shortlisted.

This site can peak over my expectations and go on and do it again, but I'm with the no crowd as far as the contractor sub-site goes. There are ethical questions about making taxpaying job seekers pay extra to find employment (in the public or private sector). Employers are very often asking enough of candidates by inviting them to interview, and then not giving them any employment. In the last recession when I graduated it seemed more normal to ask for some consideration with respect to travel expenses. Not so these days I hear. Some might be able to get the hint, but others are more likely to play the proverbial anaemic rock.The notion of paying to have a potential competitor access career details (possibly using ideas from a CV) and then saying something like 'we didn't specify we'd pay interview expenses' is underwhelming.