On the 19th of June, 2007, Vantage opened a poll asking IT contractors what time of the day they search for IT contracts. Last week, we opened a similar poll to the general public to see if the results were consistent with our previous study. Also, in the recent poll we did not limit the answers to times of day, but extended the choices to include weekdays versus weekends.

In our previous examination in June, the poll closed with the "after work" option receiving the most votes from participating IT contractors. Other options included; before work, in the morning, at lunchtime and in the afternoon. In last week's poll, those options were further segmented into weekday versus weekend. Unlike the earlier poll, voters indicated that a weekday morning is when they are most likely to search for a new job. This option took 22.2% of the votes. However, the previous polls most popular answer, (weekday) after work, tied in second place as the preferred period to look for a new job. It shared its position with weekday lunch time, both receiving 19.4% of total votes. Third place was taken by the weekend morning option with 16.7% of voters choosing that period to search for their next job. A weekday afternoon received only 11.1% of the total vote. Finally, a weekend afternoon and a weekend evening tied the vote for the least favourite time to search for a new job, with only 5.6% of total votes each.

This week we return to a dichotomous answer format presenting a question with only a yes or no answer. We ask IT contractors, if they think it is useful to their career to be a member of an IT / technology user group or society. We look forward to your vote!

For further information on any of Vantage Resources' polls or marketing activities, please do not hesitate to contact Lynda Hogan at lynda.hogan@vantage.ie