Testing the job market

My current contract is starting to wind down and as such I'm testing the job market to see what's out there. So far I'm only putting up Resume's on the various job sites. When I last did this, the economy was still doing pretty well and I was flooded with offers within three days of publishing my resume on sites like monster.com, Dice.com and washingtonpost.com. This time the amount of inquiries is significantly lower. It's not quite an apples to apples comparison since I have different qualifications and am an independent contractor, but I would expect the buzz-word bingo to have at least come up with some hits.

I did get one that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot poll. First off, the hourly rate is pretty low for me at $35/hr. Also it listed it in a strange way:

Rate/hr on W2 (Without any Benefits): $35/hr

Rate/hr on W2 without any benefits? IT people who do W2's typically don't do hourly, it's just too expenisive to have us not be exempt from overtime. Then there was the grammar of the letter:

I came across your resume through monster. We have the following very urgent opening for Network Administrator. Below are the requirement details, just go through it and reply back to me with your updated resume and your acceptance for this position. Please do reply ASAP. Your earliest reply is highly appreciated.

And

I will wait for your response.

Please revert back to me with your most recent resume on my E mail XXXX@XXXXX.com

Uh..... thanks, but no thanks.

Anyway, hopefully things will pick up after this weekend when the batch processes run and get distributed to the various bodyshoppers and head hunters. But if it doesn't my current gig hasn't ended just yet so I should count myself lucky.