Contract job

[SLTG]

Recently, someone offered me a 1-year contract job opening. I have never dealt with anything like it. What would be the pro and cons. I like what they do and interested about the job but a little nervous about it.

thanks
sltg

 

[IRstuff]

That situation usually happens when a company is not that used to hiring contractors or consultants.

I've noticed many companies balking at paying what they perceive to be an apparently high salary to someone they previously paid less to.

TTFN

 

[IRstuff]

Part of the problem also occurs in the defense industry, since General&Adminstrative costs are still applied to contractor or material costs. If you pay a premium, the incremental reduction in overall contract cost is less than 30%

TTFN

 

[GOTWW]

Lets see, ... No benifits, No job security,.... and a bunch of,... lets say MANAGERs, that will snooker you out of all of your propriatory information, then kick you out of the door, without pay for being incompetent. Yah, thats the job for me!

 

[GregLocock]

Hmm, those being the same managers who offered me a job? Oh well, sounds like someone got their fingers burnt, or got /found out/.

You are being paid a premium because you have no real job security. To anyone under the age of 30 that sounds like a good deal to me. If you are older than that and contracting, you are old enough to figure the odds out.

Autocad contractors in Sydney are between the rock and a hard place, there is not that much engineering around, and the universities and colleges are pouring out Autocaders by the class-load.



Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[SLTG]

Well,

I'm 29 years of age, graduated from college with ME degree 4.5 years ago. After doing my research and reading all of you guys respond,I'm actually considering a contracting job. We are moving to an area where there are many of engineering opportunities (pasific northwest). At the end I would like to pursue my master degree and hopefully by doing a contracting job will help me to save some money for college or a stepping stone to get a full time job. It looks like contracting job has some risks, but I'd take the risk if I want to grow my career.

Thanks again
SLTG

 

[johnwiss]

SLIG--it is important to realize that if you go back to full-time employment you may not get the same title/pay as if you accumulated "full-time" experience. Of course I am talking about consulting for a year or more which starts becoming significant in career-ladder terms. The lucky outcome would be that the place you are consulting wants to hire you and then the job can be a career enhancer. A lot of places use titles like: Engineer, MTS I, MTS II, etc. It may be possible to consult and skip "grades" at the firm if you get on a hot project and make yourself indespensible as a contractor. A lot of companies will pay for your education--In my group where I work 50% of my folks are getting significant educational assistance and earning good money at the same time.

I can tell you that consulting "lifers" can be terrible full-time employees since they tend not to develop the thick skin/political savvy that office politics encourages. It's a tough call consulting so early in your career--I waited until I advanced quite a ways (impressive title on business card) before my first consulting job and it took about 9 years. I was then able to command good hourly rates and the consulting experience then became a plus for me getting a good position when I went full-time later.