A bird in the hand...

[gigahoe]

Hi all, a little advice needed.
I just over a week away from the end of my 3 month contract and I have been offered an extension. However, this took a lot of chasing as the company is quite poorly organised so I have been applying for other roles for the last few weeks and now have two that are in the interview phase.

Both of these other roles are better in terms of rates and length, so the question is how bad will it look if I leave so soon even though that's the duration of the contract?

I know this will leave them in the lurch somewhat as the project I'm on will go for another 9 months atleast, but in my mind this is their fault for leaving it so late. However, will others see it that way, or am I committing career suicide by looking like a flake?

Any advice you can give me would be appreciated

[jmo21]

Long time contractor, or your first contract?

[SueEllen]

Do your interviews then decide from the offers you receive.

[PerfectStorm]

Two schools of thought on this

1) You've asked for a renewal and got it, and now you want to back out? Do the decent thing (and next time, set a deadline for the answer to come back, whereupon they lose first refusal

2) Do what's best for your business (which may or may not be linked to point 1)

Remember also your contract might include a clause to complete incomplete work at cost. An extension might imply there's work to complete...

[AMH]

if you get offered both roles - then you're going to have to choose.
Is there much difference in turning down a contract & leaving one early?

[sociopath]

Good luck with the interviews!

If you were to extend your existing contract by another month or so what would you achieve? Will you have delivered something that you can use in the future to sell your services.

Remember if you do really well at the interview and they want you then there is room for negotiation. Both in rate and starting date.

[Tasslehoff]

I have been in a similar situation.

If you are offered something at interview stage that is so good you can't turn it down, then your choice is made for you.

However I am of the school of thought that building up a network of happy previous clients is worth much more to you long term, than the short term bump in a slight rate rise.

So if the difference is minimal stick where you are, you never know when your previous/current client will come through for you again.

[JRCT]

I think it's worth pointing out that's it's probably fairly common that extensions are offered so late.

[BlasterBates]

If you want to build up a pool of clients you can keep returning to then a "scorched earth" policy is not a good idea. It's not always the case that you can return but often there are longterm projects which potentially return to. If you leave a PM in the lurch obviously he's likely not to take you on again unless there's no-one else. On the whole clients expect you to renew, and if you go expect a nice long handover.

Generally in any large client there will be one or two big projects which you can work on, so if they're important you don't want to blot your copy book.

Me....I would go along with the renewal, what appear to be exciting new contracts tend to be no different than anywhere else. Exciting contracts don't exist, they just appear that way, before you get into it.

[BolshieBastard]

You really need an offer from at least one of the two other roles before you can decide to turn down the extension.

If you reject the extension then get no offer from either of the other two, what then? I used to ask my clients 4 to 6 weeks before contract end date if they intended to extend. If they said they didnt know, I made a point of asking again at 4 weeks. If they said dont know again, I told them Id be starting looking at other roles.

IMO, its piss poor for clients to leave extensions until the last minute.