Professional Career Change while contracting

[BolshieBastard]

We have been interviewing at my clients for the last few months and I'm sick of getting CVs in with people that have had less than 4 years experience before they went contracting or people that have switched roles in their contracting career. They offer me absolutely nothing above and beyond a mediocre permie. Falling in to a new skill set whilst being a contractor means you can follow the process that your client uses but really fail when it comes to have a good grasp in the profession that you are representing. A good example is a BA that's managed to switch in to PM. Just because they have spent a year in PM contracts does not make them a skilled PM. I've seen 9 CVs like this and it's apparent the person is not skilled in the profession they purport to represent. It's been a real eye opener for me and I see now why some people spend so much time on the bench.

Switching skills as you wish to with no chance how to learn to do it properly first means you are going to struggle for gigs for years to come. Switching with no skills at all is most certainly not going to end well and you will be spending a long time in the bench in between gigs for a long time.

Invest some time in a permanent role to gain saleable skills and then come back contracting. Treat it as short term investment to a career that will last much longer.

One hopes you're giving this feedback to both agencies and HR. Agencies need telling to stop sending the LCD where they can charge clients the maximum and give the contractor the lowest fee.

HR need to be told that agents can and will rip off a company if they dont keep a check on them.

[LondonManc]

We are indeed so I'd hate to see what they get if this is the best of a bad bunch. I'm just surprised at the lack of skills and expertise the 'average' contractor has. I don't know if our situation is a bit out of the ordinary for some reason but if this is the general experience most clients get I'm not surprised contracting is f'ked and clients/agents have issues with us.

I did think your average contractor had 10+ years experience and were experts in their fields but it appears these are few and far between and are always in contract. That said if I'd sat down and thought about it I might have realised this would be the case with the raft of people leaving perm over the last 2 or 3 years to go contracting and especially with the number of people we see on here asking about contracting.

I've been looking at Service Delivery people but I can't believe it's much different for PM'ing. Maybe a few years is OK for coding but it isn't for Service or PM.

Oh and at least 3 of the people we've seen have flowered their CV and it's so bloody obvious it's not true. 2 years experience and they have 'Senior' in the title roles. I don't think so. One guy had been so liberal with his CV it was almost a complete lie and by god it came out in the interview. It was hilarious. We sussed him in the first 5 mins but kept him in for over 40 mins just asking him questions and watching him squirm. It was comical.

I make it a priority to interview any self-proclaimed expert. Worth an hour of my time to see them incur the travel costs - if they're an expert, then they should be able to find the building rather than over the phone.

[Dallas]

Agree,

I do quite enjoy outing and playing with a smartar$e.

[MrMarkyMark]

We are indeed so I'd hate to see what they get if this is the best of a bad bunch. I'm just surprised at the lack of skills and expertise the 'average' contractor has. I don't know if our situation is a bit out of the ordinary for some reason but if this is the general experience most clients get I'm not surprised contracting is f'ked and clients/agents have issues with us.

I did think your average contractor had 10+ years experience and were experts in their fields but it appears these are few and far between and are always in contract. That said if I'd sat down and thought about it I might have realised this would be the case with the raft of people leaving perm over the last 2 or 3 years to go contracting and especially with the number of people we see on here asking about contracting.

I've been looking at Service Delivery people but I can't believe it's much different for PM'ing. Maybe a few years is OK for coding but it isn't for Service or PM.

Oh and at least 3 of the people we've seen have flowered their CV and it's so bloody obvious it's not true. 2 years experience and they have 'Senior' in the title roles. I don't think so. One guy had been so liberal with his CV it was almost a complete lie and by god it came out in the interview. It was hilarious. We sussed him in the first 5 mins but kept him in for over 40 mins just asking him questions and watching him squirm. It was comical.

You get used to all the liars, the badged CVs, the ones wanting a visa, the ones that know everything, the list goes on. The 10 years experience seems to have been replaced with as little perm time as you can get away with now.
Obviously, as well as getting known resource in, I have to interview from the general supplied pool, also .
I have had to interview a lot during the last 3 years and I'm also surprised and disappointed by the lack of skills out there.
My other beef is I don't think contract rates always reflect skills and experience. There might be a slight premium, for a senior role, but I believe this should be more.

[LondonManc]

You get used to all the liars, the badged CVs, the ones wanting a visa, the ones that know everything, the list goes on. The 10 years experience seems to have been replaced with as little perm time as you can get away with now.
Obviously, as well as getting known resource in, I have to interview from the general supplied pool, also .
I have had to interview a lot during the last 3 years and I'm also surprised and disappointed by the lack of skills out there.
My other beef is I don't think contract rates always reflect skills and experience. There might be a slight premium, for a senior role, but I believe this should be more.

This. There's junior, normal and senior analysts, etc. in permie world but contractors are all assumed to have the skills/experience to be senior when many clearly are not.

[DieScum]

A proper well paid contract is not going to be the place you go to learn the ropes of a new career! You're going to have to go permie of fixed term contract for that.

In contrast to what some people are saying on this thread though I don't think you necessarily need many years of experience in a set role to be really good at it. I've met many, many, many utterly incompetent project managers, BAs, consultants, managers, developers with years and years of experience. Sometimes I've been utterly shocked at the low project management skills of project managers. I have never been a PM but I have often had to step in and do parts of their job properly for them.

For a lot of roles the skillsets transfer across to other positions very easily. Logical thinking, planning, handling people, prioritising.

I'd say experience can actually be overrated - ability and attitude count for just as much.

This might be controversial but I'd say give me a switched on person with good general attitudes and abilities and they'll be a great BA, PM, salesperson, CEO, groundskeeper, whatever.

[NibblyPig]

I'm just surprised at the lack of skills and expertise the 'average' contractor has. I don't know if our situation is a bit out of the ordinary for some reason but if this is the general experience most clients get I'm not surprised contracting is f'ked and clients/agents have issues with us.

Main problem I've found is that clients have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Most of them don't know what a contractor is, many don't bother with a basic interview/evaluation. They don't monitor a contractor's performance/ability, and they don't understand how you can just fire them on the spot.

Some will literally hire a contractor and believe that magically things will fix themselves without assigning the contractor any work. Some hire contractors before the project has started and they end up twiddling their thumbs. Larger companies the whole budget/approval system is so convoluted that authorisation of the funds takes an eternity and the contractor ends up coming in without anyone remembering why they were hired in the first place.

As a result, the crap ones are not given a slap across the face and told to come back when they have some skills.

Crap contractors are entirely the clients fault, unfortunately it is *other* clients faults for letting them think they can do it.

[northernladuk]

A proper well paid contract is not going to be the place you go to learn the ropes of a new career! You're going to have to go permie of fixed term contract for that.

In contrast to what some people are saying on this thread though I don't think you necessarily need many years of experience in a set role to be really good at it. I've met many, many, many utterly incompetent project managers, BAs, consultants, managers, developers with years and years of experience. Sometimes I've been utterly shocked at the low project management skills of project managers. I have never been a PM but I have often had to step in and do parts of their job properly for them.

For a lot of roles the skillsets transfer across to other positions very easily. Logical thinking, planning, handling people, prioritising.

I'd say experience can actually be overrated - ability and attitude count for just as much.

This might be controversial but I'd say give me a switched on person with good general attitudes and abilities and they'll be a great BA, PM, salesperson, CEO, groundskeeper, whatever.

On the whole I'd disagree with this. Yes there are exceptions positive and negative but putting those aside there is no substitute for experience. Your post focuses on the fact that years of experience can still produce a crap professional. That can be true but doesn't back up the argument that lack of experience isn't a problem. You are arguing apples and pears.

You are correct saying the right person can achieve a lot more earlier than others in a short timescale but if you just haven't had the time to get immersed in your profession and encountered all the situations possible a few times over you have got the 'experience' to deal with anything. You can follow PM process and have a good head on you regarding to risk, planning and the like but you won't have many lessons learned and situational experience.

Depends on the role of course, management level roles involve a lot of politics and understanding the organisation and external impacts. Something only time tends to teach you. Tech guys won't need this.

The problem is finding this person out of the dross that comes with it. The client would have to have a very good interviewer to spot the BS'ers that are just quoting process from their last client rather than showing an overarching understanding that applies to any process whatever client has.

[northernladuk]

One hopes you're giving this feedback to both agencies and HR. Agencies need telling to stop sending the LCD where they can charge clients the maximum and give the contractor the lowest fee.

HR need to be told that agents can and will rip off a company if they dont keep a check on them.

I am indeed. I've looked at the spec to try and beef that up, I've suggested the ones that we've had that 'might' have been ok aren't worth the rate so offer them less rather than accepting them whilst still paying over market rates and I've made sure the agent is on a fixed rate and won't be creaming the client. So if you've been for an SDM role recently and the agent has come back with a lower rate than advertised it could be it's not actually the agent that's the problem as we usually assume

[MrMarkyMark]

I'd say experience can actually be overrated - ability and attitude count for just as much.

I agree with this in principle, that experience can be overated, which is why I suggested skills were of equal importance. If a person has experience and skills that is what I'm after.

Currently dealing with a BA who suggested you didn't need columns defined in a report BRD , so know exactly what everyone is talking about.

The problem is finding this person out of the dross that comes with it.

Yes, a total nightmare. I have given a lot of very short interviews, lets put it that way