Two months contract - is it worth it?

[CoolCat]

You can put durations without giving dates.



IME the clients don't gaf about dates, its only the agents who whinge. And they only do that when there's not really a job there...

Boo

Correct

[BolshieBastard]

You can put durations without giving dates.

If you're putting durations on, you may as well use dates. You've started to give a picture but an incomplete one.

When I was hiring, if someone just put duration on a cv, Id suspect they were trying to hide something or not wanting to give a full picture of their 'career.'

IME the clients don't gaf about dates, its only the agents who whinge. And they only do that when there's not really a job there...

Boo

I disagree but that's just my opinion.

[Danglekt]

Yes, I take 3 month gigs, and each one has turned into significantly longer - generally speaking you can get a feel for when a programme needs resourcing and they have underestimated the timelines or assumed they will be able to pass over to fixed term/dump it on one of the perms once they are up and running (which inevitably they can't actually resource), which means an almost guaranteed extension.

not sure about shorter. I've never been on the bench, but I imagine if a 2 month or even a month popped up I'd consider it.

Why turn away work? Income, is income and every day I spend working means I can afford to be on the bench for significantly longer should the worst happen.

[Boo]

If you're putting durations on, you may as well use dates. You've started to give a picture but an incomplete one.

When I was hiring, if someone just put duration on a cv, Id suspect they were trying to hide something or not wanting to give a full picture of their 'career.'

Just to be clear, the difference between dates and durations is gaps. Gaps are nobody's business but your own and in any case you are employed by YourCo, no ?

Boo

[SueEllen]

Put yourself forward and get the interview. Once you have the interview sound out the client. That way you can find out if the contract is really going to be 6 weeks or 6 months.

And yes I've done short contracts and no it hasn't been a problem as I've done longer ones as well.

[foobarz]

A short contract can mean 2 different things :

- You were useless, got sent home
- You found a good client who was on a budget but knew what they wanted

[BolshieBastard]

A short contract can mean 2 different things :

- You were useless, got sent home
- You found a good client who was on a budget but knew what they wanted

A lot of people would go with the first option. Its human nature.

A new member on our team has been going on about 'needing an extension or two' on the current project.

Turns out they have a lot (and I mean 'a lot') of 3 monthers on the cv. I dont know if they lasted the full 3 months on each of them either but Id be more than concerned if I had been the hiring manager.

[DannyF1966]

I took an 8 week contract last year, it ended up being extended to 8 months in the end. The fact that it was so short initially didn't put me off, they said they just needed someone short-term to cover while they were interviewing for more permanent staff to take over. In the end it took them a lot longer to fill the role than they first imagined :-)

But if you're brought in to do some work, and then that work finishes and everyone parts company on good terms, what difference does it make if it was two months or two years?

[northernladuk]

A lot of people would go with the first option. Its human nature.

A new member on our team has been going on about 'needing an extension or two' on the current project.

Turns out they have a lot (and I mean 'a lot') of 3 monthers on the cv. I dont know if they lasted the full 3 months on each of them either but Id be more than concerned if I had been the hiring manager.

And I've seen this as well. We let a guy go just before Christmas that gave a good interview but also had a raft of three monthers. Turns out he was less than average so we got rid. He probably has and all he will do is bounce from client to client all his contracting career. Sad thing is there is no way for a client to know what he is really like. All we can do is really grill the next guys CV and make sure we drop them if there is any doubt... Which comes back to my comments about having no dates on the CV or anything different to the norm. If the client is wary then an oddity CV is going to be a hindrance.

Sometimes it's a shame ex clients can't give an honest bit of feedback without getting sued. Would remove the below average contractors out of the system quickly enough.

[NickFitz]

I've taken a four month contract that turned into one month due to the project being "postponed" (i.e. canned) in my first week.*

And I've had two month gigs that have ended up lasting nearly a year.

But I don't recall any prospective client ever showing the slightest degree of interest in the duration of my previous contracts. As has been said, that's a permie thing. They can see that I've had contracts ranging from one month to two years, so they know I'm not constantly getting turfed out, and that's all they really care about.

(Same goes for regularly taking several months off between contracts - if they do ask, which is rare, I just tell them I was taking a break because I could. They don't care. Except when they're clearly envious.)

* They found a small project that wouldn't normally have needed a contractor to cover the notice period, which was good of them as they could have just turfed me out, notice periods being meaningless.