Would you move into contracting in my situation? And some advice about consulting?

[NotAllThere]

Would you move into contracting in my situation? And some advice about consulting?

Frankly. No.

[ContractorHardman]

I think you need to MTFU if you want to become a contractor.

Personally this was the first post I read and it basically summed up exactly what I thought... Kudos PG

What I will add OP, is you are completely right, you are under pressure. It will go 2 ways, you will either thrive and love it or sink and go back to being a permie. In my opinion and based on your post, I would maybe look to get experience of being under pressure and getting heavy client demands made of you. It is with this that you will be stronger for it and be able to enter in to a lot of situations whilst being calm.

[LondonManc]

Half-time score:

NLUK: 0
PurpleGorilla: 1

Simply beat NLUK to the ball, both going for the same shot. NLUK did well to recover and destroy line by line after the MTFU initiative. We're a job offer (sic) away from a "have you asked your accountant" gambit tbh.

[pr1]

Whether "250-350 per day" is a lot or not is kind of relative to the salary you're on at the moment - if you're on £30k at the moment then it's pretty good... Also if you're on 250/day I don't think anyone's going to be expecting you to be a flawless expert of everything (if they do, you're being underpaid)

A lot of the posters on here (particularly the ones who have replied to you so far) have been contracting for a long time, and see 300/day as low - but it depends where you're at in your career

There's a lot of scare mongering of "what if you're on the bench for two years" - this is usually from the "contract or die" fraternity, in the real world if you're struggling to find a contract for a few months you can always go back to a perm job - as long as you don't stretch your lifestyle to become dependant on the "full time" contracting income you'll be fine

I'm 18 months in and so far have made around triple what I would have if I stayed perm, having kept the same lifestyle and expenditure it's put me in a relatively secure financial position... I left my perm job on really good terms with an open door to go back and that will always be my "worst case scenario" but until my leads dry up I've no reason to look back

If you don't try, you'll never know

[northernladuk]

Simply beat NLUK to the ball, both going for the same shot. NLUK did well to recover and destroy line by line after the MTFU initiative. We're a job offer (sic) away from a "have you asked your accountant" gambit tbh.

Not fair. I've got too many infractions to be so direct

[LondonManc]

Not fair. I've got too many infractions to be so direct

[TheFaQQer]

There's a lot of scare mongering of "what if you're on the bench for two years" - this is usually from the "contract or die" fraternity, in the real world if you're struggling to find a contract for a few months you can always go back to a perm job - as long as you don't stretch your lifestyle to become dependant on the "full time" contracting income you'll be fine

I used to think the same. You do, until it happens to you.

When you're without a contract for a long time, at what point do you stop looking for contracts and start looking for permanent work? Is it after 6 weeks, or 6 months? Or do you just keep thinking "I'm better than this, I'll get a new contract soon enough" and keep plugging away at the contract market in the hope that by being flexible about where you work and being well-regarded and skilled you'll find something? When there's no local work within your skill set for permanent work, where do you go after that? Or do you just double-up the applications and apply for any contract that you could do, regardless of rate or location? And when you do that and get knocked back for having too much experience, where do you look for work? If you eventually find a permanent job that you can do, how do you deal with the "you're going to leave us as soon as the market picks up" questions? Assuming you even get that far, of course. And then when you talk to an agent and they ask you what you've been doing for the past six months, what do you tell them? That you've been applying for jobs but can't find one, for whatever reason. Or do you lie and say "oh, I've been travelling" and hope that you don't get asked about where you went...

Until you have experienced it, the idea that you just walk back into a permanent job when the contract market turns bad is laughable.

[pr1]

I used to think the same. You do, until it happens to you.

When you're without a contract for a long time, at what point do you stop looking for contracts and start looking for permanent work? Is it after 6 weeks, or 6 months? Or do you just keep thinking "I'm better than this, I'll get a new contract soon enough" and keep plugging away at the contract market in the hope that by being flexible about where you work and being well-regarded and skilled you'll find something? When there's no local work within your skill set for permanent work, where do you go after that? Or do you just double-up the applications and apply for any contract that you could do, regardless of rate or location? And when you do that and get knocked back for having too much experience, where do you look for work? If you eventually find a permanent job that you can do, how do you deal with the "you're going to leave us as soon as the market picks up" questions? Assuming you even get that far, of course. And then when you talk to an agent and they ask you what you've been doing for the past six months, what do you tell them? That you've been applying for jobs but can't find one, for whatever reason. Or do you lie and say "oh, I've been travelling" and hope that you don't get asked about where you went...

Until you have experienced it, the idea that you just walk back into a permanent job when the contract market turns bad is laughable.

Maybe time will tell, I don't think the idea I could go back tomorrow (18months later) is laughable - I'm still in touch with my old employer and people who work there, they're always asking.

You sound like you're talking about someone who's been contracting for years by which point you don't have an excuse not to have a reasonable warchest and by which point, yes, I can appreciate those problems could arise - but they're not the reason not to start out contracting in the first place - by the time it happens you might have paid off your mortgage

If he gets a 250-350 gig he's going to know in the first couple of months whether he's made a mistake or not (confidence/ability/knowledge wise) - if he has, go back perm, if not, he'll be glad he went for it imo

(I've assumed he, replace for she if appropriate)

[wantacontract]

I used to think the same. You do, until it happens to you.

When you're without a contract for a long time, at what point do you stop looking for contracts and start looking for permanent work? Is it after 6 weeks, or 6 months? Or do you just keep thinking "I'm better than this, I'll get a new contract soon enough" and keep plugging away at the contract market in the hope that by being flexible about where you work and being well-regarded and skilled you'll find something? When there's no local work within your skill set for permanent work, where do you go after that? Or do you just double-up the applications and apply for any contract that you could do, regardless of rate or location? And when you do that and get knocked back for having too much experience, where do you look for work? If you eventually find a permanent job that you can do, how do you deal with the "you're going to leave us as soon as the market picks up" questions? Assuming you even get that far, of course. And then when you talk to an agent and they ask you what you've been doing for the past six months, what do you tell them? That you've been applying for jobs but can't find one, for whatever reason. Or do you lie and say "oh, I've been travelling" and hope that you don't get asked about where you went...

Until you have experienced it, the idea that you just walk back into a permanent job when the contract market turns bad is laughable.

totally this.....

I've been lucky throughout my contracting career, never had it really tough, probably due to the the fact that I have a huge war chest (helps with not sounding desperate) but have met a few contractors that turned permie as it went pretty grim!! Especially during 2008-2011, those three years were suppose to be pretty hard.....just read Richard craniums bench post....man thats some sombre reading....

To the OP - I have to say you don't sound like you're cut out for contracting......stay permie...it's less stressful and less dangerous...

[vadhert]

Hi,

I am in a very lucrative market right now where contractors get paid somewhere between £250-£350 a day.

I have IT certifications for the relevant softwares companies demand.

And I also have ton of technical coding knowledge from mentoring people.

However, I lack consulting experience. People with less English language skills can do it and I wonder why I can't.

For me consulting feels like an under pressure job where I have to deliver whatever client asks for and be able to handle whatever issues come my way in a very short period of time.

In reality this is negotiated but I feel very anxious when I think about consulting like this. But I wonder why I feel so nervous because I am one of the most knowledgeable people around.

What's your advice on being able to handle the two things? What should I do?

I am looking for really sound advice so please help

MTFU + 1