Contract to permie Salary Worth it ????

[squarepeg]

I would rather contract with my own company and earn 100k than earn it as a permie.
The mere thought of the goals and performance reviews would make me sick.

Exactly, if a contractor ever complains about being treated as a disposal resource I tell them to think of performance reviews for permies and how they make one feel like a worthless piece of tulip. The latest trick in the HR soul-crushing toolbox is an enforced monthly peer review. Basically it's HR outsourcing the firing to those getting fired. Sick.

[andyg]

Contract to Perm

After 30+ years of contracting I'm doing the exact same, just waiting for the paperwork to come through.
The rationale;
Fed-up of looking for new contracts, joining the team, staying for a year or so, leaving contract, looking for a new contract...ad nauseum
Worries about IR35 and the general feeling that the Gov will expand public sector restrictions into the private sector
The thought of regular, albeit less, money coming in each month
No more scouring the job boards.

[jmo21]

A great lesson I learned right at the start of my contracting career - make sure you hit the floor running from the word go and never ever assume a contract is long, work as if it is as long as the notice period and ensure you have taken so much on so quickly, that letting you go would be an issue

This.

And that is why many of us on here will set it out so bluntly, so that new contractors have the info BEFORE a contract gets cancelled, or they get the boot for no reason etc.

[DanielAnthony]

Don't underestimate the value of training. With courses costing $1k-$2k per week, plus salary and accommodation, exam fee's, etc. , there is a lot of added value to being a perm at a decent employer. My current employer put me through an MSc as well as several weeks training per year.

I worked for a while with a Californian start-up doing their EMEA support, six figure salary but no training or career development, keeping yourself motivated was quite hard for me. Now I have the best of both worlds, but it is a job lottery out there.

[AndrewK]

Don't underestimate the value of training. With courses costing $1k-$2k per week, plus salary and accommodation, exam fee's, etc. , there is a lot of added value to being a perm at a decent employer. My current employer put me through an MSc as well as several weeks training per year.

I worked for a while with a Californian start-up doing their EMEA support, six figure salary but no training or career development, keeping yourself motivated was quite hard for me. Now I have the best of both worlds, but it is a job lottery out there.

Depends on your field. In Software development you do your training yourself. All other courses are just waste of time.

[TheFaQQer]

Depends on your field. In Software development you do your training yourself. All other courses are just waste of time.

Unless you want / need any certification - which can be very expensive.

[AndrewK]

Unless you want / need any certification - which can be very expensive.

You simply don't. MS certificates - nobody cares. Agile coach? To certificate that you can't do anything? In finance, accounting, you need certificates, in dev world – nope. Plus everything changes too quickly and there are too many technologies. You contract is your certificate.

[DanielAnthony]

Depends on your field. In Software development you do your training yourself. All other courses are just waste of time.

Not sure about that. DeepMind are sponsoring DPhils at Oxford (DeepMind starts paying to put PhD students through Oxford - Business Insider which is where I currently study (whilst working) and hope to go onto once I've finished my SoftEng MSc.

Vendor certs may certainly be a waste of time as logical thinking and problem-solving are not vendor specific. I find they help management and HR teams filter CV's though (rightly or wrongly) plus if you work for a vendor they like you to jump through their hoops.

[AndrewK]

Not sure about that. DeepMind are sponsoring DPhils at Oxford (DeepMind starts paying to put PhD students through Oxford - Business Insider which is where I currently study (whilst working) and hope to go onto once I've finished my SoftEng MSc.

Vendor certs may certainly be a waste of time as logical thinking and problem-solving are not vendor specific. I find they help management and HR teams filter CV's though (rightly or wrongly) plus if you work for a vendor they like you to jump through their hoops.

To do phd part time, takes around 5-8 years plus a lot of effort. Not many (if any) companies will pay for that with a good salary. However if you are "cheap" student, some would risk investing (plus from a good uni), but again that is for a very narrow field - machine learning. That is nothing to do with 90% of dev. Phd is not training. You will have to write papers, plus final work thesis ~50k words. I would encourage to do that only if you are young . But in that case it is better to spend your time and effort on some startup. There is no right way in life, but this one is "expensive".

[TheFaQQer]

You simply don't. MS certificates - nobody cares. Agile coach? To certificate that you can't do anything? In finance, accounting, you need certificates, in dev world – nope. Plus everything changes too quickly and there are too many technologies. You contract is your certificate.

certificate is a noun, not a verb

I have no idea whether anyone cares about having an MS certificate, and I'm sure that there are many certificates that aren't worth that much. However, being an Oracle Certified Master certainly opens doors, in the same way that being an Oracle ACE does.