Beeing a contractor and an entrepreneur

[Le Rosbif]

I have been contracting in the city of london (and recently CW) for the past 6 years, for top tier banks.
After my first year of contracting, since I was a young lad full of ideas (still am ), I've decided to try and grow my limited company by designing commercial (front office trading) software.
In 2007, after a sabbatical year spent on working on the software, I was forced back to contracting in order to fuel the company with fresh income.
I thought it would be a good idea to put my experience as a proper entrepreneur (hiring and managing an of employee, project manager of my own software, marketing, negotiationg, etc...) on my CV.

This was disastrous! Although I did manage to get interviews, the recruiters were very much hostile to the fact I was also leading a genuine business on the side. As a result I removed all references to my business from my CV and now carefuly hide it from the client (which is a real pain!)

Has this happened to any of you guys?
Why the hell did recruiters accept to give me an interview if it's to toast me about the fact I am a business owner.
I can understand they might be worried about intellectual property or me spending more time working on my business than for them, but in that case why do they look for contractors instead of permies that they can whip and boss around at will?

[jmo21]

can you expand on what they said to you?

Permy contracts often lay claim to any work you do outside of working hours, maybe they are thinking in those terms even though you are a contractor.

[GreenerGrass]

Interesting point, I'm working on a plan B with some other people and I would like to put some of the technical stuff on my CV. But I would be reluctant to tell anyone at interview that my relationship with some entrepreneurial types was ongoing - for exactly the reasons you mention.
Indeed I'd be cagey about telling anyone at the current "gig".
Many, probably most, clients appear to want temps or permtractors.

[HairyArsedBloke]

TELL ME ABOUT IT !

I had no end of grief. Like you, sometimes a bit of top-up capital is required, but clients and agents have no means of understanding such things.

I don’t think its intellectual property problems, but one of doubts about concentration and commitment. Contractors are never seen as business people but just another form of employee; I doubt if this will ever change.

[Le Rosbif]

can you expand on what they said to you?

Permy contracts often lay claim to any work you do outside of working hours, maybe they are thinking in those terms even though you are a contractor.

Sure

First I need to explain roughly what I did put on my CV.
Project Manager, Architect and Senior Developer

xxxx is the founder and owner of xxxx Ltd. Since April 2005 he has developed and sold a xxx xxxx and algorithmic trading platform. The algorithmic trading platform includes the following functionalities:

[Loads of IB's specific technical tulip]

xxxx has been responsible of the following activities:
• Full architecture specification and design
• Senior Developer
• Source control management using subversion
• Leader of a team of 3 people including 2 developers and a business analyst

Just two examples of the response I got:

1) ABN. I went there for a "technical interview/challenge". The guy asked me to code a queue and a pile in C# 2.0, without generics + thread safe crap. I obviously trashed his test by implementing a linked list then used simple locks to make the thingy thread safe in the hope we would have a proper discussion on how overlocking vs smart locking can impact the system performance. It did not happen. I have just been told that I did perform better than most guys and impressed the tech manager so I should come back for a secondary interview.
The secondary interview was a witch hunt. It started by "I used to have a contractor working for ME and he was using the phone all the time to get his business going". (How can a contractor work for HIM?). I kindly explained that, as a professional I am very concern about maintaining my business matters and my client matters separate. The guy asked me to UML him down on a project I feel confident to show him how good an architect I am. The result was him sweating his arse off and keeping telling me stuff like "what if you get a phone call from one of your employees about an issue with your software?", "what if", "what if", what if"... He did not ******* give me a chance to show how good I was at architecturing, leading people...

2) RBS. Incredible story.
I went there first to try to pass their "recrutment" C#/.net test. - Exploded it.
-> 2nd interview. They started to mention my company, but softly. Follows a proper interview about my architecturing skills. I must have done well because I went on the ->
3rd interview: Let's meet the team, let's meet the traders. I told the traders I know Black & scholl on the tip of my fingers (not that it would really matter since they were doing execution crap but hey, always bross the cat in the direction his hair grows), I have have been wiping other trader's arses in top tier banks for several years, and I am very happy to take the blame when they have a bad day trading. Well overall the agents feedback was: they like you very much, we're good to go.
So I started negotiating the rate and all the tulip you guys know...
Then... my agent called me to request a 4th interview!
Apparently to meet some big cheese who was away and just came back to London. I said I would be in their office next day.
Now the interesting part:

The very same day the agent called again: "the manager thinks that your business endeavours won't match the company policy, sorry but it is not going through"

Bon, ben ca, ca fait mal au cul!

[HairyArsedBloke]

Yup. I've had the same stuff.

Sadly, I don't think that there is a way round it. It's not in their ability to understand. They only understand the employer / employee relationship. Being a 'contractor' is only a technicality to them.

You could try to keep the two thing as far apart as possible, but I think you'll have to chose one or the other in the end.

[Le Rosbif]

TELL ME ABOUT IT !

I had no end of grief. Like you, sometimes a bit of top-up capital is required, but clients and agents have no means of understanding such things.

I don’t think its intellectual property problems, but one of doubts about concentration and commitment. Contractors are never seen as business people but just another form of employee; I doubt if this will ever change.

HAB (have you considered laser treatment?)
You strike me as one of this forum's most sensible person. You always answered my provocative lines in a sensible manner and never insulted me (yet).
Your views on agents is correct but kindof irrelevant since they are just middle-tier muppets. They don't know tulip about what they are selling and this has been discussed here before, so let them rot in hell.

I am more optimistic when it comes to the contractor status issue. In France (pardon me to refer again to my home country) and in continental Europe, contractors are almost non-existent. The concept of contractors down the continent is to hire people with skills that nobody has in the company, rather than easy labour that can be ditched on a blink of an eye as in the UK.

Along with the crunch, a good "cleaning" of the contractor's market has been operated. A substantial result will be that only the "Expert with skills nobody has" will stand a chance to get a job. That will come with companies accepting that they are hiring a mercenary.

[HairyArsedBloke]

HAB (have you considered laser treatment?)
You strike me as one of this forum's most sensible person. You always answered my provocative lines in a sensible manner and never insulted me (yet).

FFS!

[BrilloPad]

I had a similar experience. So I removed it from my CV.

I can speculate as to why : but who cares? The important thing is to remove it from the CV and move on.

[Fred Bloggs]

A sad but familiar tale. Good luck with the private enterprise. You'll likely have the last laugh in the end.