Contract Length Change

[steveweaver]

Hi there guys

I was offered a 3 month contract after a successful interview a couple of weeks ago and the agent emailed me the job confirmation to sign. After several days he said he was waiting for approval. 2 weeks later I have now been told they can only authorise 2-4 weeks and am I still interested. I would need to go to the site and evaluate how long the contract should take. A 2 week contract now becomes consultancy?

I have told the agent the daily rate would have to increase and the agent has offered an extra £3 per hour. The contract is on a low rate as it is, what typically should the rate increase by? This is a software engineering type of role.

Cheers all

[Pondlife]

Rather than questioning the rate for 2 weeks work my first thought would be what else you were planning on doing for the next fortnight.

If you're benched and like the work, take it.

Spending the next two weeks on the sofa on a rate of £0 is a bit silly if there's a new client you can get your feet in with.


This only applies to short term bits of work though.

[Wanderer]

Pondlife has a fair point, but on the other hand, taking a job on bottom dollar for a client that doesn't want to spend any money and doesn't really know what they want to do then wants you to do it on a fixed cost (or something daft like that) might be a bit soul destroying.

[steveweaver]

Hi Wanderer

Yes Pondlife has a fair point and so do you.

I have put to the agent my new hourly rate and he put this to the clientco. The clientco hasn't commited themselves, but instead want me to come up for a day to see how long the work will take. Personally this type of work will be ongoing until the end of the software development/release cycle. They are thinking around 2 weeks, with 4 weeks being a maximum. So its gone from 3 months to 2 weeks on a well below daily rate less than £250 per day.

I put another 4 week stint on hold (which was double the daily rate) because I thought I would secure this 3 month contract as well as the agent telling me it would be ongoing, but this company seem as though they dont want to spend any money and they seem dont seem to appear to know what they want.

They just seem as though they dont have a clue.

[TykeMerc]

They just seem as though they dont have a clue.

That's probably the case, plus they're clearly not prepared to commit to anything and want ultra flexible resource to reach a decision. However flexibility like that is usually expensive so they're taking the mickey wanting it very cheap.

Considering what you've described I'd be inclined to walk away from it without a doubling of the rate.