Would you accept an urgent short-term role..with the contract pending?

[BradNeedsYourHelp]

If somebody rang you on Thursday to start a 1 week role the following Monday, but would not issue a contract to your umbrella company, until references were checked (which would take longer than a week).

Would you except it? Or do you always insist on making sure a contract is issued first? Regardless, of how urgent the agency states things are?

[Fleetwood]

If they want you that bad, it's on your terms, not on theirs.
Beware 'reference checkers".....

[Pondlife]

Is this an agency?

Is this an agent who's phoned you? If so, the cynic in me would say that he's only after references and that there is no contract. Has he told you who the client is?

[Mordac]

Who the hell needs references for a 1 week contract? Sounds like a scam to me. As you say, it may well take longer than that to check the refs out.

[threaded]

I've never had a client ask for references, so I can only guess that when a pimp asks for them, then they are scamming.

[expat]

If somebody rang you on Thursday to start a 1 week role the following Monday, but would not issue a contract to your umbrella company, until references were checked (which would take longer than a week).

Would you except it? Or do you always insist on making sure a contract is issued first? Regardless, of how urgent the agency states things are?

What is the point of getting references after you've done the contract? Surely not to check your suitability for the role?

[Not So Wise]

Lets see if i have this right, you want to know if you should go do the job and have completed it before you will know if you will get paid (as it will be dependant on references)?

Should be able to answer that yourself

[Clog II The Avenger]

If somebody rang you on Thursday to start a 1 week role the following Monday, but would not issue a contract to your umbrella company, until references were checked (which would take longer than a week).

Would you except it? Or do you always insist on making sure a contract is issued first? Regardless, of how urgent the agency states things are?

I would never do one again via an agent. Every short term job has been difficult to get payment out of them. The agents usually promise the impossible to the client. . The agent agrees and then panics and phones around. I have been on jobs that are follow ups to complete bodge ups like OS upgrade that have screwed the whole network up (described as a single server upgrade), systems screwed up by permies and they are lost about what to do (they want a cheep answer rather paying £1000 plus out to a consultancy) etc. The true facts are not normally said beforehand. The rate does not normally reflect the urgency or the skills requirement of the situation.
My college had done a job three months ago, still not paid and then yesterday the agent said the client will pay up next week but with no expenses, a loss of £60 to my college.

[TheMonkey]

Three golden words:

CASH UP FRONT