recruiter advertised job as contract, company offered me a perm

[cojak]

I knew the day rate, the agent told me on the phone. It was only after the interview - when I got in touch with the recruiter that he asked me whether "the client asked if the role was contract or permanent".

The interview was exactly for the advertised job position - my skills were checked against those. My mistake was not being clear at the beginning that I was there for an interview for a contract position.

Thanks for your feedback all.

Well that's just low and I don't think that it was a newbie mistake.

I think I might have been caught out by that and will just check in future (I haven't needed to in the past.)

[sunflower]

Some recruiters try it on. They tell you a role is contract, give you a rate indication, length, etc. You take the interview and find out that the client wants perm... A new ruse. Maybe they think a contractor might go for the role if it was their dream job?

This sort of thing can waste time and resources. It's happening a lot recently. I'm hearing this from contractor friends. Should be quite legitimate to bill the agent your travel expenses, etc when it was quite clear the role was perm.

You can put it on your cv that you are a "freelance project manager", "freelance tester" or whatever your area is to make it clear and this avoids unnecessary phone calls from agents looking for perm.

[manubbo]

Thing is I'm still a permanent looking to move into contracting and maybe the recruiter tried to get advantage of it.

Anyway, thinking about it, even if I told the recruiter I could have had maybe considered it with a good salary, I will let it go, just telling the recruiter that I thought about it and I stick to my original idea - only contract. That's a recruiter fault and I've lost my time, I already said no to lots of recruiters when they were talking about permanent positions, and if I want to get another permie role I'm lucky enough that my skillset is quite in high demand. I know the interview went very well - I will inform the recruiter that if they want me as a contractor I'm very happy to accept the offer but otherwise I'm afraid it's a no.

The idea of stating explicitly in the CV that you're looking for contracts it's good - although I'm pretty sure the recruiter could scrap it down if he wants I'm gonna do that however.

[cojak]

So you don't actually have a contractor CV.

And you're not yet a contractor.

That explains everything.

[manubbo]

So you don't actually have a contractor CV.

And you're not yet a contractor.

That explains everything.

In terms of me not being precise enough at the interview or of the recruiter trying to place me as a perm although I told him I was only interested in contract?

I have to say that due to my job history (my last four positions were 4 months, 15 months, 6 months and 5 months the current) I had more than one recruiter truly believe that I'm contacting at the moment. I followed also tips from this site but if anybody's happy to have a look at my CV for suggestions I'd be grateful.