Crazy time (starting contracting)

[mcquiggd]

He he... another lamb to the slaughter

[Fungus]

Why do you need an agent? I passed on a friend's CV to the boss, and hey presto he has a contract. He's cheaper than an agency supplied head, hence preferred. If you know the companies in your commercial area, then send then your CV.

I should have gone direct last time but rather stupidly did not, and ended up with plonker agents doing the filtering, not the employer. The latter knows who they want, not the agent.

Anyway, a month back another friend also applied, this time through an agent, and I found out that his CV was destroyed by the careless ignorant plonker editing it badly.

Fungus

[malvolio]

I'm a Ram with big ugly pointy horns

No, you are a complete novice with no understanding of what you're getting into - but we won't hold that against you, we all have to start somewhere!

[expat]

Why do you need an agent? I passed on a friend's CV to the boss, and hey presto he has a contract. He's cheaper than an agency supplied head, hence preferred.

Trouble is, it rarely works that way. The manager has a budget for a piece of work, and if he can pay you, he can pay you plus your pimp - it's in the budget anyway. He doesn't really have time to do it himself, that's why he's getting a contractor.

Or he'd do it, but his HR won't let him. Or his IT department manager used to work for A******** and insists that bodies be shopped from them.

I had one like that once: the boss found (or re-found) me. Then we had to find an agency to sit between us, because HR, Legal, and Accounts said so.

[Fungus]

Trouble is, it rarely works that way. The manager has a budget for a piece of work, and if he can pay you, he can pay you plus your pimp - it's in the budget anyway. He doesn't really have time to do it himself, that's why he's getting a contractor.

Or he'd do it, but his HR won't let him. Or his IT department manager used to work for A******** and insists that bodies be shopped from them.

I had one like that once: the boss found (or re-found) me. Then we had to find an agency to sit between us, because HR, Legal, and Accounts said so.

It worked like that at my previous client, and at the current one. I I know it worked like that at another client for a colleague. They like it and the contractors like it. Maybe there are some HR tosspots in some companies.

[Fungus]

HR have to justify their existence by putting in roadblocks after the initial thought of "we're getting big - perhaps we need an HR department" as they're usually useless clowns.

According to my manager hiring a contractor is much easier than hiring a permie because they do not have to deal with HR, who must have a say on who can be hired as a permie. The irony is that they've told me I can go permie if I want (I don't).

[malvolio]

I'm not quite a novice -- I've just managed to land a fairly large chunk of cash (enough to live on for 4 months) from direct marketing My employment contract (snigger) with their previous provider explicitly states that I shouldn't contact any of their clients for a year. 2 years later, a strategic competitive bid paid off

That'll teach them to have been assholes

Fine, well done. I just pulled £10k for 5 days off-line work. Ex-colleague of mine managed £2.4m for a one year improvement programme (I hate him with a passion - he applied my ideas to do it!). Some of the guys here get paid every week for something or another, although I can't imagine exacly what in some cases.

Not the point I'm making. You need a different mindset as a contractor, but you won't realise that until a few clients and agencies and fellow contractors have upset your plans. But it's fun finding out!