Reply to: Direct v Agency

[rodney266]

@rodney there are plenty of French nationals in London. Worked with a few who stated theywill never return to France whilst working.

Yes I've read this many times from french expatriate web pages.
I think I'll be in the same case.

Half of my family commes from northern Ireland, near Belfast, and the other half commes from Hungary, and I could have the British nationality at 18.

I never knew what was my strongest influence, was it to live in France, or was it to be educated by a British/Hungarian family ? but I'm not supprised that I'm going to UK now, since I've never agreed to adapt myself to the French system. (fired from public school, never agreed to get an engineer degree because they are all obsessed they're degree, and as a contractor saying what I think to the great engineer when the project has gone straigth into the wall and they want me to act as a scapegoat.)

( In fact the truth is that French guys put me into a boat and said "go, we don't want to see you anymore, go to UK, live us alone" ...)

Happy new year...

[No2politics]

Good man.

Although you will soon discover that it is far easier to get from Paris to London than from London to Edinburgh.

Good luck for 2015. And if your spoken English is as good as your written English then you have nothing to worry about.

Easy jet do flights from luton to edinburgh which takes 1 hour exactly. , and if u book early enough can get some decent prices (60-80 quid return)

[SueEllen]

@rodney there are plenty of French nationals in London. Worked with a few who stated theywill never return to France whilst working.

[tomtomagain]

Well in fact this is exactly what I'm doing. I'll be in London at the beginning of January

I don't know how things will go on,
In my dreams I get contract, buy myself a little house in Scotland to rest myself and work on my personal projects between two contracts, and I take rents to the missions location during the rest of the time and everything is ok.
In my nightmare I get no job because there is a big 9 months gap now on my CV, because I've only done contract in France, because I don't speak good english enough, and so on..., and so on.

Time will tell.

Good man.

Although you will soon discover that it is far easier to get from Paris to London than from London to Edinburgh.

Good luck for 2015. And if your spoken English is as good as your written English then you have nothing to worry about.

[rodney266]

Get on the train to the UK.

Well in fact this is exactly what I'm doing. I'll be in London at the beginning of January

I don't know how things will go on,
In my dreams I get contract, buy myself a little house in Scotland to rest myself and work on my personal projects between two contracts, and I take rents to the missions location during the rest of the time and everything is ok.
In my nightmare I get no job because there is a big 9 months gap now on my CV, because I've only done contract in France, because I don't speak good english enough, and so on..., and so on.

Time will tell.

[tomtomagain]

What do you think is the futur of basic a contractor ?

Get on the train to the UK.

[SueEllen]

Rodney I noticed you are in France not the UK where the tax regime is different. In the UK if you aren't spendthift and have had a decent number of contracts over the years you shouldn't need to wind your company up after 8 months of not being in a contract. In fact you as a director can claim JSA when company funds get down to £16,000 if you are out of a contract.

Anyway I personally know contractors who have worked since the late 80's/early 90's who have used a mixture of going direct and agencies. Due to the technologies they use there aren't many younger European based people who have experience in them so being old isn't a disadvantage. The companies are left with a choice of either outsourcing the work outside the EU or using an older contractor. For the companies using an agency makes it easier for them. All the contractors know each other so if the companies want to hire someone direct it's not hard to find someone. The companies just don't want to do it.

In regards to companies discriminating on things - clients do that anyway. Some don't realise they are doing it, others are openly aware and others takes steps to avoid it. (If you have helped with recruitment you get to see some weird discrimination i.e. not wanting people educated in certain countries, not wanting older men but fine with older women) The only difference in going direct is that if they don't want you they say something polite to avoid engaging you.

[rodney266]

If I may, I think it's dangerous to work through intermediaries all the time because at the end you don't build anything for yourself.

Most of the business is: get a guy, not too young, not too old, who has the necessary skills, and at the cheapest price.
In fact we're becomming just globalisation objects, and work is organized to setup projects with profils very easy to replace.

When the market is good, everybody has work, when the market gets bad, you better not be at the end of the list because
you can get out of work for very long periods of time. And then what do you do if you don't have customers of your own ?

When you work for your own costumers, they prefer to work with you because they know you, trust you and that's
because you've probably made the proof that your good in what you're doing, also it's cheaper for customer's to work repeatedly
with the same person because you already know the customer's projects, and you can make software evolutions quicker
and safer than anyone else.

It's exactly the opposite of doing contracts with intermediaries where the work is vey impersonal (an age, a set of skill,
a price, but not a person).

Concerning payment, if you have 2 ou 3 customers, and find a new one each year, then if one pays late it's not
a real problem because you've already 50% of your turnover made each year, costumer may pay late the last invoice but they
always pay because they don't want to go to court with you anayway.

I've been contracting in France for 10 years, I first worked for my own customers, I've done my best projects there, using the
technology I wanted, nobody to direct or control me, just having to do reporting to the customers. It made me want to have a
contractor life.
Then, IT consulting company came over and asked me to do contract for them in major firms. Because the projects where interesting
and it sounds like a promotion I started to work like this, and I was successfull, many years.
But now the market has turn bad and there is not enough work for everybody.

Do you know what is said to me or to the recruit agent that sends me to an interview ?

"Could we have a younger contractor ?"
"Yes, definitively, he's an expert, but...hum... we found he's not very creative"
"He's profile is very interesting, but... we prefer a less experienced people"

I had no contract for 8 month and I closed my limited company, looking for a permanent position, and there is not a day where
I'm not saying to myself, working with intermediaries is a dead end.

What do you think is the futur of basic a contractor ?

[tomtomagain]

The OP was asking for advice...

And he was given balanced advice.

I have never had a problem going direct . Save all the rest of your babble

I'll babble all I want. That's why forums were invented.

[yasockie]

Why refer to the RC as a pimp? Do you see yourself as a powerless prostitute? It's an odd mindset to have.

And more to the point .. they don't have a problem. They'll just go and find someone else to do the role.

In a country where prostitution is run underground, there is a lot of crime and violence as pimps install themselves as middlemen, the quality of service is inferior, higher risk of STV etc
In countries where prostitution is a professional like any other, you generally get a better quality of service but more importantly prostitutes take better care of themselves - pay into pension fund etc...

I were to drive this analogy further, I'd say any middle layer for B2B services should be entirely optional, only if both parties felt they needed additional escrow. Ideally we'd have some law saying that you can go direct if you want to.

In a situation with niche skills, I was driving a hard line with the agent. He didn't like it and did not pass my CV along. I'm in another contract, but the client is still looking for the right candidate, blissfully unaware that I would have been thrilled to work for them. How is an agent providing any value to anyone in that situation?

[Avalonia]

I'd go direct again in a shot . I'm sure there are lots of scary scenarios you can dream up and scary anecdotes . I never had a problem.

[colinrobinson]

I have had several direct contracts and never had a problem . Spend a bit of time building a relationship with accounts .
There is no downside being direct . Only the pimps have a problem

An issue with direct non payment is the debt mounts up very quickly. assume a contract of 10k a month and 30 day terms. you work 30 days. and raise an invoice you've worked another 30 days before any payment is due your down -20k, you make enquiries about payment if your brave enough, most wait a week for resolution. you should then stop working till paid (but that will cost you) assuming you've racked up expenses travel hotel etc and credit card cos your getting paid soon. you decide to give it another month having accepted excuses for the delays. if it turns into a bad debt and you don't get paid you could easily be down 50k. your next contract has got to absorb this cost and pay you a living ..

It applies to agencies not paying equally but you can be more threatening with an agency without jeopardising the actual contract.

I choose to let the agency absorb the 30 day terms and insist on payment on timesheet submission weekly with the agency.

[Avalonia]

That doesn't mean there isn't any additional risk - as has been described by several of the posters on this thread already.



Why refer to the RC as a pimp? Do you see yourself as a powerless prostitute? It's an odd mindset to have.

And more to the point .. they don't have a problem. They'll just go and find someone else to do the role.

The OP was asking for advice... I have never had a problem going direct . Save all the rest of your babble

[tomtomagain]

I have had several direct contracts and never had a problem .

That doesn't mean there isn't any additional risk - as has been described by several of the posters on this thread already.

Only the pimps have a problem

Why refer to the RC as a pimp? Do you see yourself as a powerless prostitute? It's an odd mindset to have.

And more to the point .. they don't have a problem. They'll just go and find someone else to do the role.

[Avalonia]

Many, in fact, I'd say the majority of clients do not want the hassle of direct contractors. They'd rather outsource all the admin to an agency.

Id also say there have been plenty of horror stories on here of contractors going direct and having difficulty getting paid. Having a war chest doesnt isolate you from the worry of not getting paid in full. It only acts as a buffer against delayed payment which can be something totally different.

I have had several direct contracts and never had a problem . Spend a bit of time building a relationship with accounts .
There is no downside being direct . Only the pimps have a problem