Reply to: contract terminated, dealing with reference?

[NotAllThere]

max, not all there, sue ellen - not very nice. What are you, permies or something?

Since when has being a permie or a contractor had anything to do with being nice?

But, for the record, no. I'm not very nice. And I'm not a permie.

[TheFaQQer]

max, not all there, sue ellen - not very nice. What are you, permies or something?

May not be nice, but given the choice, who would you rather HMRC go after - you or someone else?

Unless hugebrain IS the person that they are complaining about, in which case, not nice.

[hugebrain]

Yep..there is a anonymous HMRC number you can call if you suspect someone is not paying their "fair" share.

max, not all there, sue ellen - not very nice. What are you, permies or something?

[rootsnall]

You were there for 12 months. I'd say that's a pretty good reference as if you were rubbish you'd have been out of the door a lot sooner.

On your CV describe the job as '12 month assignment including 3 contract extensions' etc etc, and then when asked for references say this client will not provide them and offer an alternative from another client. For the majority of contracts the reference process is informal to non existent in my experience and certainly nothing to lose sleep over.

[ChimpMaster]

You were there for 12 months. I'd say that's a pretty good reference as if you were rubbish you'd have been out of the door a lot sooner.

Very good point.

I would tend to agree. Just list the contract in your profile and don't worry about the references. Move on now.

[Zippy]

So, how important the references are, can the absence of a reference or a bad reference ruin one's career?

You were there for 12 months. I'd say that's a pretty good reference as if you were rubbish you'd have been out of the door a lot sooner.

[TheFaQQer]

This client does not have many permies, most appear to be contractors.
I have listed the assignment in my resume. I find that I cannot avoid mentioning about the client.

The recruiter told that the client, as per their policy, does not provide references anyway. If someone asks for references, the recruiter told he would confirm the dates of assignment. Will this be OK for me to move on?

So, how important the references are, can the absence of a reference or a bad reference ruin one's career?

I'm very rarely asked for references - certainly not as a "I need someone at your last place of work". You should never need more than two references anyway, which you should be able to pick - for example if this job was as a C# developer, and the one before that was Java struts, if the next one is Java then you'd want to give the most appropriate reference for the job.

A reference (or absence thereof) should really not make that much difference anyway.

[NotAllThere]

So, how important the references are,

Extremely unimportant.

can the absence of a reference or a bad reference ruin one's career?

No.

[affected]

IMHO, this approach lead to unnecessary confusions ...

Give an excuse (like, the manager is on holiday now) for not giving reference from this company ... If you have no option, then you can give a permie as a reference (of course, with their consent) ..

This client does not have many permies, most appear to be contractors.
I have listed the assignment in my resume. I find that I cannot avoid mentioning about the client.

The recruiter told that the client, as per their policy, does not provide references anyway. If someone asks for references, the recruiter told he would confirm the dates of assignment. Will this be OK for me to move on?

So, how important the references are, can the absence of a reference or a bad reference ruin one's career?

[affected]

If you are a business why arent you sueing them for breach of contract??

Wont your shareholders be up in arms over this?

Mailman

I am a small start-up, I cannot match with the mighty client. So, I wanted to just move on, and try for other contracts.

It appears that with one sided contracts having notice of termination available only to the client and not to the consultant, if the situation goes bad, it almost always have to end up as termination by the client. Painful, but a fact, because the client wants to keep that option, and not to provide the notice option to the consultant.

[SueEllen]

Nice and easy for you - 0800 788 887 (Lines are open Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm, Saturday and Sunday 8am to 4pm)

[max]

Go on. Shop him to the tax man.

Yep..there is a anonymous HMRC number you can call if you suspect someone is not paying their "fair" share.

[ChimpMaster]

Go on. Shop him to the tax man.

Good idea - given the conditions he is "employed" under and the working relationship he appears to have, this will be an easy target for HMRC...

[NotAllThere]

In fact the bully manager in the present case was a long-term contractor who had network with permies. This contractor was like a semi-permanent kind.....

Go on. Shop him to the tax man.

I sensed the trouble, but could not leave, as my contract does not give me right to give any notice of termination. I had no other option to wait. As expected, they terminated the contract just before core development was completed.

Sounds like excellent handling by you.

[TheFaQQer]

If you are a business why arent you sueing them for breach of contract??

Wont your shareholders be up in arms over this?

Mailman

I would imagine that the contract has something like "we can terminate if we aren't happy with your work" or similar.

You only get paid for what you work anyway, so they could just tell you not to come in rather than terminating the contract, which makes it harder to move on and get a new role since you are under contract there...