Reply to: Making the switch

[Mehmeh]

I also planned to travel after building up funds when I started out but soon developed a taste for the money and could never bring myself to turn money down and go travelling

That's starting to sound familiar to me too. Only been contracting 2 years and starting to see travelling as X months not taking my daily rate..

[realityhack]

As a supplement to some good advice above, and having been in the position where I've had to hire a few PHP devs in the past...

Honings your skills is one thing, but unless you've a few portfolio sites to show for it, a prospective client will find it hard to take your skills 'on faith'. So make sure you have at least 6 or 7 good, live examples of your work, using different frameworks ideally, and for a variety of applications.

Having those links (whether for your current employer, or ideally for a range of clients) in your cv matters more than your claims about your skills.

Be specific about your involvement in the portfolio pieces you link to. Be prepared to answer any questions about them at interview, including design constraints, ways you'd have improved them etc.

Associated skillsets to a good confidence level, market knowledge for your chosen sector and some USP about what you can bring to the party above any other PHP monkey is also a plus.

My tuppence worth, but differentiate yourself, and provide evidence for it.

[lukemg]

Go and get a contract FIRST - tell agent/client you are immediately available as you are being made redundant and they would be happy to let you leave.
WHEN you have the job, go and tell the company, negotiate an early leaving date - Most places would be glad for you to go, anyone hanging about after a week does nothing and disrupts the rest.
If they cause grief, just walk, go sick if they chase you.

The ONLY thing you have to think about is getting the job EVERYTHING else will sort itself.

[Bunk]

Sips lager and waits patiently for Prickles to arrive.

Why? Are there laydeez here?

[DS23]

wcs.

do some research and find the best skills to hone whilst as a permanent employee with a view to contracting those skills out using one of the exit approaches chef describes above.

find out what clients are asking for now and likely to be asking for in the future and get as tulip hot as you can. niche means risk and travel but good rates. broad means more contracts, less travel and lower rates.

balance those out as per your options / needs and go for it.

[Pondlife]

Sips lager and waits patiently for Prickles to arrive.

[MarillionFan]

I can't advise on your chances with that skillset as it's out of my sphere but can give you some fatherly advice, asuming you are a lot younger than me.

I also planned to travel after building up funds when I started out but soon developed a taste for the money and could never bring myself to turn money down and go travelling, as a result I never did and won't now until the kids have left home and I am no longer as sprightly as I would have been.

So my advice would be, jack your job in and go see the world. Chances are that UK plc will still be in same mess when you get back and who knows, your life might take a whole new direction.

Bon voyage!

and let me give you some advice. I also got used to the cash, but did go travelling. I applied for my Australia work visa a week before my 31st birthday. Then I triggered it a year later just before my 32nd and did my travelling then. The only downside was I did go travelling with a group of people who were all skint and wanted to stay in the cheapest accomodation. Which was fine with me.

So they stayed in shacks and I stayed in places with aircon/hot water.

Money talks baby!

[chef]

As others have said it's a big risk to wonder if it's worth jumping into contracting right now but as Admin said, it may just be the right time. As Owlhoot said it really depends on your skill set.

However, to answer part of your original post, there are really only 3 ways you can switch from permie to contracting..

1) Hand in your notice, search like mad for a role, pray that you're tulip hot in comparisson to the most likely large amount of others that are applying for the same role, bearing in mind that they will most likely have years most contracting experience than you, most would have been honing their skills during their benchtime and depending on their desperation might take a contract for lower than market rates simply to stoptheir war chest bleeding money.If you manage to overcome all that in the 4 week window or before whatever savings you have are depleted then congratulations your officially a contractor.

2) Search hard now while in Permie world, look at what other skills most contracts in your area are looking for, learn those skills in your spare time and when a contract comes along you believe you are suited for, jump through the hoops of telephone interviews, face interviews and possibly SC Clearance checks and then negotiate to start in 10 days/2weeks AND ONLY WHEN the contract is in front of you and you have put pen to paper do you walk into permie managers office, tell them you are handing in your notice and that as you have 2 weeks holiday unused your 4 week notice period is effectively 2 working weeks (adjust to your actual holiday) and congratulations you're a contractor.

3) Search and get a contract as in 2), once you've got it and the client will not budge on the immediate start you sign the contract, walk into permie managers office and either
a) punch him in the face, walk out
b) tell him you're a contractor now and although you have 4 weeks notice you quit due to bullying reasons
c) burst out crying saying you cant take it anymore, leave sobbing, call in 2 days time to say you have been to the doctors/spoken with wifey and decide you really can't return due to job stress, you hereby give 4 weeks notice and have a signed docs note to say you are off with stress for the next 4 weeks

If it helps, I do actually know someone who decided 3c was the best way to go when swapping permie jobs, she got away with it aswell.


Another thing you mention is that you want to go travelling. That's all fine and well assuming your contract is 3 months, however, what happens if you get a renewal? would you walk away from it to go travelling or continue working.

Unfortunately the job market right now isn't in the sort of state whereby you can dictate terms to clients, ESPECIALLY if your new to it all, so stating that you would take the 6 month contract but you are only available for 3 months is not posisble and taking an extended holiday mid contract would almost guarantee you not to have a contract to return to afterwards.

Stick around and let us know how you get on.

[rootsnall]

Wow! Understatement of the year.

I'm fairly certain if you hung around with Charlie Manson for a few years he wouldn't seem as Loonie as Mr Loonie from Loony town.

Amazing how a little success changes opinions hey.

You are probably right ! I've been taken in.

The observation is based on the one and only loony exchange I got involved in a few years back. I vowed never again, and have stuck to it.

[singhr]

I can't advise on your chances with that skillset as it's out of my sphere but can give you some fatherly advice, asuming you are a lot younger than me.

I also planned to travel after building up funds when I started out but soon developed a taste for the money and could never bring myself to turn money down and go travelling, as a result I never did and won't now until the kids have left home and I am no longer as sprightly as I would have been.

So my advice would be, jack your job in and go see the world. Chances are that UK plc will still be in same mess when you get back and who knows, your life might take a whole new direction.

Bon voyage!

[MarillionFan]

He doesn't seem as loony as a few years ago. Is it the same person ? Or has somebody got their sockies mixed up ?

Wow! Understatement of the year.

I'm fairly certain if you hung around with Charlie Manson for a few years he wouldn't seem as Loonie as Mr Loonie from Loony town.

Amazing how a little success changes opinions hey.

[rootsnall]

check out the posts by resident loony AtW

He doesn't seem as loony as a few years ago. Is it the same person ? Or has somebody got their sockies mixed up ?

[OwlHoot]

Isn't that what AtW was after? OP, check out the posts by resident loony AtW he has a PHP role available(I believe).

It was a perl + Catalyst role he mentioned yesterday, and we've been in contact. But, without wanting to sound pompous, it would be improper for me (or him) to publicly discuss any negotations between us.

edit: Oops, sorry, I see now you were replying to the OP.

[MarillionFan]

Tom, I'll try and be a bit more positive.

PHP contracts seem to be doing better than most; but even they are very thin on the ground, and I imagine the competition must be fierce. Also, contract rates for PHP are low, bordering on derisory in many cases, because it's widely seen as a hacker's "toy" language.

Your best chance is to have had experience of packages and development environments that go with PHP, especially niche areas. But of course then its a balance between having less competition v less contracts coming up, perhaps none for weeks on end.

Also, as PHP is mostly used in web development (which I think you said you've been doing), you'll need to be red hot in all the other skills such as XHTML, Javascript, Ajax, CSS, Photoshop, etc, to maximize your chances.

If you have mostly been working with PHP itself, and tending to leave all that front-end webby stuff to others (and that often happens), then your chances of bagging a web development contract will be considerably reduced.

Isn't that what AtW was after? OP, check out the posts by resident loony AtW he has a PHP role available(I believe).

[MarillionFan]

It doesn't really help. You have compared apples with pears which is about as useful to the OP as a chocolate firegaurd. Highlighted some words which make your advice irrelavant based on the information in the original post.

They're both fruits me old fruit!