Reply to: No contract until start date!?!

[hattra]

Verbal Contract

Theoretically, if you start without a written contract, you (and they) are bound by what has been verbally agreed, and as supported by any other written evidence, like the job advert, any correspondence between the parties, etc. (Which is why its good to have a general set of Ts & Cs that you can email off at the beginning of serious negotiations)

If you answer an advert for a VC++ contract, agree to do it, and then get put onto something else, and start without a written contract, then the other party cannot hold you to any notice terms etc. or other conditions that they impose retrospectively. Of course, you also cannot force them to give you VC++ work, so all you can do is either walk, or take them to Court for compensation (which I wouldn't recommend, particularly if you are only supplying services, as it probably wouldn't be worth it).

Of course, if they then produce an unacceptable written contract, and you simply turn up at work, without stating which bits you disagree with, in writing, then I suspect that any Court would simply say that you had implicitly accepted the new written contract

[bfg]

I would never start before a signed contract was in place

Read your PI and PL insurances, no contract in place and you're not covered for a start!

[ASB]

I would not recommend to anyone to work with Hays.

I guess it's easy to say that if you have had a bad experience. I had to route a contract through to Hays lasy year due to the clients policy. I had absolutely no problem with them. They also also gave me a decent contract.

A previous contract at the same client I had to route through Alexander Mann. I had no problems with them either.

Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe you were just unlucky.

[pippo]

I've also had bad experience with Hays while working on a 6 months contract at an investment bank (Merrill Lynch). Because of that experience and the arrogant and unprofessional way I was treated (especially by Hays but also by Merrill Lynch) I will try and do my best to never work with these 2 companies again in the future.

After the interview, which was successfull, I was asked by Hays (through my agency) to provide them with 5 years of work references plus 2 personal references. It was the first time in my contracting experience that I was asked to provide so many references and at first I did not want to do it. But my agency pushed a bit and at the end I provided the references, which was a task on its own as some people I worked with 5 years before were not working in those companies any longer... The reason I was given why I had to provide so many references was that I had a 3 months gap in my CV! I now understand how stupid I was to accept that and if this happened to me today I would tell them to "**** off" big time, no matter what! But hey I guess it's part of the contracting experience, you learn from your past mistakes.

The actual contract was not provided to me after around 1 week I had already started work. I complained about this to Merrill Lynch but the impression I've got was that there was not much they could (or want?) do about it. When I went to Hays to get the contract their representative treated me in a very arrogant and unprofessional way. He even signed the contract where it should have been my agency to sign it. Basically it all seemed very un-professional (if not dodgy) to me.

Apart from having felt mistreated myself, I now realize that by having accepted Hays conditions I somehow "legitimated" them and gave them strength. I mean if I said NO then it would have at least been 1 more contractor to stand up to them and I would have done my bit to try and stop these practices by the likes of Hays and the big banks.

I would not recommend to anyone to work with Hays.

[The Lone Gunman]

Bob: Many of us start without contracts but usualy put a proviso of "subject to contract".

I read another forum which mentioned a similar problem. The solution there was to issue a set of your own terms which states that those terms prevail until an agreed set is put in place. As long as you are sensible you should get away with that.

[bobsmithldn]

messiah, sorry to hear of your experience.

The Hays contract is a temp contract ... undescribably bad ...

[messiah]

hmmmm sounds like a possible scam..

Right got an offer (albeit verbal) from a bank. Agent said that the outsourced HR team (Hays IT) will provide the contract on the first day ("as it may take a while to get references from the bank") ... cr*p ...

Never heard of this practice and not willing to take the risk - he says that Hays do this at JP Morgan and UBS ...

Sounds like bollo**s to me ...

Anyone had any such experience as getting bad vibes from this agent and the whole situation ...

Thoughts appreciated as never heard of such a potential scam ...

I got this at a large company named R*uters. Basically the manager lied to me at the interview, he told me it was a VC++ development role -unfortunately for me. instead he put me on 3.5 months worth of solid VAX/VMS operational testing. Funnily enough the contract was sent to me on the day I started the contract (it was delayed), they also had a policy where it was 1 YEARS notice to leave on my side and 2 weeks on there side.

Suffice to say I walked out after 4 months there of being tricked. The manager thinking he was cunning and had put me into a complete hole started getting abusive. I just walked into out into another contract. Another contractor on the same team got the same treatment and he walked out also. The manager there also had a few FTVs which he would use to get anal about my test results documents, man its was like living in a hell, I could not see flaws in my work and I saw it as jealousy or racism directed towards me.

Moral of the story: Contracts with unfair terms which are handed to you last minute for signing when you start a job are often an indicator of a terrible place to work. I was taken hook, line and sinker.

Never again R*uters. (And also the other contractor complained to HR there about the situation and they said it was nothing to do with them - so it was ok to misrepresent jobs they had to offer and mislead the public in the market)

[snaw]

Wrong! Wrong!! and wrong!!! I too have done a recent stretch with JP and I have some friends still contracting there. All agents will tell you that they are preferred suppliers. Out of eight contractors in the team there were six different agents, Each department in JP has some autonomy in selecting agents so the policies will vary. There were delays in engaging some of the contractors due to the credit and security checks. However what surprised me was that one of the contractors was a FTV Arab who produced a piece of paper saying he was checked in his own country. HR accepted that.

Funny that, cause I got forced off my long standing agent after 1 1/2 years and put on the books of one of two preffered, as did everyone else who I knew contracting their (AN I left just over 2 months ago), by JP Morgan (The whole vendor one b0llocks). Maybe different depts have different policies in IT that's how it was for everyone.

[The Master]

Well I'm JP Morgan and I say you're all wrong. Most of the contractors there have been replaced with Dalek duplicates and are awaiting the activiation signal to take over your western capitalist insitutions.

No, that's just what I want you to think. Stupid tin-plated pepperpots. Still, you serve your purpose.

> evil chuckle <

[A shed load of Daleks]

Well I'm JP Morgan and I say you're all wrong. Most of the contractors there have been replaced with Dalek duplicates and are awaiting the activiation signal to take over your western capitalist insitutions.

They are not with us - we are embedded in the retail banking sector

[bobsmithldn]

B0llocks - I just spent two years working at JP Morgan and while they do check refrences they don't hold contracts up for it. Plus I also know JP Morgan now only use two agencies and Hay's wasn't one of them (Least not 3 months ago when I left).

Was MC Partners one of them?

Hays are the outsourced HR people in at JPM.

[Emperor Dalek]

Wrong! Wrong!! and wrong!!! I too have done a recent stretch with JP and I have some friends still contracting there. All agents will tell you that they are preferred suppliers. Out of eight contractors in the team there were six different agents, Each department in JP has some autonomy in selecting agents so the policies will vary. There were delays in engaging some of the contractors due to the credit and security checks. However what surprised me was that one of the contractors was a FTV Arab who produced a piece of paper saying he was checked in his own country. HR accepted that.

Well I'm JP Morgan and I say you're all wrong. Most of the contractors there have been replaced with Dalek duplicates and are awaiting the activiation signal to take over your western capitalist insitutions.

[Clog II The Avenger]

B0llocks - I just spent two years working at JP Morgan and while they do check refrences they don't hold contracts up for it. Plus I also know JP Morgan now only use two agencies and Hay's wasn't one of them (Least not 3 months ago when I left).

Wrong! Wrong!! and wrong!!! I too have done a recent stretch with JP and I have some friends still contracting there. All agents will tell you that they are preferred suppliers. Out of eight contractors in the team there were six different agents, Each department in JP has some autonomy in selecting agents so the policies will vary. There were delays in engaging some of the contractors due to the credit and security checks. However what surprised me was that one of the contractors was a FTV Arab who produced a piece of paper saying he was checked in his own country. HR accepted that.

[snaw]

B0llocks - I just spent two years working at JP Morgan and while they do check refrences they don't hold contracts up for it. Plus I also know JP Morgan now only use two agencies and Hay's wasn't one of them (Least not 3 months ago when I left).

[bobsmithldn]

Been dealing with Hays via another agent - I'm already fed up after 1 week and thinking about forgetting the whole thing ...