In my opinion, the only way you can survive as a longer term generalist contractor is to have a so called 'T-shaped' skills and experience profile. The top part of the T is the breadth of your skills/experience such as multiple sectors, different business areas, different technologies or business processes and different soft skills etc. This can be broad experience but not necessarily deep.
The vertical part is a specialisation which is where the depth comes in.
I have no current certifications but I've worked in a dozen industry sectors and around 25 organisations. I've also worked with every business function and have some experience in project management, business analysis, IT planning, financial management, innovation and communications to name a few disciplines.
However, I specialised in one type of role for the last 9 years of my perm career before I started contracting in the same type of role. In the last three years all that breadth of experience has eventually helped me to move into more general management IT roles. I'm currently a Head of IT which has become a much more generalist role in recent years. As a guide, generalists are more likely to work on the non-technical side.
It doesn't sound from your description that you have quite the breadth and depth of experience to be a generalist, especially given much of your experience has been on the support side. As others have said, it's likely to be a challenge for you.
Good luck though.
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Hmmm don't want to piss on your bonfire but what NLUK says is true, whilst a generalist has lots of use in an IT department it's not really what businesses are looking for when looking to bring in contract resource.
Normally their requirement is for someone skilled in a particular area who can hit the ground running and has a track record. That's not to say you can't up-skill before the leap but then you have the experience challenge.
I'm a PM but have lots of experience in particular sectors - although some would say that project management is a bit of a generalist skill my experience has been that businesses have been after people with a particular and proven history of delivery in their field.
Good luck whatever you choose but read up on all the newbie stuff here - it was invaluable to me 18 months ago when I made the leap.
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Originally posted by Urbanfox81 View PostHi folks,
I am new around these parts (clearly). I am currently in the land of permie but have been thinking about jumping on the good(!) ship contracting for a while. I have a few t's to cross and some i's to dot, but once done I think it may be something to look at even more seriously, and as is often the case I am here cap in hand asking for advice.
Always have a go at digging around first before asking general questions which might seem simple but are very difficult to answer completely.
I work in IT (vague). I've worked in IT for all of my working life, which is the last 21 years. I have held various roles ranging from the general dogsbody (age 16) to managing a small team of people (age 37) and managing clients on a daily basis. I have experience but no certs to back that up with. During my career I have done tech support roles for specialised software, infrastructure support, general IT support (deskside / working for an MSP) and also overseeing the IT for an international company, which included me running a project to move everything from on-prem into a cloud solution.
I feel that I am at a point now that I could put my skills to use in various contracting roles, but as you can probably deduce from the aforementioned, I do not specialise in anything. I am not adverse to a little risk and I have some money behind me should I be out of work for a while.
The problem is getting past the agents. They will be checking keywords in the requirements against your CV. You can bet your bottom dollar that there will be plenty of people out there that have done exactly what the agent wants for decades so the keywords will be all over the place. For you they will only appear in a short section where you did that work. The agent won't care about the rest and you'll go in the bin.
Questions;
I aware of some changes taking place to IR35 - is this a factor that should be considered going from Permie to Contract?
Is the IT market for Contracting too heavily saturated?
Would not specialising in something be a major disadvantage?
As a new entry in the Contracting world, is there a day rate that I should aim for?
Sorry for sounding negative but we live of our skills. If those skills aren't there, by the nature of contracting, you are going to have a bit of a tough time. It's possible, for periods of time, but I wouldn't be comfortable with it.
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Hello!
Hi folks,
I am new around these parts (clearly). I am currently in the land of permie but have been thinking about jumping on the good(!) ship contracting for a while. I have a few t's to cross and some i's to dot, but once done I think it may be something to look at even more seriously, and as is often the case I am here cap in hand asking for advice.
Firstly a little bit about me;
I work in IT (vague). I've worked in IT for all of my working life, which is the last 21 years. I have held various roles ranging from the general dogsbody (age 16) to managing a small team of people (age 37) and managing clients on a daily basis. I have experience but no certs to back that up with. During my career I have done tech support roles for specialised software, infrastructure support, general IT support (deskside / working for an MSP) and also overseeing the IT for an international company, which included me running a project to move everything from on-prem into a cloud solution.
I feel that I am at a point now that I could put my skills to use in various contracting roles, but as you can probably deduce from the aforementioned, I do not specialise in anything. I am not adverse to a little risk and I have some money behind me should I be out of work for a while.
Questions;
I aware of some changes taking place to IR35 - is this a factor that should be considered going from Permie to Contract?
Is the IT market for Contracting too heavily saturated?
Would not specialising in something be a major disadvantage?
As a new entry in the Contracting world, is there a day rate that I should aim for?
Thank you for reading, your time, patience and advice. Apologies for probably going over old ground.Tags: None
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