I got a contract!

[Carrie Cobol]

Maybe I'm doing this backward, but... it sounds great!  I do have a few questions for you experienced contractors.  It's a w2 basis with medical benefits but no paid vacation/sick time.  Good hourly rate that gets me $8000/year more than I'm currently making as a FTE or break even to make up for the loss of paid vacation.  I have no problems with the contracting terms, but am wondering how it works in sort of a practice way.  Specifically:

I would think that when you have to market yourself to find a new gig as the current one is ending, you can often take time between contracts for vacation.  But if you're in the type of arrangement where the contracts are usually automatically renewed with the client company, and I know that the time off would have to be negotiated with the client company, is it better to take a week off during the contract, or while it's being renegotiated?  Or does it not matter at all since there aren't any gaps between the contracts in this scenario?

The only reason I ask is that DH loves his vacations.  He'd be mighty put out if I couldn't go with him.  We like to take a week off at least once a year.

[The Gorn]

If you want to discuss specifics and details, I can move your thread to the private section. Let me know.

[Carrie Cobol]

No, but thanks.  Just waiting for the offer letter before I count my chickens.  That's why I was vague. 

[The Gorn]

Ok.

Offhand, you need to understand that there is substantially more risk associated with a contract (even a W2 one) than there is with a permanent job like you have now. Usually if you are already working, a contract is not a good deal for the worker unless there is a "risk premium" of substantially higher pay associated with the contract.

You have to accept the fact that you may be looking for a new contract in 1 year or two.  The pay has to be good enough to offset this possibility.

Unless, of course, there are extenuating circumstances here that make this contract more stable than most other contracts.

Congratulations on finding a contract in the first place. This should be a good data point for later. As far as the pay, IMO it is not good enough to abandon a steady job.

There is one other extenuating condition that I can think of. You have characterized your current job as a dead end, and your management essentially mocks your attempts to update. The risk here may be worth it if this contract will give you experience in something more marketable that you really want to learn.

If not, then it comes down to a pay and risk equation, and in my thinking your current job wins over this opportunity.

This is only my opinion, of course. Let's see what the others have to say.

[The Original Henry]

Maybe I'm just a purist, but a W2 gig and a contract gig are different things. There's no such thing as a W2 contract. You're either someone's employee or you're not.

It sounds to me like you found a temporary employment job that pays hourly. This doesn't sound very appetizing, but like GB said there may be extenuating circumstances that make it worth the trouble as a short-term stepping block to something better.

In a regular contracting scenario you would just take off whatever time you wanted and just not bill for it. Since you're not an employee in this case you wouldn't have to ask permission (although it is still polite to coordinate your absence beforehand). If you are indeed a temporary employee then you have the worst of both worlds - you're paid by the hour on a short-term basis AND you have the obligations of an employee to obtain permission to take time off.

[Carrie Cobol]

I admit I am a bit befuddled by the pay rates I've been quoted by various recruiters for contracts and full time jobs alike.  Basically I'm sticking with my home location, so understand that I'm geographically limited.  I've seen rates for business analysts between 50K/year (which I ignore) up to $100/year.  This particular contract is actually for a systems analyst, and the rate I negotiated is $55/hour or about $110K/year.  So not bad at all.  It's for one of the well known government agencies in the financial field, and I've been told that it's commonplace for them to renew their contractors each time without question when they are working on an ongoing project.  Basically one of those scenarios where you are essentially a FTE but the agency doesn't want to pay benefits so they outsource the staff.

As you said, the current gig is a dead end and the only future here is if I shut up and do exactly as I'm told and stop being uppity by trying to learn anything new.  My job at the current gig actually requires that I do the work of business analyst, systems analyst, developer, salesman, project manager, and help desk.  They don't pay me the equivalent of even two full time jobs, so it will be refreshing to cut my work down to the responsibilities of one job.
Plus the new gig is a mixture of migrating systems off legacy technology and new technology and web development.  Even though it's not a development job, I feel that it is essentially a step up on a logical career path.  It could broaden my skills for systems engineering jobs.  It could also work up to a project management job. 

[Carrie Cobol]

As I understand it, I'll be a W2 employee of the contracting firm, but working onsite at the client agency.  I've seen several jobs in this area quoted like that.  Is that odd or shady?

[The Gorn]

As I understand it, I'll be a W2 employee of the contracting firm, but working onsite at the client agency.  I've seen several jobs in this area quoted like that.  Is that odd or shady?

It's an extremely commonplace situation. I talked with quite a few consulting firms back in the mid 1990s and almost all of them pushed this type of arrangement.

As Henry noted, it's not really "contracting" for you. You're a contractor in the sense that the client can dismiss your services on a moment's notice, but that is a classical contracting risk. As far as the client is concerned you are an employee of their contractor/vendor, the consulting company. As far as the consulting company is concerned you are their employee. Any labor law compliance (like applying for unemployment) would have to come from the consulting company.

This is contracting - temp employment - in the sense that nobody has stated or implied in any way "this position is yours and is a long term situation." A direct job with an employer for whom you perform services and get paid is inherently stickier.

It sounds like the opportunity in terms of role and duties is a step forward for you. I am pretty conservative but in your current situation, since you explained what the new gig offers, it sounds pretty decent and I would be strongly considering it as a career move.

[Richardk]

So the move is good with more money, experience and long term potential.

To answer your question and get to what TOH is saying, there are two points of view.

• First "make hay while the sun is shinning" or in other words keep working and forget the vacations until the contract runs out.
• The other view is to work it like a job and schedule your vacations. Certainly if you're not working then some people view the vacation as lost income plus the expense of the vacation since many situations don't allow you to capture that "lost" income by working more before or after your vacation.

And that gets to TOH's point of what kind of contract is it?

Some companies recognize that you're independent and as long as the timing is good, you just tell them. The other extreme is that the company, managers, the broker, the brokers company all have to OK your "request". Often it's something in the middle. Some brokers don't care much as long as they know and others will go ballistic because you are now impacting their profit.

[Richardk]

This brings up another point after the contract ends. What do you put on your resume for the "Who" part?

You're technically employed by the broker but worked for the client.
Other brokers don't want to see their competitors on your resume.
Regardless of the arrangements your relationship is with the broker, not the client.

With all that said, my resume only lists the clients.

So far, so good but what about your company website? Here it would be a real stretch to list those same clients as yours. And you probably don't want to list brokers as clients either.

My suggestion is to add a clause to your contract that allows you to use the client's name under some conditions (like while at XXX) and do it now, not at the end of the contract.

I got this idea from some architects where this is apparently common but don’t have any wording for it. Does anyone else do this or have wording for it? Or any better ideas?

I ran into this issue after years of corp-to-corp contracts with brokers and suddenly realized that my company lacked clients since I didn’t want to list my competition but didn’t feel comfortable listing the end clients either.

[Peter Gibbons]

Government, Finance - this could turn out to be a very long gig.

[TechTalk]

It sounds to me like you will be a W-2 Contractor (your getting paid an hourly wage) who is working for a broker (a consulting firm) rather than being a salaried employee of the consulting firm.  In this particular situation the broker appears to be paying for your health and possibly disability insurance.  This situation is quite common.  The reality is that the consulting firm considers you to be a subcontractor (a temporary employee) on this project.  The consulting firm hired you as a W-2 employee because it is trying to prevent the IRS from carefully looking at your subcontract situation.

You Need To Keep The Following In Mind
Once this project has been completed the consulting firm will lay you off unless the following happens:
* You find another gig yourself and decide to continue your relationship with this consulting firm.
* The consulting firm likes you and their sales staff is able to find you another gig (possibly with the same client).

The client or consulting firm can fire you at a moments notice.  As you already mentioned here yourself in this post, you are NOT entitled to receive holiday, sick, or vacation pay.

I would imagine that everything depends on how well your future interview with the firm's client goes.  Until that time, I will hold off on my congratulations to you.  That said, I really do hope that your client interview goes well for you.  Moving away from the technical side of the IT industry is probably a very wise move on your part.

[DG9]

Government, Finance - this could turn out to be a very long gig.

I agree, normally in times like this I would say "a bird in the hand", but this sounds like a long shot with great potential.  But that might be the gambler in me talking, you would be putting it all on the line.  If you make the move, are you ready to be long term unemployed if the contract terminates after the first day in?  Seriously.  Also, when you give notice be ready for your current employer to try to sweeten your current deal to stay.  If you stay and take it, be ready to be canned as soon as they can slide in a cheaper replacement or distribute your current work to others.   Whatever you do it is a roll of the dice, maybe it would be best to ride this current gig out until you are ready to go greyhound?  Fun having choices....

OBTW, until you go to sign the actual contract you really won't know your rate....

[Carrie Cobol]

Yeah, I am breathlessly awaiting that offer letter to see what they do to the terms.  I'm not easily bs'ed by contract terminology - I tend to be suspicious - and I also have you guys to run by anything odd looking. 

However, I'm very optimistic about the new gig.  One of the projects I'll likely be assigned to has it's deadline next summer, so I think I have at least until then to count on as steady work.  At that point - totally guessing based on the financials market and the eyeballs watching this agency - ahem! - that point might be the make or break point for the agency.  It got sucked into the financial market mess and is struggling to get out.  At this point I'm sure you guys can guess it's one of the two well known government financial agencies, but I won't actually name names.   

Also, the projects are totally focussed on quality improvement, so they are actively trying to turn things around for themselves.  That's a big plus.  It would be great to work on a team that solved such a major problem and kept the place in business.  I told the interviewer that I'm more motivated by a sense of accomplishment than money, (which is true) and what a heck of an accomplishment that would be to help fix this agency, right?

If the contract does end next summer, that's okay I think.  I've been job hunting for about a whole year now, and even though I've been doing it while employed (which is easier) at least I'm in the swing of it again rather than coming back on the market after ten years and being stunned at how much it's changed.  And also there are hopes that by then the economy will be better and maybe employers will be less stupid with their laundry list of requirements and such.  I'm going to continue working on my club database website to keep my programming skills up and keep learning web development. 

After this year of job searching and seeing that 90% of the jobs posted these days are contracts, I think it's probably wise to simply accept that most IT jobs are going to be contracts.  Even if you get FTE status, these days they lay you off in 6 months to a year anyway, so at least if you have contractor status you know you'll have to get back on the market soon and it won't be such a betrayal.  Plus it seems to me that contractors are (politically) allowed to keep themselves visible on the market, while FTE's often get in trouble with management if they are found to have a resume out there.  (Depends on the company, of course.)

[JavaMouse]

Carrie, If the health insurance is important to you, be sure you check the terms. I was offered "health insurance" by one agency.  It had atrocious terms.

After this year of job searching and seeing that 90% of the jobs posted these days are contracts, I think it's probably wise to simply accept that most IT jobs are going to be contracts.  Even if you get FTE status, these days they lay you off in 6 months to a year anyway, so at least if you have contractor status you know you'll have to get back on the market soon and it won't be such a betrayal.

That may be regional. When hunting I saw plenty of FT positions.  A lot of them want to you temp-to-perm, which I've always been willing to do.

Personally, I don't need to be on a contract basis to understand that I can be laid off at any time. I've understood this since the late 90s when my father, an IT employee who had worked at his company for 30 years, was offered a "package" as incentive to retire.  He took it for fear he'd be laid off without any package later on.  Of course, my dad had a nice pension and health insurance coverage in his package.  For those of us who came later, "we're not in Kansas anymore."