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The problem from the opposite perspective: I found myself outgrowing jobs faster than would look good on my C.V. (I hear job hoppers aren't popular as employees

The problem from the opposite perspective: I found myself outgrowing jobs faster than would look good on my C.V. (I hear job hoppers aren't popular as employees). I ended up going down the contractor/consultant route; for some reason, nobody seems to have a problem with job hopping as long as you call it consulting. I guess there are no false pretenses and it avoids the legal baggage that comes with being an employee (notice periods, arbitrary holiday limits, etc.). It also makes me more money, at least now, ~2 years later.

pavel_lishin 17y ago
Hiring someone costs the company a lot of overhead, whether you work out or not. A contractor can be fired without incurring a lot of overhead. So if you job-hop quickly, companies might be a little wary of spending a lot of money to bring you in only to have you scadaddle off after three months.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  Is it really so much more expensive to hire someone than to find a contractor, though? In theory, you don't have the risk - if they don't deliver, you don't pay - but in practice money isn't the only resource you're wasting with a bad hire, it's time too. Missed deadlines can be extremely costly. So you need to vet your contractors almost as much as your employees. OK, depending on where you are, hiring an employee can drag you into a ton of legal obligation (as I mentioned in my original post) but typically that burden is reduced if the employee doesn't stay for too long. So as long as the company knows what they're getting into, I'm not sure why hiring a mediocre performer for all eternity is preferable to an overachiever who gets bored after a couple of months but hits the ground running. Sure, someone has to stay longer term, but that could be a pretty lean team. I guess it's assumed that people job-hop because they're not good enough to hold down a job, and it's assumed that contractors know what they're doing. Why is that? You choose your contractors based on their reputation. You should be doing the same for your employees anyway. FWIW, it may sound like it, but I'm not arguing out of some kind of bitterness here, I quite enjoy contracting because it means I always work on something that is important to the customer - I'm just genuinely curious why such different standards are applied, and if that's rational and sensible.
  - count 17y ago
    You can sue and possibly recoup some of your sunk cost from a shitty contractor. You can't really do much more than fire a shitty employee.
    - lsc 17y ago
      This is about as realistic as choosing Microsoft over Linux because there is 'someone to sue if something goes wrong' - The chances of successfully suing your contractor and recovering anything after lawyer fees are almost zero. The advantage of the contractor is that most companies have policies that make it more difficult to fire full time people than to fire contractors. Sure, in an at-will state, if you hire an employee, you can technically fire them the next day, but most companies don't work that way. Most companies do, however, have the ability to fire contractors the next day. The advantage of hiring a contractor is that it's easier to cut your losses if you are stuck with policies that make it hard to fire your regular employees at the drop of a hat. We're expecting to get let go when the job is done, or if you don't like us, so generally we aren't as offended either.
ShabbyDoo 17y ago
The stigma of a series of short employment stints on a resume allows one's willingness to "commit" to a full-time job to serve as a signaling mechanism. Because the potential hire knows he will incur a cost for leaving the job too soon, he must therefore think his likelihood of departure to be relatively low if he accepts the role. Either that, or he's really desperate and has applied a high discount factor to the longer-term resume hit. "Consulting" is just a bi-directional signal that only short-term commitment is required (and from a legal standpoint, a transfer of risk to the contractor). I once worked for a company which, by implying through its actions that life-long employment was possible, was able to convince IT employees to accept new roles such as software maintenance that would have a detrimental medium-term effect on their employability elsewhere. To keep up this system of incentives, inept long-timers were put out to pasture rather than fired -- a signal to those fearing market irrelevance that their own risks were bounded. Offenses entirely under one's own control such as stealing would still result in termination; Because others would not change their own risk assessments as a result and the company had to deter others from such mis-deeds, similar signaling was not required. It was notable that those put out to pasture could end-up fired later if they complained too much about their newfound state of affairs -- a strong signal to shut up and take it. Needless to say, this was not a happy place.

pavel_lishin 17y ago

Hiring someone costs the company a lot of overhead, whether you work out or not. A contractor can be fired without incurring a lot of overhead. So if you job-hop quickly, companies might be a little wary of spending a lot of money to bring you in only to have you scadaddle off after three months.

pmjordan 17y ago
Is it really so much more expensive to hire someone than to find a contractor, though? In theory, you don't have the risk - if they don't deliver, you don't pay - but in practice money isn't the only resource you're wasting with a bad hire, it's time too. Missed deadlines can be extremely costly. So you need to vet your contractors almost as much as your employees. OK, depending on where you are, hiring an employee can drag you into a ton of legal obligation (as I mentioned in my original post) but typically that burden is reduced if the employee doesn't stay for too long. So as long as the company knows what they're getting into, I'm not sure why hiring a mediocre performer for all eternity is preferable to an overachiever who gets bored after a couple of months but hits the ground running. Sure, someone has to stay longer term, but that could be a pretty lean team. I guess it's assumed that people job-hop because they're not good enough to hold down a job, and it's assumed that contractors know what they're doing. Why is that? You choose your contractors based on their reputation. You should be doing the same for your employees anyway. FWIW, it may sound like it, but I'm not arguing out of some kind of bitterness here, I quite enjoy contracting because it means I always work on something that is important to the customer - I'm just genuinely curious why such different standards are applied, and if that's rational and sensible.
- count 17y ago
  You can sue and possibly recoup some of your sunk cost from a shitty contractor. You can't really do much more than fire a shitty employee.
  - lsc 17y ago
    This is about as realistic as choosing Microsoft over Linux because there is 'someone to sue if something goes wrong' - The chances of successfully suing your contractor and recovering anything after lawyer fees are almost zero. The advantage of the contractor is that most companies have policies that make it more difficult to fire full time people than to fire contractors. Sure, in an at-will state, if you hire an employee, you can technically fire them the next day, but most companies don't work that way. Most companies do, however, have the ability to fire contractors the next day. The advantage of hiring a contractor is that it's easier to cut your losses if you are stuck with policies that make it hard to fire your regular employees at the drop of a hat. We're expecting to get let go when the job is done, or if you don't like us, so generally we aren't as offended either.

ShabbyDoo 17y ago

The stigma of a series of short employment stints on a resume allows one's willingness to "commit" to a full-time job to serve as a signaling mechanism. Because the potential hire knows he will incur a cost for leaving the job too soon, he must therefore think his likelihood of departure to be relatively low if he accepts the role. Either that, or he's really desperate and has applied a high discount factor to the longer-term resume hit. "Consulting" is just a bi-directional signal that only short-term commitment is required (and from a legal standpoint, a transfer of risk to the contractor). I once worked for a company which, by implying through its actions that life-long employment was possible, was able to convince IT employees to accept new roles such as software maintenance that would have a detrimental medium-term effect on their employability elsewhere. To keep up this system of incentives, inept long-timers were put out to pasture rather than fired -- a signal to those fearing market irrelevance that their own risks were bounded. Offenses entirely under one's own control such as stealing would still result in termination; Because others would not change their own risk assessments as a result and the company had to deter others from such mis-deeds, similar signaling was not required. It was notable that those put out to pasture could end-up fired later if they complained too much about their newfound state of affairs -- a strong signal to shut up and take it. Needless to say, this was not a happy place.