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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

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.

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.