5 ms·
huh. Interesting. The thing is? I have no trouble at all getting freelancing or "contract" work where I'm paid by the hour, and where I'm expected to pretend
by lsc 13y ago
huh. Interesting.
The thing is? I have no trouble at all getting freelancing or "contract" work where I'm paid by the hour, and where I'm expected to pretend like I want to be a full time employee.
I mean, other than the pretending, I have no objections; usually the work is easy and the pay is good.
The thing is, I like mercenary work, and I'm good at it (Most of the gigs I've gotten, well, they seem to be looking for someone who wants full-time work but can't get it without contracting for a while first. Generally speaking? I am better than most people who can't get full-time work, and way better than most people who can't get full-time work, but who can pass the contracting interview process.)
I have a business (and a business licence, and a corporation, and employees, and health +workers compensation insurance, and actually rather more revenue from hosting/VPS customers than I could reasonably expect to make from consulting) - but I still don't have whatever it takes to get larger or more monied companies to hire me as a company, rather than as a freelancer.
It's... odd, 'cause generally speaking? I don't hire people who aren't better than me. If you can hire my company, rather than me? even if you are paying rather more, you are getting a significantly better product.
Now, you could say, the primary difference is that when freelancing, often I use a body shop. Which could be the case; but more than once, I've had a manager call me back after I've left and negotiate a new deal (that he then takes to the body shop) so I guess I'm a little unclear on what value the body shop is bringing the client, so I have no idea how to go about replacing them for my corporation. (the body shop is bringing me value in the form of giving me access to clients who won't do business with my small company.)
Edit: note, I /can/ get gigs without a body shop, and flat-rate gigs, too... but... the people I can sell to directly? Generally speaking, they have... much smaller budgets. To the point where I end up making less money. A whole lot less money.
So, that's my problem; it seems that the body shops are only set up to deal with hourly work, and it seems that I lack something that companies with money need in order to do business.
I have been called unprofessional, and eh, I have a hard time arguing... but like I said, I do just fine; generally far above expectations when going through a body shop, and I /do/ have an infrastructure for outsourcing more of the professional bullshit.
To be clear, I'm not saying the body shop isn't bringing value to the customer... just that I don't know what that value is.
- snapoutofit 13y agoHave been through more or less the same process as you stated. Its really tough to define what value as you pointed out at the end. Faking the full-time bit is completely true, does not make sense ... but then seems to be a necessity.
- lsc 13y ago>Faking the full-time bit is completely true, does not make sense ... but then seems to be a necessity. It's weird, 'cause I do think I'm unusually good as a temporary worker; I'm willing to tailor the time when I leave to something comfortable for the employer (whereas someone wanting a full-time job is going to jump at the request of a company that is willing to hire them full-time) And because I'm looking at it as a temporary gig, Not only am I going to feel okay with it when you do let me go, I'm trying to set things up so that the person you get to replace me has an easier time of it; I pride myself on the ability to do things like train replacements. Hell, often I'll help you /find/ the replacement. (another thing that I can do well, but that so far I've failed to figure out how to monetize.)
- thomaslangston 13y agoOffer a Contract-to-Recruit service?
- joshyeager 13y agoFirst, let me say that I don't mean this to be offensive, and I'm trying to be helpful to you. As someone who occasionally hires consultants to solve urgent problems for me, I would be nervous about hiring a company whose point of contact had a communication style like yours. When I need a problem solved, I want someone who understands exactly what I need and who makes me confident that they will follow through and make sure I'm successful. Those people start building that confidence from day one by communicating clearly and making sure that I can understand them easily. In contrast, your comment is verbose and uses a lot of non-standard punctuation. That makes it hard to understand you. So my first thought is "wow, I'm going to have to do a lot of extra work to make sure lsc understands what I need." I have no idea if that is accurate. But if one of your competitors was easier to understand, I would probably pick them because I don't have the extra time required to understand you and make sure you understand me over the course of our whole relationship.