A good friend of mine took a contract job (to be hired on fulltime within 3 months) for $30/hour, doing simple company support IT related stuff. He is most cer

A good friend of mine took a contract job (to be hired on fulltime within 3 months) for $30/hour, doing simple company support IT related stuff. He is most certainly considered a consultant. I think this is a very common case, 1-6 months as an outside contractor before being hired on fulltime. Lots of the listings on places like dice are specifically tagged as contract work, leading to fulltime.