Contracting/Temping - Viable Alternates in Tough Times

[Jeff Frost]

Mark,

Also buy the Sunday newspaper and look for job announcements/adds. I just joined a company this month by answering a three-line advertisement after spending countless hours on the web and working with placement services.

Two things got me the job. I tailored my resume to cover the company’s wants and I sent a follow email after about a week, which got me the interview and offer.

Good Luck

Jeff

 

[Wes Bucey]

Mark,

Also buy the Sunday newspaper and look for job announcements/adds. I just joined a company this month by answering a three-line advertisement after spending countless hours on the web and working with placement services.

Two things got me the job. I tailored my resume to cover the company’s wants and I sent a follow email after about a week, which got me the interview and offer.

Good Luck

Jeff

Congratulations!

 

[TrinityQ]

Being a student can be tough to one's pocket wallet. But being web-savvy made me enjoy being not 'too broke' - I do freelance data entry work and other mundane tasks. Not easy but it pays the bills.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Something new

I note there is a resurgence of companies looking for "gray heads" as temps to help them deal with the loss of "corporate memory" the managers caused when they laid off most, if not all, their own gray heads as an economy move.

The advantage of gray heads is they can usually hit the ground running and do not need long training or break in periods before they are generating value to the company. Gray heads are also steady and reliable workers who show up every day ready to work and do not spend/waste hours texting and/or talking to friends on their smart phones.

So, if you look in the mirror and see a few [or a lot of] gray hairs, don't reach for the hair dye, use it to your advantage and craft your cover letters and resumes to point up the value of all the knowledge and experience contained in that gray head.

If the topic of being an older, even elderly [like me] worker is interesting and pertinent for you, tell me and we can start a new thread on the advantages and disadvantages of being a gray head and how to market the advantages when seeking work and downplay the disadvantages to keep them out of the factors involved in consideration of your candidacy for a full-time or temporary position.

 

[Wes Bucey]

thread bump!

It's been four years since we had activity on this thread. Those of you reading it have to weigh in - is this stuff pertinent to you or has it gone stale?

Almost EVERY organization I've had contact with in the past year has "some" temporary or contract employees. The big agencies like Manpower and Kelly are going great guns and dozens of smaller agencies abound in every big city. So, the concept of temporary or contract employment hasn't gone away.

If you have been looking for full time employment for a while with no takers, you owe it to yourself to consider temporary employment. Surveys of employment managers for full time jobs consistently show less bias against temporary workers than against long-term unemployed. I could offer lots of reasons for that bias and even good arguments why it is a stupid bias, BUT the object is to get a job, not win a philosophical argument. The thing to do is position yourself in the most favorable light to get hired.

I would dearly love to hear some success stories about folks who have followed advice in the Cove to land employment.

 

[maaquilino]

I've worked as contractor (60%) and a permanent employee (40%) over the last 30 years, and I have to say I like the contractor side better in most cases...When I started in this business, I ended up contacting for 9 years at one company, on various projects with different departments, simply because when I started there, they knew who I was, knew how I worked, and after the first interview to start there, I didn't need to interview for any of the other jobs…which was great as I hated interviewing back them. Same thing happened for several years at the next company I went to, and then I went back to the first company for several more years – all as a contractor. In the job previous to my current one, I started as a contractor and took their job offer after 2 years. While I enjoyed working for them, the benefits were great and so was the travel, the management changed drastically after about 6 years and the last 6 years were torture; the last 3 of the 6 being even worse. The biggest difference I found between contracting and being an employee was that, as an employee, they disregarded what we said, even though that’s the job they were paying us for. My job satisfaction came from helping project teams achieve what they needed to, under budget and on time, and keeping us in compliance globally. When management interfered with us doing our jobs well, this not only resulted in way less job satisfaction, but product/software that shouldn’t have gone out the door at the point it did and compliance issues. As a contractor, those who pay for our services appear to take us a bit more seriously and to actually listen to what we have to say. This not only benefits them, it makes the work environment a lot less stressful for me.

And Wes, I like your idea of a thread for us gray-heads Since the time you originally posted it, I feel it's an even more pertinent subject for discussion today.

 

[PaulJSmith]

I found myself "in-between jobs" for about six months a few years ago. I had started to consider temporary or contract work (even though it meant disrupting my quality time with my motorcycle that summer) when I found my current QM job. I don't find the concept stale at all. In fact, my wife has been doing temporary contract work (accounting) through a local headhunter for the last couple of years. She is never wanting for work. There is plenty of it to be had.

And yeah, us "gray-heads" seem to be more amenable to the idea than our younger counterparts.

 

[maaquilino]

And yeah, us "gray-heads" seem to be more amenable to the idea than our younger counterparts.

I have to wonder if we gray heads are more amenable because of the experiences we've had with working for so many years When I started working, there was still that employer/employee loyalty; over the years that fell away and so did a lot of the morale of employees. There used to be a kind of job security, where one worked at a company for 25+ years and then retired from that same company; employers used to want to hire people who had a stable, long time career at one company instead of jumping around every few years. Today, many employers look to see if you've stayed too long at one company; it appears the only way to get promoted is to move to a new company; and forget any job security - you can work your behind off for a company, do everything right, and still lose your job if laying you off will help their bottom line. I've found that contracting fits me better than being an employee, there are always jobs out there, and it also allows me to have my own business (in a totally different career) in addition to the contracting work I do.