As a successful contract worker should I be looking for a permanent position?
I have been doing contract work in “change management” for a few years – an all-encompassing term for the methods used for managing projects and all the roles involved, from managers to business analysts. I am now seriously contemplating going back into permanent work. I’m in my mid-to-late 40s, and the contract market is not as buoyant as it has been.
My issue is that my last permanent role was a bad experience. The role and business unit culture turned out to be very different to that outlined throughout the interview process and induction. The business unit, I found out subsequently, had an extremely high turnover of staff, especially among those with less than two years’ service.
Contract working has been rewarding, financially and from an achievement point of view. I am proud that my work and attitude have been used as “best practice” examples. As a contractor I’ve been offered contract renewals, and staff jobs.
But I feel my mindset is that I’ve had a “get out” clause. If a particular contract is not working that well there are only ever a few months until it ends for both parties. I can move on easily.
I am also wondering whether what I see as my skills – an ability to see the bigger picture and an insistence on getting things right first time – lend themselves better to being a collaborative (albeit temporary and external) consultant than a permanent employee?
All this soul-searching leads me to ask: is there a fundamental motivational difference – other than financial – between the two types of employment?
Jeremy says
To answer your question immediately: yes, I think there are motivational differences between these two types of employment, the permanent, on-the-payroll kind and the temporary, project-specific kind. I’m pretty sure you think so too, which is why you’re giving this decision serious and sensible thought.
At the heart of the difference lies a person’s attitude to membership. To get the most satisfaction from being a permanent member of a company, you need to identify with it and have a real interest in its overall performance, not just the bits you’re involved with. You feel pleased about its achievements and want it to succeed almost as if it were your football club. As with football clubs, there will be times when your company disappoints you, but you know that’s all part of the deal and you’re happy to remain a member and do all you can to help stage a recovery. It’s not entirely rational, emotion certainly comes into it; but remaining stubbornly loyal to a football club isn’t entirely rational, either.
For others, membership is less important – and it’s possible that you’re one of them. You’re self-aware enough to know that one of the reasons that contract work appeals is your knowledge that when a project presents problems, its end is only a few months away. Your “get out clause”, as you call it.
I suspect, however, that your doubts about permanent roles may have been mainly conditioned by the fact that you have never worked with a company that you enjoyed being part of. Your last experience of a staff role was an unpleasant one.
I suggest you cast your mind back over all the companies for whom you have worked as a contractor, some of which offered you staff jobs, and try to remember if you felt any sense of affinity with them. If you did, you can apply for permanent posts with some confidence. Just remember that being a full-time member means riding out the bad times as well as the good.
Readers say
• It sounds like you’re one of those people who don’t get on in permanent roles – I’m the same. It seems how you are working now is going really well, so why change? The market may be less buoyant but you’ve managed before. fizzdarling
• A lot of what is tolerable in the role of an outsider becomes a burden once you are permanent. The best way to end up in a permanent role that really suits you would be to design it yourself during a project as a consultant. Aranzazu
• There are benefits to permanent work: sick pay, holiday pay, pensions … so I wouldn’t just look at it from the point of view of your personal satisfaction with the work you do – although it’s a factor. Contracting means you can walk away from a situation that doesn’t suit you, but it also offers no long-term security, and you often find yourself doing a job and being kicked out the door with limited gratitude, regardless of how well you do.
I’ve worked in many organisations where contractors are seen as something to exploit rather than a resource of expertise you were engaged to provide in the first place. Sorbicol
• There is no such thing as a permanent position; it’s an illusion. You are only there as long as there is a return on investment on the salary they pay you. Employers may pretend it’s a permanent role and may seek to take you on to see them through a transition or change. They will take the benefit of a reduced rate based on your expectation of permanent employment. You will be dispensed with as soon as the change is made and you are no longer required.
Overall you are better on a contract that both sides understand to be temporary. David Morton
My husband needs a job again after recovering from tragedy in our family
My husband is a previously successful accountant, but three years ago our family was hit by several tragic incidents that affected us all badly, and my husband in particular. He felt he had to take time out from work to get through a grieving process and hasn’t worked since. He now feels fully fit to work again physically and emotionally. He is highly qualified and worked in City firms.
Is it too late for someone in his position to re-enter the industry and how might potential employers view someone who has been out of the profession for such an extended period when there is an emotional, rather than a practical, reason behind it? He is concerned that, if asked to explain the break, he couldn’t provide a good rationale.
Would potential employers consider this extended break too much of a gap? Or is there another way of perhaps easing his way back into the field short of actually applying for a staff job with a firm and avoiding the question he fears most?
Jeremy says
He should be confident about his chances of a return to full-time work – and you can help him. Initially, the signs of confidence may not come easily, but any indication of uncertainty on his part will certainly count against him.
You and he both know that he’s now fully fit again and ready for work. You and he both know that he’s highly qualified and perfectly capable of being as successful in the future as in the past. If he can show that certainty – calmly, not boastfully – to potential employers, he’ll be halfway home. But he must be absolutely open and upfront about the reasons for his three-year absence from work. His ability to talk rationally about his past emotional problems will in itself serve as evidence of his complete recovery from them.
Readers say
• I’d suggest he considers fixed-term contracts to ease back in. Employers are much less fussy when it’s for an FTC as it’s often to fill an urgent requirement – and they often turn into permanent positions or at least help to build a CV, and once he’s back into employment other employers will be less wary. On his CV I would definitely put that he’d taken time out for family reasons, to be clear it’s not a health issue for potential employers to be concerned about. lyndsS
• There is a strong temping market in accountancy. If he is that concerned about explaining away the last three years he could do this and wait for the right opportunity. harlequinmod
• He needs to apply as usual and include in his covering letter a sentence or two about why extenuating family circumstances required him to take a leave of absence, and that those circumstances having now resolved themselves he is ready to resume his career. ID0191535
• He should be careful what he says so there’s no chance of someone reading his resume and classing grieving as mental illness, eg depression. FatFreddyCat
Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.
