contract/contract to hire (solo show)

full transcript

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to guidance counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had guidance counselors in middle school. We had guidance counselors in high school, but we didn't really have guidance counselors in college and now as professionals. We don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vacovac.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email social media at tdsintdessey. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. I hope you enjoy the episode. All righty, what's going everybody? Good morning. Good morning. Happy Monday. It's great to see you all this morning. Well, when I say it's great to see you all, no one's here yet. But excited to be back. Boy, last week was a week in the Deson household.

The stomach bug went through. I got it first on Monday. My daughter went down with it on Thursday. I think we think my wife escaped it. Thank goodness. So excited to be back fully this week, especially with all the things that are upcoming. So for those of you tuning in, welcome. Good morning. Happy Monday. Guidance Councilor 2.0. If you are watching, especially on LinkedIn YouTube, please comment, say, hey, we'd love to hear from you. What this show is, and for those of you who are tuning in and don't know what guidance Councilor 2.0 is, guys, because our 2.0 was a live show that basically came out of COVID.

So I'm a recruiter. And when COVID hit, I was working with so many engineers that kept getting laid off. When COVID first hit, little did we know looking back on it. It was actually about to be a boom time. But I was having all these conversations. I was working 12, 14, 16 hour days, and I'm not trying to humble brag. It was just the nature of my job at the time. I was like, man, there's got to be a better way to scale these conversations from conversation like at 6 a.m. to like to conversation at 8 p.m., right? There's got to be a way to help share this information.

So that's what Guidance Councilor 2.0 is. It is a way to give back information to the IT community at scale. And so the reason why I tell people to comment and I see people saying, hey, the reason I tell people to comment is because what I've really realized is this is a meetup. This is a daily meetup that occurs. And what the meetup looks like is you just saying, hey, that's it. And you're probably like, Taylor, I don't understand. What do you mean, me just saying, hey, is going to be enough? Like how's that networking? Networking virtually is about showing up consistently day and day out.

If you attended, if you would attend my live shows day and day out, you will constantly be seen, especially if you comment. That's why I tell people to comment. And there are people on the show. I'm not bullshitting with you that I've found mentors, mentees that has found jobs that have found friends and people network. So I always tell people, please comment whether you're watching it now in the future because somebody is going to follow up with you. So that's the first thing. Second thing is this is a live show for a reason. I really, really, really want and John, I see your comment just now.

I really, really want for you to ask questions. This is I invite people on tomorrow. I have a wonderful guest Ashton. I'm she already came on the show. The reason why I tell people to comment is because it's a live show. Right. If you have a question, most people have a question as well. So we can just all learn from each other. Also finally too, I'm going to want to give a shout to my official coffee sponsorship that conference. Yes, I am sponsor. I am this is the coffee. It's fantastic. I promise. But it's also a great conference. So check out my buddy Clark Sell and that conference.

They are they're having a July conference. I heard it's incredible. And I'm keen to know it. We're not. So we'd love for you to check it out. Go check out that conference. I will be there. I hopefully be there. It's a very special conference. Clark is got a wonderful soul. He really cares about people. So yeah. And then what else? Let's see here. I'm going to go to your Joe LinkedIn user, Christina John. It's great to see you all. Mel, what's going on? It's great to see you. Serena LinkedIn user Fritz and it's great to see you morning. Nicole, good morning. Let's see here. Becky, it's great to see you as well.

John, it's great to see you also. All righty, so I do want to go ahead and dive in this morning. I want to dive in this morning and talk about contract and contract to hire. I think it's incredibly important because this, because the market you got to be scrappy right now, right? You have to be scrappy. And you really, really need to be aware of everything that's going on. And so for me, what I would do is I want to talk about contracting. I know John said he had a bunch of thoughts. Richard's great to see you. So you can contract through a recruiter. I want to let you know that.

A lot of people think contracting is like pure freelance. So there's a difference. Freelancing and contracting in my brain are different. Freelancing, you have to set up your own LLC. You have to do your own taxes. You have to go out and hunt and find your own jobs. Those are, that's freelancing, right? That's one bucket. The other bucket is contracting. So contracting, what it looks like for contracting is, hey, like we're going to use a recruiter. You work as a W2 through a recruiter. And you have the ability to have benefits. Now, are the benefits good typically? No, typically benefits do a recruiting company aren't great.

If you're single or it's just you plus a spouse, it's not bad. But typically most recruiting firms should offer it, right? So again, just want to separate the two, right? You have freelancing, you got to do your own shit. Contracting you can do it through a recruiting firm. Now, there are specific questions. I'm not going to get into all these questions because it is a longer episode. Yes, freelancing is the most exhausting form of employment. I 100% agree with this. I will tell you this. If you want to step your toe into freelancing, I would start contracting through a recruiting company. Because what we are able to do is we are able to be your eyes and ears and market you now.

A lot of people like Taylor, my contract to hire with a recruiting company has been awful. Listen, it typically is because most recruiters don't have the relationship with the client to successfully execute contract to hire type of relationships or contract relationships. What you need from a recruiter is like, you need to know that history with that company. For example, there's one company in Nashville. When I was recruiting Nashville, we stepped up like 10, not 30, like 20 to 30 people throughout their entire organization contract to hire. And we did that for a reason. I could tell you that reason. So that's incredibly and incredibly important.

Another thing I would keep in mind too is that recruiter needs super hands-on communication throughout the entire process. It's a high touch situation. A lot of recruiters, what they do is they place you on a contract. They put you on an island and you never hear from them again. That happens consistently. The feedback loops got to be there. Again, that's why you have to trust the recruiter to give before you get in that relationship. It's much different. It's much more different in a direct hire situation where it's like, hey, listen, direct hire. I place you salary at a company. And I don't talk to you again because you're not my responsibility.

I don't mean that in a meat way. But if I do direct hire, I'm going to place you with a client and it's kind of like, have fun. All right, if you need me, the contracting relationship is so symbiotic. A lot of my consultants that have worked contract with me throughout my entire career were like BFFs because you got to be right. The good, the bad and ugly, all of it comes out. So you have to build a relationship. But what I will tell you this right now is the market, what I'm seeing, I'm kind of curious if there's any recruiters that watch this, Richie, I know you commented.

I'm kind of curious. I'm seeing a lot more companies leveraging more contract, like part time because a lot of companies don't want to bring on these big salaries or just salaries in general in the books right now. They want to keep their staff kind of fluid. And so if you've never looked into the hourly side of things, I would highly, highly, highly recommend to look into that. Right. And again, though, you have to have the relationship with recruiters. Now, the biggest question is, well Taylor, how do I find that relationship with the recruiter? You find that relationship with the recruiter by meeting with us. Right.

And you find that relationship with a recruiter by working together. But I will tell you this. If you go to my website, vaco.com backslash Taylor, go to my free resources. I have a bunch of questions that you need to ask for recruiters before you enter into a contracting contract to higher relationship. A few of the big questions are, how many people have you placed with this company before contract to hire? How many, how well do you know the managers? It's your first time working with a manager. Have you worked with this manager for 10 years? Why is this position open? Right. Does it have the ability to go contract to hire?

And if so, does it have the budgetary agreement? It isn't already signed off. Right. Why are they doing contract or contract to hire? Right. These are all really, really key questions that you need to ask that are on my form with vaco.com backslash Taylor. So that's some thoughts. Let me know if you have any questions. But the reason why I want to share with contract contract to hire with you all is because it is a different type of of relationship. And I want to caution you that you have to do some extra digging. But if you've never thought about doing it before, I would look into it now because right now the market, I think you're going to probably get more opportunities if it's kind of contract to contract to hire because of companies not wanting to bring on salary.

So John comments here, my contract to hire experience was great. Here we go. It was a great job with great people. I forgot to ask the recruiter in the company one key question. What is the pay when I convert to a firm employee? I know if the full comp set up during the process, I would have negotiated. Yes. So this is a great question about John. John, I'm so glad you bring this up. And I think you bring this up every time that I talk about this, which I'm so glad. But yeah, I would highly recommend this. If your hourly rate is always going to be higher than your conversion salary, let me say that again.

Your hourly rate is always going to be higher than your conversion salary. Why is that? Because there is a lot of burden that the recruiting company takes on to not only pay you, but also to cover ourselves as well. So your rate is going to be much higher than the salary side of things. But it's like John says. So John says the drop off and pay was too much. OK. So that that's not good. And that's why I would always, so if you go to that questionnaire, all my website, they go.com backslashtailer. I have that information on it. But yeah, you don't want. I don't want you to get in the John situation.

Always, always ask, hey, what's the conversion salary on this? And to make sure you know that on the front end, Paul, it's great to see you. Cool. That's it today. I just want to say, hey, I just want to go over contract contract higher. I've had a few questions about it. I'm seeing what the market's kind of giving me and my team right now. A lot of it's just hourly stuff. So definitely be more aware. Ask better questions. Find good recruiters. And we should be able to help you through this process. Cool. All right, y'all, well, that was it. Want to hang out with y'all today?

I'll be live tomorrow. Ashton, Ashton Pfizer tomorrow. She's incredible. We talked about how to break into tech last last time she came on. We're going to have more of that conversation. So again, thank y'all so much. Connect with people. If you have any questions, shoot me a message. And I'll talk to y'all tomorrow. Y'all will go in peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode. And I am very grateful. Because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes. And I myself rarely finish an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store.

I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T-Dasting on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.