guidance counselor 2.0 + uf follow up

full transcript

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Again, I was just live with my boys at Unicorn Finders. We had a great, great conversation around contracting, contract-high, direct-high, and really jumping from direct-high to contracting and what you needed to be aware of. So if you go check out our LinkedIn page, the Unicorn Finders, it's about 25 minutes. It's really chock-full with a good amount of information. But what I want to do, and I'm gonna start doing this, is I'm going live after Unicorn Finders and just having a little bit more of a fireside chat. Because a lot of times, maybe some people can't make that Unicorn Finders chat, and so I obviously want to continue that dialogue.

I know some people are always scared to ask questions. So again, I want to be here and ask any questions that you may have. So at me, comment me. But let's go ahead and start talking about it in terms of contract-high, direct-high, first off. The big thing I want to get across to is that, like, there's, for the most part, depending on the state you live in, there's just as much change as you get in fire from a direct-high job as there is a contract job. I will say the only difference is, I think there's sometimes there's a little bit more grace from a direct-high job.

But at the end of the day, usually the employer knows if it's gonna work out or not. That's just the way it is. And so for me, if you are in a direct-high position, and you are going like, all right, well, I maybe want to take that jump-tailer, like, what should I do? I think you got to talk to some recruiters first. Right, I think working with the recruiter, if this is your first foray into contracting, I think it's incredibly important to work with recruiters, because they can obviously guide you, they can talk to you about the client, they can give you a little bit of overview.

We talked a lot about freelancing too and going out on your own and the unicorn founders, we talked about doing taxes and starting to LLC and all that jazz. If that's too overwhelming for you, which I get it, it's overwhelming for me. That's where I would work as a W2 through recruiting firm. And I know I talked about this before, but your product Taylor, W2 through recruiting firm, like that sounds like a full-time job. That's what I'm saying. If you are a contractor through a recruiting company, it is a 40-hour-a-week position, unless stated otherwise, and that's obviously a question that you need to ask a recruiter.

And so, but what a recruiter can do for you, if this is your first foray into contract contract hire, they can give you the lay of the land, they'll be your point person at the client, they can give you a heads up if things are going wrong. And if you are a freelance on your own, you're on an island. I mean, you're absolutely on an island. So that's obviously something to take, obviously be aware of, taking a consideration before you make the jump. Pia, what's going on? Good morning. It's good to see you. And again, y'all at me, Connie, let me know if you have any questions about contract contract hire, direct hire, jumping from direct hire to contract hire.

I had this question the other day about jumping from direct hire to consulting. And the question was, should I do it? Should I leave a direct hire job to a consulting contract hire job? And in my opinion, it's a maybe, the answer is maybe, but you have to ask yourself, one, why you want to leave your direct hire job, right? I talk about this all the time, finding your why. Why do you want to leave your direct hire job? If you're bored and you're not learning anything, then get out. There's, the tech market is absolutely bonkers, right? Now there's no reason to stay in a direct hire job and like not learn things.

But I'm probably like Taylor, well, why can't I go to another direct hire job to learn things? You can, but here's my biggest thing, why if you love learning, if you love learning, you don't like being complacent and you love learning new things all the time, that's where contracting comes into. Because literally the way contracting works is you just bounce around from client to client, learning new industries, learning new tech. It's all about learning. And so now listen, I get it. People have families. People, if benefits and like 401k are incredibly important to you, and that's it. Like there's no one else in your family that can do, like the benefits, then maybe direct hires for you.

But I will tell you this as well. I have been able to hook my consultants up with really good benefits, right? You can go out, you can go out and look for benefits on your own. And I've had developers go out, find benefits on their own that are actually better than the benefits they had at their full-time job. Now, will you get the match 401k? No, the PTO, will you get? No, you probably won't, right? But the benefit of contracting, the benefit of contracting is you get paid for every hour you work, right? So let's say you work 60 hours in a week, you could maybe take half the week off the next week, right?

That's the benefit. How many times you get into a direct hire job? And you're like, yeah, this is great. This is great. And then all of a sudden, you're working like 70 hours a week. Do you realize any hour over 40 hours you work in a direct hire job immediately takes away from your salary? Immediately, right? If you're working on average 60 hours a week, you're making probably, I'm really bad at math, but you're making a substantially less amount of salary than you think you are. But if you were contracting, if you were contracting two things, one, all of our contracts are spent out at 40 hours a week because they're set budgets, right?

So actually, if you like work-life balance and work-life balance is important to you, contracting through recruiting firms actually that because usually our clients don't want to consult and to work any more than 40 hours a week. But if you do, you get paid for those hours. So that's why, so that's what you have to look into. Right? Now you probably ask me to tell that sounds great. Like, I get paid for every hour of work, like benefits, that's fine-organ research benefits. But like, what if the contract comes to an end-all of a sudden? Well, I will tell you this, that is where the dynamic with the recruiter is paramount.

Because for me, if I know, now listen, do I know 100% know? Sometimes I have gotten caught in my career that, hey, your cana is coming to an end-all my contract, and we've been giving no heads up. Right? That happens, but that's worst case, and that doesn't happen a lot. For the most part, I get 30 days notice. 30 days that you can go out and find a job on your own, or I can place you. Right? But that's where, and the question that I probably get that you're probably thinking is like, okay, well then what's your percentage at like what's your success rate of placing people on billing to other contracts?

I don't know the exact number, but it's greater than 75% and so like, that's huge. More than 75% of the time, I am placing you on another project, and quite frankly, the only reason why I'm not able to place a lot of people is is they actually find a job on their own. Right? You have to understand right now, you have to understand, if there's anything you get out of this quick session this morning, is that the tech market, like you, listen, like the nation is your canvas, before COVID, yes, it was a little difficult. Everybody had to be in a city, everybody had to recruit, everybody had to recruit in a city, everybody had to stay in a city, a lot of companies weren't doing fully remote.

Well, now everyone's doing fully remote, everyone. And so now it's like, all right, well, if you don't like one company, go throw your resume on, indeed, you're gonna get called to buy about 60 recruiters in a week and then go work on another company. And now, am I encouraging job hopping? No, but what I am telling you is try to take some stress off of you if you're looking for a new job. Right? Like I know people that are at companies happily employed that are getting five, six DMs a week about new opportunities. I'm telling you, if you have always wanted to try something new in the tech industry, whether it be contracting, consulting, new tech, a new position, a new industry, a new company, now is the time to do it.

Because you literally, I can't, it's basically like jumping off of a cliff into like a big mattress. I'm really bad with an allergies this morning, bear with me. But that is how like safe it is to jump right now. And that's what I want to encourage you now, on the flip side, right? If you're a hiring manager and your seniors, you're like, great, seriously, tell you why you guys say this, that's another conversation I've been having, as well with hiring managers, like you gotta make sure you take care of your people because this is also happening, right? Which is another conversation, another live show for a different day.

So that's it today. I just want to come to you all live today and just like hang out with you all, just give you some words of encouragement today. Listen, thank you for tuning in this morning for a quick 10 minute. I'm gonna go live every time after unicorn fires and break down our topic a little bit more. And so again, I want to encourage you, if you are looking for a change, now is the time to do it. The market is incredibly safe for people to look for a job right now. But leverage recruiters, ask good questions and thank you again for tuning the guidance counselor 2.0.

This morning, tuning tomorrow unicorn finders, 9.30 AM Center, we're talking about natural language processing, machine learning, all that jazz. I don't know what it is, but we're gonna talk about it with a good friend of mine. Y'all have a good one.