{"id":172,"date":"2006-12-06T07:32:04","date_gmt":"2006-12-06T13:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/2006\/12\/06\/attention-contract-vendors\/"},"modified":"2006-12-07T07:46:26","modified_gmt":"2006-12-07T13:46:26","slug":"attention-contract-vendors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=172","title":{"rendered":"Attention, Contract Vendors"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This post was actually written about a month ago, in the middle of a quick, sharp job search. I figured discretion was the better part of ire, and tabled the post at the time – but I figured I’d post it now, in case it helps someone).<\/em><\/p>\n

You know who you are – you’re a contract vendor. You essentially run a high-tech temp service; you connect companies that want to rent a programmer or a project manager or a business analyst for a project (and maybe to evaluate for a fulltime gig) and the people who do the job. You take a handsome cut off the top – somewhere between 33% and 50% of whatever client pays.<\/p>\n

Now, high-tech – after the misery of the early ’00s – is back to being a bit of a seller’s market. It’s hard to find people in some fields; business analysts are hard to find, and Usability people are at a bit of a premium (score!<\/em>).<\/p>\n

And we have memories. And as long as the economy is doing well, we can afford to use them.<\/p>\n

So here are a couple of tips for you, Mr. Contract Vendor:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. If you call us up to tell us about a “three to six month contract”, and at the interview the client tells me the project has a hard eight-week deadline, that’s a bad sign.<\/li>\n
  2. If you quote me a rate in that initial phone call – to pick a figure at random, say, $40 an hour – and after the interview tell me “um, the highest we can go is $32”, that’s even worse.<\/li>\n
  3. If, as we’re waiting for the client to make up their minds, you try to get me to commit to the (shorter, lower-paying than you told me) job and blow off any other leads I have working, I might suspect that you are desperate to land this gig<\/em>, and probably not the kind of vendor I’d like to work for if I don’t have to. Which, heaven be praised, I don’t at the moment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That is all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    (This post was actually written about a month ago, in the middle of a quick, sharp job search. I figured discretion was the better part of ire, and tabled the post at the time – but I figured I’d post it now, in case it helps someone). You know who you are – you’re a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}