To Contract or not to contract

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

The situtation that I am in is pretty stagnant working in the NOC. Actually they took me off network troubleshooting right after I got my CCNA and put me on server monitoring. How that makes sense I have no idea.

Now...there is a contract position in network engineering. I am not at the level they want technically, but I have good relationships, team skills, knowledge of the company, plus ability to learn and grow into the position. The group wants me up there. BUT it is a contract job of indefinate term. Meaning they could let me go next year or never.

I will find out more information in the morning.

Growthwise for my career, I think the experience in the network engineering postion will be fantastic and really help me stretch and grow into the engineer that I know I can be.

But there is a risk. My current job is nice and safe, secure and boring and stagnant.

What say you? Pay will be about the same or so I think. (Will find out tomorrow).

Currently working on my 1st CCNP test so the engineering postion will help me with that, and help me gear toward the security firewall side of things as well.

The technology used is bluecoat proxies, VPN, MPLS, QOS, L3 switching, VMANs, VLAN, DS3, T1 to name a few....

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

One of those decision you have to make on your own.

But FWIW and IMHO, there's no such thing as a *safe* or *permanent* job in IT these days.

 

That is very true. One reason why I have thought about going back to school for a different career.

I am going to get all the info and get a gut check and probably go for it.

 

If your heart says go for it. Then go for it. Sometimes you've gotta follow the heart.

From what I've heard, going contract can actually work for you. It tends to pay better for a start. Also, there appears to be more variety in terms of job opportunities. There are a number of things you might want to look into first though, like registering your own company and opening up a business bank account and so forth.

We talked about it some weeks ago on this thread over here:

http://www.certforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=15734

 

Quoted for truth.

 

Quoted (again) for Truth.

With respect to contract jobs, usually (but not always, like in Trip's case), if you're good, they'll keep you. If you're not, they'll let you go. That gives the company a little protection. After all, they've probably been burned before by employees who looked good on paper, but couldn't do the job.

 

Well, NetEye is a pretty competent guy, so he shouldn't have any problems in that respect. Plus I think he said he's gonna be working for the same company with a team who already know him. Can't go wrong with that.

 

I think a lot of truth has been stated and written so my two pence worth is go with your heart. In this field of uncertainty and forever learning is IT which could sometimes be probably frustrating at times. I think this is beginning to apply to other career fields as well.

I am still hustling in IT because I love computers

 

Agreed. I've met him; he seems pretty sharp.

 

I've been contracting just over a month and I love it so far.

It's a bit scary knowing that it's not safe and secure, the setting up a limited company is a pain in the a$$, I have to pay accountancy fees and get insurance (public liability), and then there's the worry of a government IR35 investigation and them actually winning and claiming a huge chunk of money from me. Not to mention the fun I'm having trying to get a business bank account set up.

Given the choice of going back to perm- right now I wouldn't. It's a completely different feeling being a company director based on a client site as opposed to an employee in a job.

The money is much better and you can claim tax relief on things like travel/lunch and other expenses. Because I put my websites through the company as well and I genuinely use a room in my flat as an office I'm going to claim a portion of my rent/bills and all of my broadband, not to mention my mobile phone.

It's risk vs. reward, if you're good and professional you shouldn't have a problem finding work. A lot of it's in the mind.

Read this first timers guide here:

http://www.contractoruk.com/first_timers/index.html

HTH

 

Thanks Pete!

I am still researching...so who knows what will happen as of yet. I passed my 1st screening interview with the contact agency. The money is about the same so really the reward is a chance to be in a Security Engineering role working on networking, firewall, VPN issues. The risk is being let go.

 

The same is true in all sectors not just IT.

 

I am going to stay in my current position. The thought of going in as a contractor is just a bit scary at the moment. I am going to continue studying and hopefully will find an FTE position doing it at some point.

 

I thought about contracting after a few years of experience - and as you said, it seems a bit scary, but I'd plan to have 6 months worth of money saved up to cover all the bills etc. just in case I was not successful in getting one.

 

Here's another benefit of having a company, become a MS partner (standard - not Gold or certified) and get all this lot for £199.

All for internal business use and testing - registration is free and it's updated 4 times a year.

Not bad

 

You don't need a formal company... you simply need to provide IT services to clients. I'm doing business as myself, and am subscribed to the Action Pack. All I needed to do was sign my own self up as a Microsoft Partner, which costs no money and has no requirements other than signing up.

 

So you can set up as self employed and fix PCs on the weekend and get it?

That's worth knowing!

 

Here's Microsoft's terms:

If you provide IT services to customers... regardless of the number of customers you have... do you not qualify? I can honestly state (without feeling like I'm trying to "get around the system") that I provide IT consulting services to a few small companies that need my expertise. Thus, I qualify.

 

I think I definitely qualify