HACKER Q&A
📣 fwungy

How do I get employee opportunities as a long term contractor?


For various reasons I've done a lot of contracting over the last 10 years. In the beginning it was because I needed to work remote and contract jobs were most available.

But this had to led to a resume of jobs lasting three months to two years, with lots of sub-year engagements.

This makes me appear to be either a job hopper or someone with performance issues, when in reality this is the nature of the beast with contracting and the fact that I've made a long career of contracting actually means I'm capable of jumping into new stacks and succeeding.

Contracting has its benefits but now in a remote friendly world I'd like to have opportunities in employee roles.

  👤 twunde Accepted Answer ✓
This is mainly a matter of formatting your resume so that it looks like you've had one job but many projects. If you compared your resume to someone that works at a consulting company like Thoughtworks your resume should look similar
👤 amerkhalid
Instead of calling it contracting, call it consulting.

Your top heading should be something like:

Ruby/Rails Consultant 2013-current

Then each of contracting gig should be subheading under it. Remove job title here. Just the company name, company location, dates and project details.

👤 DamonHD
If you are clear that you have been contracting then anyone who claims your short stints are a problem is not someone you want to work with. (I had one guy in a big bank claim that I must be lying!)
👤 muzani
Just apply? I only had trouble with getting one job, but the next one looked highly upon contracting experience.

Generally, people have a high view of those who are like themselves. If you end up in the hands of someone who was also a contractor, they'll strongly bias towards you. Someone who has experience working in the same company for 10 years would bias against you.

👤 iExploder
time to grind job applications and be prepared to take a financial hit, be extra flexible and approachable, a doormat if you can really. its a numbers game at this point, wish you good luck mate.