Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Most Idiotic Question Asked by Recruiters

To me (a contractor) the most irritating thing that can be asked of me is
"Why don't you want to take a f/t (perm) job?"
It's not like I don't spell out clearly at the top of my Resume posted on the job boards:
Please CALL/EMAIL ONLY FOR CONTRACTS.
and I expect moronsrecruiters to be able to read and parse a six-word sentence.

Well, here are some of the reasons I have for not wanting a f/t job:
  • In my field of work there's positively no career advancement prospects.
  • Seniority amounts to squat nowadays in a company being that DB pension plans have been replaced by fixed RRSP contributions and I can do the latter myself with equal or better skill than my employer.
  • The gov't grabs their dues immediately and almost no expenses can be deducted. If you do (C)CRA (or IRSthey-who-must-not-be-named) will get you audited.
  • I highly dislike paying UI/EU which is a huge government rip-off/scam: you can pay premiums for 3 years and get the same duration of benefits (or waay shorter) as a seasonal labourer who only paid for 6 months -- the rest of the money is palmed by the gov't.
  • Vacation time in N America is laughable, needs to be "accrued" and most companies require that one discloses his vacation plans 6 (six) months in advance. Unpaid vacation can only be requested on "special" grounds and seems to be a 4-letter word.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one gets caught in intra-company politics which can stink.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one gets to do the same over and over and over again (think release cycles) on the same subject area. It gets boring after doing roughly the same thing three times.
  • If one stays for too long in one place and gets good at doing a certain unpleasant/difficult task one gets stuck with it forever.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one may wish and petition the powers-that-be to be reassigned to a more challenging/interesting task. It never happens. No exceptions.
  • If one stays for too long in one place one sees his managers being replaced as often as socks. And all managers needs to have you "prove your worth" to them. It gets tiring after a while.
  • Some managers can be technically challenged, not being able to comprehend the work they are managing and positively dumb. Alas these stick around for the longest.
  • Some managers allocate "resources" (aka. meself) based on a round-robin algorithm regardless on capabilities/skills just to fill in a project plan.
  • Dealing with Human Resources can be exceedingly frustrating when they are outsourced and off-shored and only taking tickets for, well, human issues.
  • Company employee policies can be downright insulting and horrendously dumb. And they always span on 100 page minimum.
  • Apprehension of layoffs can ruin a perfectly good f/t job.
  • EP's update: If one stays for too long in one place and uses mostly proprietary technologies and toolkits one's marketable skills go down the drains.
If you see here elements of the contracting lifestyle and bitter traces of Murphy's laws you are not wrong but contacting pays about 50% better than perm which could be a good proposition if one can stomach the intrinsic uncertainty and the in-between contracts gap.

-ulianov

P.S. My parents' notion of a "career" went off the window: one cannot advance in an organisation or get a significant pay rise in time (at best one will have a flat salary, or rather negative wrt. to the inflation). Hard work and persistence do not pay (professional advancement dividends). The best option for a perm staffer is to hop jobs every few years. Sad.