Working as a contractor is rightfully seen as a form of owning your own business, and that’s what scares and makes some people uncomfortable with it. Not everyone sees themselves as an entrepreneur, even though most of our ancestors were self-employed before the modern concept of a job came along. But contracting is a more flexible form of earning a living that can offer the option of switching to a permanent job if one comes up, or staying with contracting if that is your preference. It’s not a life sentence. Even if you currently choose contracting because you love it, you can always change your mind in the future.
According to a 2005 report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Ireland is one of the leading countries in Europe in terms of entrepreneurship. Almost 70 percent of the population considers it to be a good career choice. A January 17, 2008 article in The New York Times notes that Ireland ranks third in the European Union in early-stage entrepreneurial activity.
Europe’s labour market is considered overly rigid, and the countries with the most rigid “job protection” rules also have the highest levels of unemployment. This is the opinion of Ann Mettler, executive director of the Lisbon Council, which is committed to raising European competitiveness.
In recent years, France has been losing many of its young entrepreneurs because of its cultural attitude towards capitalism. A March 11, 2008, article in The New York Times points out that an estimated half a million French entrepreneurs, most of them under 35, have left France and moved to the south of England to start up their own businesses. However, things are changing. A February 8, 2010 report from BBC News stated that in 2009 the European country with the highest number of new businesses was France, due in part to the ease of starting a new business, a recent change and vastly different from how it used to be. It stated that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, France had more small businesses than the United Kingdom and that they were once again becoming more entrepreneurial; in fact, they gave us the word entrepreneur.
What employers are looking for
Looked at from the perspective of employers, contracting offers a flexibility that is often a key factor in the decision to add another body.
It’s a sad fact that some people are cutting themselves off from finding work by being so inflexible in how they approach employers. They may have a set of skills that an employer can use, but if the only option they are giving the employer is to hire them on a permanent basis, they may be shooting themselves in the foot.
If, on the other hand, they approach the employer on the basis of “Here is the set of skills that I can offer you. Let’s see how I could apply them to the projects that you’re currently working on and are about to start, ” they’ve just given that employer a whole different set of options for hiring them. Just as the idea of accepting anything other than a permanent job scares some people, the opposite is true for the employer. They’re scared of increasing the overhead costs of their operation by hiring a permanent employee when the only business they can count on are current and upcoming projects. That may only be a guarantee of six months’ or a year’s work and under those circumstances, which are common in today’s workplace, it makes no sense to them to add a permanent employee to their staff.
Employers must also consider the attitude of the person who is looking for work. If that person can’t accept anything other than a permanent job, the message they’re sending out, often without being aware of it, is “hire me and look after me,” and that’s the last thing that a small business owner wants. They need self-starters who understand the uncertainty in today’s workplace and who are willing to share in the risk associated with operating in that environment.
Make It Easy To Get Hired
The number one criteria that today’s employer will use in deciding whether or not to hire an additional employee is, will this person add value to my operation and make my life easier? If you understand that and approach the employer in a way that is centered on it, you’ve significantly increased your chances of being hired versus someone whose approach is still attuned to yesterday’s workplace.
The way you communicate; your cover letter, résumé, brochure, and all the other print and electronic marketing tools you use have all got to be focused on this issue, and that will be a major factor in determining how successful you are in finding work. If you get an employer’s attention and determine that indeed they could use your set of skills, let’s say that potentially there’s an opportunity for a six-month contract. Make their decision even easier by suggesting that you ease your way into the contract, maybe one month at a time, rather than locking them into committing to the whole six months at the outset.
If the opportunity is for a long-term contract and you’re excited about working with the company, and you have no doubt that you can help them, you may even consider offering to work for a week for free to show them what you can do. Smart contractors have landed lucrative contracts using this approach.
Guess who gets offered the job?
We’ve identified the fact that in today’s workplace most of the work opportunities are hidden. One reason for this is that when companies decide they want to make a permanent addition to their staff, the first place they look to is their pool of contract workers, if that makes up part of their workforce. This makes sense since they know those people and what they can do and the contract workers in turn know the company.
If people who are only comfortable with a permanent job understood this, they would be much more inclined to consider contract work as a viable route to finding more permanent jobs.
Employee referral programs
Employee Referral Programs (ERPs), whereby current employees refer suitable candidates for in-house job opportunities, are becoming increasingly popular with employers, some of whom are meeting up to 60 percent of their hiring needs this way. In some cases, such programs account for almost all of the hiring done.
It is common for employers to offer employees a cash bonus for people they hire from their referrals. But the cash isn’t the only reason employees take part. They feel good about seeing people they know being hired, and they’re smart enough to know that it’s in their interest to only refer people they know are good and who they feel will fit within the culture of the company.
Hiring on the basis of employee referrals is a smart investment for the employer too, since it reduces the time involved in hiring new people and can substantially reduce the cost of recruiting. For people looking for work, being referred by an existing employee significantly increases the probability of their being hired compared to them approaching the employer on their own.
The growth of ERPs helps to explain why many employment opportunities are never advertised and proves yet again why it is so important to be connected to what is going on in the workplace and to be an effective networker. Some companies are sending college and university graduates they’ve hired who have worked out back to their alma maters as recruiters. Encouraging employees to be active in alumni associations and networks is also seen as a good way to find new hires. Employers are increasingly asking their employees to spread the word about new positions they need to fill via their personal Twitter and Facebook accounts. Some are also establishing company Twitter and Facebook accounts as a way to advertise new positions.
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