[Message Deleted]

[Sir Dot Net]

[Message Deleted]

[Lost User]

MRcoolio wrote:

I've been contracting on and off

Me too - on a diet at the moment, so contracting quite quickly!

MRcoolio wrote:

I've also done it solo

Who hasn't :) Once you have the contract, agencies are worth squat - but sometimes they can be the only way into a position - so they're a 'necessary' evil. I've known one good agency in my life - and I used him to supply developers to me - I had an exclusive agreement and he did a lot of work finding me the right people. You need to look at it both ways - companies without good HR find it hard to spend time getting staff - especially contract staff - so it is money well spent to pay a percentage to the agency - and it's not necessarily money you would otherwise be earning, as some companies will pay less directly to a contractor. from an employers point of view there is also a sense of security (and sometimes guarantees) about the contractors provided - so it can reduce the risk to the company to use an agency to supply contractors. Also, some agencies will handle some of the tax and legal issues on your behalf (depending on your local laws and the agency in question) which can save you hassle, especially if you are new to the contracting game. All that said, from a developer's point of view, I've found agencies (perm and contract) to be pretty pathetic in general - they're sales people, who smarm their way into agreements with companies then reap the rewards.

___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

[R Giskard Reventlov]

I've always been of the opinion that I'm happy to work through an agent since it means I get paid much more quickly than were I to go direct and the variety of work I get offered is much higher than were I to rely on my network. I've never found that going direct gets me enough extra benefits to justify having to wait to get paid (I have friends that go direct and can wait anythign form 3 - 6 months for their invoices to get settled. Having said that I would agree that most agents are quite unprofessional. I wrote a few articles about this a while back - here if you are interested: Contracting for Dummies[^].

me, me, me

[Mycroft Holmes]

After 10 years as a self employed consultant I turned to straight contracting, that was 11 years ago. To date I refuse to go permanent anywhere. Agencies have their uses and a good one is invaluable to a good contractor, it does work both ways. As a consultant I wasted soooo much time chasing the invoice and doing admin I had to work 60-80 hours a week. Now I start early, leave early and collect a payment every month. I don't begrudge the agency it's 7-12%, it is worth it to me to get rid of the hassles they reduce. 86.7% of agencies are bottom feeding scum and should be classed with politicians and real estate salesmen, the other 13.3% are what makes it possible to stay in the industry.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

[Chris Meech]

MRcoolio wrote:

generally despise working for a contracting agency because they do little else than siphon off extra money

When I was contracting, I only had that opinion when there was several months between contracts. One guy I worked with was amazing, though. On two occassions, I left one gig on a friday and was starting out at another on the monday. But he was a rare person in the industry, I think. :)

Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]