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Subject:Re: transition from contract to full-time From:Bill Swallow <bill_swallow -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 26 Feb 2001 12:07:17 -0800 (PST)
> For those of you who have gone from contract to
> full-time, what sort of advice could you give me as
> far as pros/cons of each, negotiating contract vs.
> salaried pay, benefits, and so on.
I have gone the other way out of necessity. I prefer
full-time employment at this point in my life, as I
have a young family and a wife in school, so I need
the bennies that a full-time job provides. The pay,
well, the pay's better as a contractor (generally),
but you have a lot of out-of-pocket expenses and have
to keep track of tax money and all sorts of other
details which you don't necessarily have to do as a
full-time employee.
In general, you don't negotiate benefits unless they
aren't offering you what you need. Usually a company
cannot create a custom benefits package for you, so
there's not much room for negotiation. However, in
some rare cases you can get a company to, for example,
compensate you in pay for the difference if they offer
only a single person plan and you want family
coverage. But, they aren't obligated to do this at
all.
As far as pay goes, most companies are going to try to
get you to say about what you'd like to get for the
position, putting you on the spot. You don't want to
shock them and screw yourself out of an offer, but at
the same time you don't want to under-bid yourself and
end up with a smaller salary than you could have
gotten. Ask them what they think a person in this
position should be making, and how they see you
fitting into that projection. But in general, you
don't want to walk right in and start talking money -
that comes after all else is said and done and they
see what type of candidate you are.
=====
Bill Swallow
Information Design & Development Professional
bill_swallow -at- yahoo -dot- com - www.geocities.com/bill_swallow
List Owner, HATT <www.groups.yahoo.com/group/hatt>
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