Best Way to Find Contract Jobs

Hello,

I have a bit of an odd question. I'm quite young, 24 years old. I have no wife and children. I also have quite a bit of solid IT experience for someone my age, about 6 years worth. Basically, I'm looking to do a bit of traveling and working in other areas of the country and even in other countries. I am wondering what it takes to find these 6, 8, and 12 month contract jobs. They seem very few and far between on job-posting boards like monster.com.

Any ideas?

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mrhaun03

I really can't give you any advice on how to find those jobs, but people from Monster hit me up every week for contract-to-hire positions. Usually they're all local, however. Just keep searching, man...it may take some time.

Aquabat [banned]

i would think that finding one is not hard. it's just about finding one that you would want. They seem to be a dime a dozen it seems like, especialy with your experience

famosbrown

These jobs are EXTREMELY easy to find...especially if you are willing to go to the Middle East. They are offering people hundreds of thousands of dollars to go over there for a year or so. The first 80K or so is tax free in those zones. Go to contracting company sites such as CACI, Unisys, Booz Allen, Insight, etc. to see what they have going on. You could also go to Haliburton/KBR websites to see the jobs they have in various countries. They have TONS of jobs and are offering a lot of money...especially those willing to risk going to the Middle East. Another option is to just call the contracting companies and see if they have anything. They don't always post all of their jobs on their sites...especially the good ones to Italy, Paris, London, etc. good luck in your search.

Kasor

Sometime it is depend on the location and your IT background.... You need to move to big cities and will get better chance for contract job.

Middle East Contract jobs is not recommend, unless you are looking for living dangerous life...

silentc1015

I'm just having a lot of trouble finding them, even on job posting boards. Most of them I find, it seems, are temp-to-perm. This means that they intend on hiring you full time if the contract work goes well. I would love to find a one-year or less contract job with no strings attached. I would love to just do the work, and when it's over leave and move on.

Ciscopimpenator

Those jobs don't fall into your lap like some posters think.

I have been looking on dice.com, monster, etc... and throwing out resumes for jobs I'm qualified for and getting little or no response.

I'm like you, where I would love to get contract work. This type of work is great for someone that has no family because you have nothing holding you down to a geographic location.

If you find some CCNA/Cisco jobs anywhere in the US send me a message.

-Ciscopimpenator

Kaminsky

Have a look at jobserve.co.uk for your area and skill set. Never let me down. If it doesn't look good, widen your area or look at jobs in an area of interest. If your thinking London, remember the cost of actually living there is high. I avoid things like monster/fish etc as you get lots of random spam from all sorts of numpties offering work miles and miles away for really bad rates. Jobserve doesn't seem to let just anyone into their candidate database like the others do.

Look at the agencies that come up and if nothing of interest appears on jobserve, try contacting those agencies directly and getting on their books (I personally was with Computer Futures for 4 years until I recently went permanent finally).

Little bit of research can work wonders. With your 6 years experience, avoid agencies that treat you like a bit of meat (a big clue is when you say the sort of things you do and they haven't a clue what you are talking about). Those that know what you are on about will be the ones that the decent companies will stick with as they are able to supply quality staff time after time as they are pre vetted and this means you can go from one job to the next comtracting. The numptie agencies (and there are a lot of them in the UK now) just supply any idiot they can get to turn up for interview and the quality of the candidates causes employers to go elsewhere.

Just some experience from my last 4 years.

Slowhand

You may want to check out some of the companies that do contracting, like Robert Half, Davidson Staffing, and Kforce. You can search on Monster and Dice, but going to the source is always a good idea.

buulam

Not sure what part of IT you work in but I get contacted all the time with these kinds of jobs in my sector. Your previous experience is the key so make sure you leverage your 6 years as much as you can. These are not jobs where you go in having never touched the gear in a production environment, of their size, whether or not you've gone to school and wrote your certs. For the price they pay, the employer is usually expecting someone who can go in and hit the ground running. With your 6 years, I doubt that will be a problem!

famosbrown

Again...I emphasize looking at the contracting company's websites posted here for jobs. You can even contact them to see if they have something. These contracting companies have opportunities worldwide and if they are really desperate, they are calling and finding people for these jobs. I used to get TONS of emails for short term contracts nationwide when I had my resume on the web. They aren't THAT hard to find. You just have to go to the source and not rely on dice or monster to find them.

silentc1015

famosbrown wrote:

Again...I emphasize looking at the contracting company's websites posted here for jobs. You can even contact them to see if they have something. These contracting companies have opportunities worldwide and if they are really desperate, they are calling and finding people for these jobs. I used to get TONS of emails for short term contracts nationwide when I had my resume on the web. They aren't THAT hard to find. You just have to go to the source and not rely on dice or monster to find them.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Contacting the contractors, as obvious as that is, wasn't something I had tried. I'll definitely give it a shot when I'm back on the job search. I plan on keeping the one I have for another six months or so before I look for something elsewhere.

I'll let you know how it goes.

silentc1015

Well guys, it looks like I'll get to follow the advice here a lot sooner than I had anticipated. I was just laid off today. After a couple weeks or a month of relaxing and spending time with the family, I'm going to do exactly what you guys have suggested here. Thanks for the help, and wish me luck. I'll let you know how it goes.

Darthn3ss

These jobs are EXTREMELY easy to find...especially if you are willing to go to the Middle East.

More info? I'll go work on networks in baghdad on a 6 month contract for good pay. no doubt.