Transition from Perm to contract?

nel

Hi guys,

I have about a year or so left on my Masters degree and are just looking over the horizon after that. One thing ive always been intrigued in is contracting. From many of the contractors i have spoke to it seems there is alot more opportunities to work with good technologies and equipment allowing you to progress further in a faster manner than your typical perm networking role. How do you guys feel about this who have done a similar transition? Would contracting also open more opportunities to working abroad (outside the UK) more? Working abroad and experiencing a different life to the UK is very appealing to me too.

Im well aware of the pro's and cons re money, holidays etc between the two, so im not really angling my question towards that area.

Realistically, if i were to do this, i would need to strengthen my qualifications. Im hoping to add my Masters Degree and hopefully wrap up my CCNP along side my masters. Hopefully add the JNCIA-Junos in there too. Would these give me an easier transition across to contracting do you think? Then once i finish my Uni education i will have more time to concentrate on certs.

Im interested to hear your experiences of a similar transition.

UnixGuy

True, usually a contracting job gives you good exposure but you can still get the same with a perm position if you work with a vendor, business partner, or a service provider, or in a big site.


As for experiencing life outside the UK, yes it's a good idea to have good qualifications & experience/certs, as it will help in finding a job, but I think the first step should be getting a visa(i.e. work permit) to the country you want to go to.

VAHokie56

I took a 6 month contract as a desktop support analyst. within that 6 months I was hired on full time and got my CCNA and moved to the network department. I know my cert helped but I would also weigh a lot on attitude and drive. I tryed to get my hands on anything and everything that had cisco written on it while I was doing desk side and just bugged the engineers, I think that helped me get my spot. Good luck

jtoast

I made the opposite 3 years ago (contract to perm.)

For 5 years I was a contract software packager. Jobs were as short as 2 weeks with the longest being just over a year. Sometimes I worked from home but I was usually living out of hotels for several months at a time. I got married in 2007 and decided I needed to have some stability. I took a job doing ATM repair for less money but no travel. Before that job started I took a final 2 week contract position with a major corporation and got very very lucky. That 2 week position got extended to a 1 year contract offer which then turned into a permanent position in June of 2008.

If you don't have a family, contract work is great. You get a lot of varied experience, it pays well, and there is usually a lot of travel involved. The downsides include living out hotels gets old (I spent ~230 days in hotels in 2002), lack of health insurance, vacation pay, 401K, etc.

If you have a family, contract work sucks. You are constantly trying to juggle your current end date (and possible extensions) with finding your next paying gig and the first time a contract ends without a new one in sight, panic ensues.

nel

well i dont have any ties of family/gf. So im very much in the time of my life where i can do as i please which is why i want to concentrate on my career once uni is over. At the moment i want to step upto a mid level engineers level and then look into contracting to try and take me further in the field into an advanced skillset long term.

From the UK market it appears London is the place to be and would be a good base for a stable flow of contract roles maybe. The big city has always appealed to me so maybe it would be a good move providing i can finish off my ccnp too.