We just had a terrific victory with Kathi senior woman who relocated she was
in the U.S. she went back to Europe which is where she's from she did with
her husband I think he got a job back there
they then relocated back to the west coast in the US and she was looking for
work after having been a contractor and self-employed for quite a while and you
know she ultimately ended up getting he actually had multiple offers and had
multiple companies chasing her it was not a piece of cake or by any stretch
she had to work it but but she got a great job she's a boot campers got it
just got a great job that I think she started a week or two ago and and she
posted something about it in one of the Facebook groups and the mile walk added
a Facebook group I believe so it you know I know a lot of people been asking
me about this they say they're concerned or they're getting a lot of kickback
from third party recruiters about them being either self-employed or
contractors or whatever don't sweat it I am telling you not to sweat it but you
do have to handle a couple things appropriately if you genuinely are a
contractor have been whether it's been a year two years five years ten years
makes no difference if you've been a contractor for a long time and you were
looking to get back to full-time employment there are many reasons why
people want to do this benefits is an issue and they're very expensive these
days I know it's very difficult as a contractor to sell yourself continually
that's one of the biggest right I would say of all the contractors that I know
that want to get full-time employment nine out of ten of them the reason is
because they don't enjoy looking for that next gig and these are contractors
that are not and I want to I want to clarify here there's a lot of staffing
organizations that deal with part-time talent they deal with perpetual
contractors that have trade skills that are not necessarily commoditized but
they're in high demand usually and employers might not want to either train
for it pay for or whatever maybe at your technologist
maybe you're an accountant maybe whatever it might be
we're a company puts out a request to a number of staffing firms and then they
got to find somebody within like a day or two I'm not talking about that I'm
talking about very very high-level skilled contractors it doesn't mean you
know you need to be working for a ton of years just but you have a specialty
skill you want to get back into a corporation and you're concerned that
you've been a contract or too long or somebody told you that you've been a
contractor too long or you're not sure how to package up your resume I want to
talk about the two issues that you face so first off you've got you've got two
Biggie's there's really I mean there's really only two two issues you got to
tackle the first one is the way you package your resume now the thing that I
love to do with the resume for contractors is if let's say you've got
ten assignments that you've done maybe there are a variety maybe there are
three months maybe there are a year maybe there's six months and a year and
so on total variety maybe it's two three years you've been doing this maybe it's
fifteen years regardless of whatever your situation is however long it is but
you should treat your contracting as though you are working for a company
that company is you whether it has a name you can use the name whether it's
you know John Doe OLC john dole sole proprietor John Doe Inc whatever it is
put that as your company name and then for those of you that are in the boot
camp or the resume program you know that I always love to put a little
description of each company in the in the resume so it does because that does
a number of things number one it level sets your whole resume if you've worked
for small companies lesser known companies large companies doesn't make
any difference it makes it uniform it gives the recruiter or whoever's
reviewing your resume a good understanding of what that company does
even if they don't know who the company was what it also gives you a chance to
do is an applicant tracking system it allows
you to slip in some cool words that you can use to describe the market the
industry the types of customers or whatever it might be that you can slip
into the description don't don't overlook these little subtle things that
give you that extra edge if you are a sole proprietor and you are a
technologist then just say performed contracting services you know technology
project management or whatever it might be software development consulting
services or contractor services for whatever types of companies start up to
you know fortune 500 companies or medium-sized companies or small to
medium businesses or whatever your clientele would be you know small you
know perform these types of projects for these types of companies you know as a
sole proprietor or as a whatever that's kind of your company description and you
kind of slip in some keywords there then what I would say is you know sample
projects include : and then bullet bullet bullet two three
four whatever it is that you feel encapsulate your experience so if you've
done five different si P projects where you implemented the same module every
time then you don't need to put all five of them just put one or two and and pick
whatever you know you think expresses you in the breadth and the depth that
you want three to five whatever for it depends how many years you've been doing
this but you don't need to put all twenty and then what I would do is in in
your description you actually you could put sample projects include or or you
know a full list of projects available you know semicolon sample projects
include : and then list it and then what you can also do if you want is have a
separate kind of CV style listing of your clients and all the projects and
then if somebody is interested in seeing all those you hand them a second
document but you don't slip that second vacuum it in the applicant tracking
system don't wrestle with it don't attach it unless they want it
and then what I would do that's the first part and then in your cover
letters you can you can highlight you're interested in working for that
particular organization you have a breadth of the in depth of skills and
knowledge from your consulting experience you are you could even say
I'm interested in in in gaining full-time employment because if you want
to put your rationale and we'll get into that in a second but there's a variety
of ways to handle that and depending on the strength of your relationship and
and how you're getting the cover letter to them you might want to tinker with
that but the resume itself is a big one and you just want to make it look like
it's a cohesive body of work and if the project's themselves you might not even
need to put dates on them you could say for twelve months for eighteen months if
you want or you could put dates on them if they're all in a row if you've got if
you're picking three to five from a ten-year span and each one of them is a
year and you did this one from you know not a 2001 to 2002 and this one from
2007 to 2008 and this one for you know you might not want to put the dates on
because it might look a little confusing but I would package up that section of
your resume that way and I would not worry about it on the resume the the
other issue that you have to deal with the biggest one of all is this that you
are a flight risk this is what employers care about this is what they worry about
so you need to defuse that issue so when third-party recruiters as
ridiculous as they sound when they say well you know the employer doesn't
really take favorably to contractors going into that first off that's bunk
the second thing is if you can convince the employer that you are looking for
employment at their organization for solid reasons like like you said you
know what hey I've got I'm in a situation where I'm really having you
know I just it's frustrating to have to continue to sell myself and hunt for
work that's a simple one if that's the truth it's very easy to explain
and employers will believe that in a heartbeat because they know a lot
of you contractors are not salespeople there you're not salespeople right
you're accountants and technologists and project managers and you know folks like
that so it's it's it is difficult i I know that it is difficult to secure
clients so that's a good one yeah and you know you can throw in your financial
situation or the fact that you need benefits or whatever but I'll tell you I
I favor if it's true for you that is using the one about having you know just
really you know the securing the new clients that's heavy that's very
stressful and very imperfectly understandable so that's one way to
defuse it there are other ways to defuse it whatever your personal reasons are I
would share that and then talk about you know and maybe maybe the fact is you're
you're looking for a home maybe I know who knows maybe you have a sick parent
and you need to be closer to the house and a lot of your clients tend to be far
away or you need to travel or whatever whatever the rationale is just make it
solid so that they know you're not gonna run out on them that's what they worry
about they worry about that contractors will get bored or self-employed people
will get bored so that's that those are the two big issues if you can nail those
no problem no problem I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't worry too
much
you