The pros and cons of contracting

Contracting has been popular for many years as there have been myriad of benefits, such as: a great way to gain international experience, enhance your skill set, improve your CV and earn better remuneration. Many contractor workers we place tell us that remuneration isn’t the determining factor for contract work, the flexibility it brings and subsequent well being are also important. However, contract work isn’t for everyone. In this article, we discuss several of the major pros and cons to contract working

Advantages

• Money: Due to the typical nature that contractors are needed in a time sensitive manner and for specific time frame, they are usually paid more than the same position on a permanent basis
• Challenge: As a contractor your contribution will be highly valued and critical to deadlines for project completion dates being met. This can stretch you more than a typical 9-5 job, thus improving your skill set be it technically or soft skills. Although it can be stressful, most contractors enjoy this type of daily challenge.
• Growing your experience: A few years spent contracting will give you incredibly valuable experience. Then, if you decide to look for a permanent position, you’ll be very marketable to employers.
• Life experience: Contracting in a country that is not your home country is an excellent way to travel the world (although unfortunately not every contract position is on a sunny beach!). Working abroad and gaining insight into different cultures/work environments can be very rewarding, and can help you grow as a person.
• Taking control of your career. As a contractor, you decide what roles you want to apply for depending on what stage of your career you’re in. Motivations change over time and this will impact the type of work you want to do.
• Growing your network. Working in a variety of companies will grow your network (and maybe even your friendship circle).You never know when you’ll need to rely on your network in the future for potential jobs

Disadvantages

• Uncertainty: When you’re working as a contractor you have to be able to cope with uncertainty, because there’s no guarantee that your contract will be renewed, or that you’ll go straight from one contract to the next. The more experienced you are and the better your reputation and track record, the easier it will be to stay in work. A good reputation will help keep you working, just as a bad reference will damage your contracting career.
• Stress: You’re almost certain to be working to tight deadlines, and the demands made on you are likely to be very stressful. Managers will have high expectations of you and the levels of work you can complete. You’ll be expected to hit the ground running and be an expert in your skill-set: people will look to you for the answers and you’ll be expected to deliver. If you’re not the sort of person who rises to a challenge and works well to deadlines, you should consider carefully whether contracting is for you!
• Isolation: The support of your friends and family is important. If you’re married, contracting can be hard on both of you, as you won’t always be able to take your spouse with you on contracts. Being away from each other for long periods can add stress to your relationship – it’s not for everybody. It’s therefore important to make sure you’ve talked through all the implications.
• Other potential ‘cons’: Limited job security, uncertain regular income, additional work e.g. tax affairs. 

Make sure the pros outweigh the cons and you can be sure of a lot of hard work and guaranteed adventures. 

We asked a selection of our contractors the what they enjoyed about it. Here's what they said:

“It is an opportunity to participate in projects where different skills and approaches are required to meet the Client's needs, this keeps us always searching for improve our knowledge.” - RF Design Engineer

“I feel grateful to be a consultant with FPG because I sense that they treat me with respect and transparency. They are absolutely accountable, avoiding any surprises along the way, providing close support, and backed by years of experience doing business with leading companies in the global market.” - Project Costumer Delivery Manager

“As a contractor employee, I may have more control over my current schedule and working hours, which allow's me for more flexibility and work-life balance. Usually Contract work is project based job, which means that I have more opportunity to work on a variety of different projects with different teams in return getting good chance to learn more skills. To summarize in short, Contract work provides additional experience, knowledge, skills, and gives us more control of our schedule." Open RAN Testing & Validation