I'm working through a consulting company right now and it has been a great experience so far. The staff is professional, they don't micromanage and they can deal with my rates, about which they never complain.
I received a call the other day from another consulting company and if my initial read is correct, dealing with them would be lousy. The account manager called me and talked to me for 20 minutes straight about how tough the sell was going to be to the particular customer. The entire conversation on his part was obliquely related to the expectation of hourly rates and how mine were higher than what they were hoping for.
My reaction to this is always the same: "OK. So?" In other words, what's the problem? If the number is too high, find somebody else. Well there's the problem. It's hard to find an independent consultant specializing in this particular niche technology. You can always call the software company who owns the technology we're talking about—they have consultants, too. Here's the catch: they want to score over 200% of my rate for their consultants.
So it's all relative to the market just like every service for sale. Here's the bottom line question for third parties: are they willing to tell the end client the "bad news"? Because I never hesitate.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Telecommuting Sensibilities
As the need for Progress and QAD professionals heats up – and it is heating up – contractors are once again trying to sell their services remotely, i.e., the "telecommuting" option. There are many facets to landing a telecommuting gig, and the biggest two are value and trust. Following is my advice to contractors in marketing their remote services based on my understanding of these two critical issues.
Many contractors are extremely poor sales people to begin with and their attempts to snag remote work are nothing short of laughable. One guy's pitch to me was that a stipulation of his joint custody agreement was that he remain within a certain geographic area. That alone does not merit throwing his résumé into the "when hell freezes over" pile, but it does earn a trip into my "don't call us, we'll call you" stack, maybe not at the bottom, but certainly not the top. It's simply too difficult to remarket skills when they are attended by certain kinds of baggage.
I usually try to explain to remote contractor hopefuls that trust is a big issue and that anything that might call said trust into question is a deal killer. It's different if you've already worked for the firm to whom you are marketing your remote services. But even then, there remains the expected and actual level of service and availability which is lower with a telecommuting professional by nature. This affects perceived value for the good reason that, for most consultants, working remotely usually impacts actual value. Even assuming absolute conscientiousness on the part of the consultant, usually he/she cannot react just as quickly to user demands nor contribute as effectively in meetings and conversations outside a facility. Simply put, there is a certain "X factor" missing where X can be loosely defined as "being there." This is true even if the firm is utilizing state of the art online meeting technology and the managers aren't shy about calling teleconferences and video conferences and the consultant is and extremely good communicator.
To make up for what is lacking in a telecommuter's virtual presence as opposed to his/her actual presence I've only heard one good recommendation. It came by way of a contractor and it is simply that he would be willing to accept a 25-35% rate discount for doing remote work. I didn't have an opportunity to place the consultant with the client, unfortunately, but I did notice that the proposal has a double-effect. First, his lower amount became competitive even with off-shore rates which gets the attention of the hiring firm very quickly. Offer someone an off-shore rate deal with no cultural or language barriers and you might be accused of selling a pipe-dream to an IT manager.
Secondly, it tacitly acknowledges the value/availability discrepancy and shows the willingness to adjust the rate accordingly. After all, the decrease in drive time, mileage and travel costs are lower for the contractor, sometimes markedly so.
The dramatic "off-shore" comparison will not always be there; the rate still may be higher than the client firm wants to pay, for senior consultants especially, and the price difference may have little effect in those cases. But regardless, when contractors learn to implicitly say "I want to add value to your IT department" rather than "I want to charge a market (read: high) rate" they will have more success at landing a remote gig.
Many contractors are extremely poor sales people to begin with and their attempts to snag remote work are nothing short of laughable. One guy's pitch to me was that a stipulation of his joint custody agreement was that he remain within a certain geographic area. That alone does not merit throwing his résumé into the "when hell freezes over" pile, but it does earn a trip into my "don't call us, we'll call you" stack, maybe not at the bottom, but certainly not the top. It's simply too difficult to remarket skills when they are attended by certain kinds of baggage.
I usually try to explain to remote contractor hopefuls that trust is a big issue and that anything that might call said trust into question is a deal killer. It's different if you've already worked for the firm to whom you are marketing your remote services. But even then, there remains the expected and actual level of service and availability which is lower with a telecommuting professional by nature. This affects perceived value for the good reason that, for most consultants, working remotely usually impacts actual value. Even assuming absolute conscientiousness on the part of the consultant, usually he/she cannot react just as quickly to user demands nor contribute as effectively in meetings and conversations outside a facility. Simply put, there is a certain "X factor" missing where X can be loosely defined as "being there." This is true even if the firm is utilizing state of the art online meeting technology and the managers aren't shy about calling teleconferences and video conferences and the consultant is and extremely good communicator.
To make up for what is lacking in a telecommuter's virtual presence as opposed to his/her actual presence I've only heard one good recommendation. It came by way of a contractor and it is simply that he would be willing to accept a 25-35% rate discount for doing remote work. I didn't have an opportunity to place the consultant with the client, unfortunately, but I did notice that the proposal has a double-effect. First, his lower amount became competitive even with off-shore rates which gets the attention of the hiring firm very quickly. Offer someone an off-shore rate deal with no cultural or language barriers and you might be accused of selling a pipe-dream to an IT manager.
Secondly, it tacitly acknowledges the value/availability discrepancy and shows the willingness to adjust the rate accordingly. After all, the decrease in drive time, mileage and travel costs are lower for the contractor, sometimes markedly so.
The dramatic "off-shore" comparison will not always be there; the rate still may be higher than the client firm wants to pay, for senior consultants especially, and the price difference may have little effect in those cases. But regardless, when contractors learn to implicitly say "I want to add value to your IT department" rather than "I want to charge a market (read: high) rate" they will have more success at landing a remote gig.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
What should candidates expect from recruiters?
Simply seen, recruiters often appear to be like the "village match-maker", trying to pair up a candidate seeking a job with a firm looking for the job-seeker's talent. So who do recruiters work for? If they are being honest they'll admit that they are working for the hiring firm, not the candidate. After all, who's signing the check?
Having said that, recruiters are only paid for brokering deals mutually acceptable to both parties. Because this is the case, a recruiter's motivation can become the occasion for good fortune among the candidates he represents. Recruiters can do wonders to expedite and streamline the interviewing process and can be better at holding the hiring firm to the best compensation; an individual interviewing himself/herself often has an "I better take what they offer me" attitude.
The way this works best is if the recruiter works with the candidate as a coach rather than a mere broker. A recruiter who sees his business as primarily a brokerage often won't even tell a candidate when the client is no longer considering him/her for the position. As one of my candidates told me "Usually the phone just goes dead," and at that point he assumed he was no longer in the running. An even more common concern is when a so-called recruiter just takes a whole stack of resumes, sometimes ten or twenty, and just throws them all at the hiring firm. Then the HR person or department head has to spend a week going through each resume until information overload sets in. Or, more likely, he stares at the scary pile for several seconds and decides to leave work early that day.
The coach model is more successful for everyone involved. When the recruiter acts as a coach, he looks at the candidate in his/her entirety as a person and decides if they are a good fit for a position. He will ask questions to learn as much as he can about the candidate's professional skills and experience: how much have you used this skill? when is the last time you worked on this system? The recruiter will also ask about certain pertinent aspects of his/her personal life: how much traveling are you willing to do? are you willing to relocate? does this position fit your career path? etc. If they are not a good fit, the recruiter will tell him or her up-front rather than just trying the spaghetti method -- "throw 'em up and see if they stick." If the candidate is viably skilled, his or her contact information will be kept on file.
In my experience, not only is this method of recruiting necessary for basic human decency (we shouldn't treat persons as object to be sold, like crates of turnips), but aids in long-term business success. Around 75% of my placements have been on "second attempts"; when presented with a position to be filled I remembered someone who had the credentials needed to do the job. If I hadn't had real conversations about skills, experience and career issues with the candidate, I probably wouldn't have even recalled the candidate's existence.
I hope to post more about these philosophical questions about the recruiting practice in the future. Stay tuned. And feel free to comment.
Having said that, recruiters are only paid for brokering deals mutually acceptable to both parties. Because this is the case, a recruiter's motivation can become the occasion for good fortune among the candidates he represents. Recruiters can do wonders to expedite and streamline the interviewing process and can be better at holding the hiring firm to the best compensation; an individual interviewing himself/herself often has an "I better take what they offer me" attitude.
The way this works best is if the recruiter works with the candidate as a coach rather than a mere broker. A recruiter who sees his business as primarily a brokerage often won't even tell a candidate when the client is no longer considering him/her for the position. As one of my candidates told me "Usually the phone just goes dead," and at that point he assumed he was no longer in the running. An even more common concern is when a so-called recruiter just takes a whole stack of resumes, sometimes ten or twenty, and just throws them all at the hiring firm. Then the HR person or department head has to spend a week going through each resume until information overload sets in. Or, more likely, he stares at the scary pile for several seconds and decides to leave work early that day.
The coach model is more successful for everyone involved. When the recruiter acts as a coach, he looks at the candidate in his/her entirety as a person and decides if they are a good fit for a position. He will ask questions to learn as much as he can about the candidate's professional skills and experience: how much have you used this skill? when is the last time you worked on this system? The recruiter will also ask about certain pertinent aspects of his/her personal life: how much traveling are you willing to do? are you willing to relocate? does this position fit your career path? etc. If they are not a good fit, the recruiter will tell him or her up-front rather than just trying the spaghetti method -- "throw 'em up and see if they stick." If the candidate is viably skilled, his or her contact information will be kept on file.
In my experience, not only is this method of recruiting necessary for basic human decency (we shouldn't treat persons as object to be sold, like crates of turnips), but aids in long-term business success. Around 75% of my placements have been on "second attempts"; when presented with a position to be filled I remembered someone who had the credentials needed to do the job. If I hadn't had real conversations about skills, experience and career issues with the candidate, I probably wouldn't have even recalled the candidate's existence.
I hope to post more about these philosophical questions about the recruiting practice in the future. Stay tuned. And feel free to comment.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Full-time Recruiting Services
I have been working with a number of firms recently to help them achieve their staffing goals. Some of these firms are local to Northeast Ohio, but others are located in other parts of the country.
I've enjoyed the full-time recruiting work I've been doing the most because it has given me a chance to work with and present some of the most qualified and experienced IT professionals out there. Guiding them through the process either locally or remotely has been very fulfilling.
Please contact me if you have an interest in our high quality staffing services. Use the email link on the side-bar.
I've enjoyed the full-time recruiting work I've been doing the most because it has given me a chance to work with and present some of the most qualified and experienced IT professionals out there. Guiding them through the process either locally or remotely has been very fulfilling.
Please contact me if you have an interest in our high quality staffing services. Use the email link on the side-bar.
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