Re: outsourcing/consultancy experiences anyone?

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 09:40:44 +0200, Deefoo wrote:
"mc" <look@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:URzmg.72674$qd2.22885@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The biggest thing to remember about consulting is that you cannot get 8
billable hours a day (if you're honest). You will be able to bill about
half of that. A remarkable amount of your time is taken up maintaining
your
own tools, making contacts, keeping records, etc., rather than doing
billable work.

Thanks for the answers, but I am afraid some of you are misunderstanding the
question. Here in Europe (at least) there are plenty of companies (like the
one I cited) that hire all kinds of engineers. They are paid by this company
and rented to other companies as "consultants" for several months where they
do their thing (hardware/software/management/etc). Very common in software
engineering. It is like a specialised temp agency except that once they hire
you, you become their employee and they pay you, project or not. So if
you're lucky you do many interesting projects in many different companies,
but if you are less lucky you sit all day in some office sipping coffee.
I've been approached by several of these companies (as I said, they are
plenty) but I have never met an electronics engineer that works for such a
company and I would like to hear some stories if possible before going any
further.

I've done "engineering-grade" work as an independent contractor, but it
was by word-of-mouth referrals. I'd think that doing the same thing
through an agency wouldn't be much different, albeit in each case I only
got paid for actual work (which there happened to be 40 hours' worth of
each week, but that's not the point). I've also worked for temp agencies
doing file-clerk-grade work, and still only got paid for actual work,
which might or might not be sporadic.

I'd say jump in and give it a shot - you can always say "no" to any given
assignment, and you can change your mind any time - you're not marrying
the agency! ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich

.

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