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career focus
Contract Engineering Jobs
By John R. Platt
"Career contractors." That's
what Joseph Salvucci, owner and CEO of
Peak Technical Staffing USA, calls many of
the engineers who find work through his firm.
These highly trained professionals aren't
looking for full-time jobs that will last them
20 or 30 years. Instead, they're looking for
contract work: short-term jobs — anywhere from a
few months to a couple of years — that pay well,
offer certain degrees of flexibility and give
them a chance to practice their craft at a very
high technical level.
"These career contractors move
from one very interesting and amazing job to
another interesting and amazing job," Salvucci
says. "It's always a situation where things need
to get done and they need to get done now." In
the process, contract engineers can often be
earning a premium of 10 to 15 percent above the
market rate for permanent employees.
Contract workers usually have at
least a few years or even decades of experience
under their belt along with specializations in
an industry or skill set. "We're trying to match
specific skills to specific needs," says Jay
Rogers, VP of recruiting at
Randstad Engineering. And depending on the
industry, the need for these skills is often
quite high: "There's definitely a gap between
supply and demand," he says.
Why Some Engineers Opt for
Contract Assignments
Contractors don't always have
the same mindset as the typical employee. "We
did some research a few years ago and found that
for about 75 percent of the American workforce,
their main need is job security," Salvucci says.
That's not the case for contract engineers,
although their actual top priorities vary
widely.
For some contract engineers, the
prospect of earning higher incomes — both in
base rates and overtime — drives their
employment decisions. "I saw the rates my old
employers were getting from their clients and I
knew how much they were paying me," says IEEE
member and software developer John Zukowski. "I
wanted to get a bigger piece of the pie." He has
now been contracting for the past six years.
Other contractors enjoy staying
on the cutting edges of their industries, says
Abhijeet Narvekar, co-founder of
The FerVID Group, a Houston-based recruiting
firm specializing in the oil and gas industry.
The FerVID Group does not currently represent
contract workers, but they just had a discussion
with several contractors to learn more about
their needs. He says contractors told them that
some permanent jobs can lead to a stagnation of
technical skills. "If you're a contractor, you
could pick up a six-month contract and work in
one technology, then you could take another
contract which gives you exposure to a different
technology. That way the contractors can really
keep up with the fast-moving engineering world."
This not only keeps their skills fresh, it also
makes them more marketable — and allows them to
raise their rates even further.
For many entering contract work,
the lure is the ability to be the solution.
"When they can successfully solve a problem that
other people maybe thought was unsolvable,
that's a huge kick," Salvucci says. "They love
solving problems. That's why engineers become
engineers." Narvekar says many contractors enjoy
the feeling of accomplishment they get from
their work. "A contractor can say, my job is
done, so now I can move on to something else."
For others, travel and personal
growth are their biggest incentives. "I enjoy
the challenges and diversity of contracting,"
says Ed Hipple, who has been contracting through
Randstad since 2008. "I get to go from place to
place, to meet different people and different
cultures within the United States. I've had
experiences from Kansas to Texas to George and
in between." As much as he enjoys meeting new
people, he says he also enjoys discovering new
food: "I can tell you some of the best places to
have barbeque west of Memphis."
Why Companies Opt for
Contract Employees
Okay, those are some of the
reasons why an engineer would want to become a
contractor. What about the flip side of the
equation?
For one thing, hiring
contractors allows companies to manage their
finances and adjust their workforce during times
of boom or bust. "As a contract person, I am a
benefit to a client," Hipple says. "Whether it's
a six-month project or a two-year project, they
are able to construct their forecasted
expenditures and budget on a temporary asset and
not have to worry about a long-term asset with
20-year health insurance and a retirement
program."
For another, the rapid
development of technology and the globalization
of the world economy have made contracting an
essential part of a company's employee mix,
Salvucci says. "Engineering is becoming more
specialized, and as it becomes more specialized
you are less suited to be in a full-time
position because your talent in that
specialization is only needed on a temporary
basis. Today, a company needs an electrical
engineer with specific experience to suit a
project's needs." Once that project is over, the
need for the employee is often over as well, but
this is also a benefit to the employees: it
frees up contract engineers to take their skills
elsewhere.
Contractors aren't the only ones
who specialize. "Companies become experts in
what they do," Rogers says. "You don't want me
to go and fire up a nuclear power plant," he
jokes. "Most of our engineering customers have
HR departments, but they don't have a staff of
people that can post jobs, screen candidates and
do background checks." Companies like Randstad
provide that service for them.
Another advantage is that
contractors typically don't need much, if any,
training before a job can begin. "The client
expects a contractor to get started on day one,"
Narvekar says. "They are expecting a person to
know the ins and outs of a particular
technology. Once they find that person they're
going to give them a good long-term six months,
one year or longer contract to lock that person
in."
Companies also tend to get much
more work out of contractors than full-time
employees — and they get exactly what they pay
for. "Contractors are 100 percent utilized while
they're on the project," Salvucci says. By
comparison, a "captive" or full-time employee
might be used as little as 60 percent after
holidays, sick days, training and other time
off. "If contractors don't work for a couple of
hours, they don't get paid."
High Pay, But for a Reason
It's that 100 percent
utilization that leads to higher paychecks for
contractors, who negotiate an hourly rate at the
beginning of each job. "None of them get paid
for holidays or vacations," Salvucci says.
"That's prepaid in their rate."
Unlike full-time employees,
contract engineers need to pay for their own
insurance, 401(k) and other benefits. Both Peak
and Randstad offer a la carte benefits,
but only about half of their contractors take
advantage of them, Salvucci says. "If they've
been doing this for a while, contract engineers
know they need to build this into their rate up
front because it's going to be out of pocket,"
Rogers says.
Finding insurance can be a tough
task when you work for yourself. Zukowksi says
he expected to be able to get healthcare
benefits through IEEE when he first started
contracting, but he found that they were not
available in his state. He ended up getting his
insurance through a local business group.
There's also some risk in
contracting, as you can't always guarantee that
a new job will be waiting for you as soon as you
finish your current assignment. "I try to give
myself three months to find a contract,"
Zukowski says. "This allows me to be more
selective and shoot for a better rate. Worst
case scenario I can find something in a week or
two but it more than likely won't be for a rate
I would want long-term."
Geography Plays a Role
One of the most important
questions contractors must face is whether or
not they want to stay in the same area or take
jobs in a different region of the country, if
not the world. Some geographic regions —
Houston, Georgia, Boston and New Jersey, to name
a few — have plenty of jobs, allowing
contractors who live on those parts of the
country to easily transition from one assignment
to the next.
But other regions might have
fewer jobs or experience shifts in staffing
needs. Contractors taking assignments in those
areas might live in rented houses or trailers
for a few months at a time instead of their own
homes. Peak Technical has been sending a lot of
employees to Western Canada and some to South
America, where needs are currently at an
all-time high.
"Individuals have different
aspirations and willingness and openness to
travel for short or long periods of time,"
Rogers says. Part of Randstad's screening
process involves finding out which employees are
willing to work in what regions. "About 50
percent of the time, they are entrenched in an
area," he says.
As an ex-Marine, Hipple says his
feet start growing roots if he stays in one
place for too long, so he enjoys the travel. He
makes sure to negotiate predictable time at home
with his family every four or five weeks. Other
contractors might commute back and forth every
weekend if the jobs are close enough to their
homes. Hipple says he bases his pay rate on the
region where he'll be working by looking at the
local standard of living.
How to Get Started (and Keep
Working) as a Contractor
Rogers says the process of
becoming a contract engineer starts with a good
resume. "We like to see what industries people
have worked in, what specific projects they've
worked on, and any software or hardware that
they've worked with." They also like to know up
front type of job you're looking for and whether
or not you're willing to relocate.
Narvekar recommends tailoring
your resume to the contract job you seek. "I
think the resume needs to talk about that
assignment's specific need. Provide specific
examples of what you did and how you resolved
problems. If you don't know how to do this in
your resume, write a cover letter to explain why
you think you're a good fit," he suggests.
Many contracting jobs are found
through recruiters like Peak Technical and
Randstad, which maintain databases of available
employees and their skills. "Contractors treat
us as their agent," Salvucci says. "It's just
like with football players and with actors,
they're looking for the next gig. We keep them
informed about other assignments that might suit
them as they approach the end of their
assignment."
If you have the skills and
aren't solely looking for job security, Salvucci
encourages people to give contracting a try. "If
you're a good engineer and you work hard and you
keep yourself up to date, you're probably a
great candidate to become a career contractor,"
he says.
John R. Platt is a freelance
writer and entrepreneur, as well as a frequent
contributor to Today's Engineer,
Scientific American, Mother Nature
Network and other publications.
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