Looking for work and I have been targeting FT roles at FAANG company (non-tech) for a while.
I recently was offered and decided to do a contract role through a staffing/recruiting agency with a placement at a FAANG company’s affiliate/related company (e.g., WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube etc.) to have an in. It is potentially contract to permanent and they converted a person recently in the same role recently.
Before this, a couple friends/colleagues at the company referred me in January but also said the company usually takes a pretty long time in its recruiting/hiring. I was only just reached out to from recruiting about a role a couple weeks ago and only just spoke with the HM about a FT role this week. Also I’ve been waiting to get set up with the company’s contracting service since verbally accepting but that has also taken several weeks so when the company’s internal recruiters reached out about the FT role still wasn’t sure what was going on and as it was target FT role I am happy to interview.
The contract role is roughly equivalent in just base salary and level at the company but the direct role is obviously more/better in total comp etc. and a direct hire with the company’s benefits. I don’t know yet if I’m actually progressing forward with the FT role until maybe week’s end but everything is in early stages and seems to take the company a while/several months to onboard (even with the contracting it seems).
Should I be telling the recruiter/agency that I’m interviewing for FT roles....or is that a given with accepting contract work? I haven’t started the contract or signed anything but now they are suddenly wanting to move quickly with on boarding and immediate start. I’d honestly be fully happy with the role/company if it were FTE but if the other role progressed I would prefer it since it’s a FT role immediately on joining.
If I continue with the “bird in hand” and also happen to make it through the next stages of interviewing for a FT role while starting with the contract (since it seems the company is uniformly slow to onboard) would I need to disclose this while continuing interviewing or would it be a bridge to cross only if there is a later offer and discussion on availability to start?
Any thoughts? Thanks!
tl;dr - should I be telling anyone that I am simultaneously interviewing for a Ft role at the company after accepting a contract role?
Couple of things noteworthy,
one being, typically an employer who has a contractor will have to notify the agency that you’re being hired full-time because there could be a fee and even if there is not, where I work as a recruiter the employer has to contact the agency prior to the full-time hire an on boarding that doesn’t mean that every employer does that.
Personally I’m currently working for an agency and if I were being considered I would have a conversation with my agency when I had an offer in hand you don’t want to burn a bridge with an agency if you need future contract work.
I believe in full disclosure and not assuming the employer has contacted your agency.
Some agencies have an agreement with the employer that you have to be a contractor for six months to waive the fee but every employer has different agreements as it varies if they have a vendor contract negotiated in advance for volume business and then there may be a waived fee for a full-time hire.
Thanks for your additional thoughts! I also appreciate your specific thoughts on when is most appropriate to bring it up with the companies (e.g., only if and after any offer). I can't be sure what the internal recruiting/HR teams at the main company will know about my status but since it seems like I might already have started working with their affiliate I might already be in their internal systems somewhere or IT. But since they've approached me before the contract and it's recent I think it might not make sense to bring it up or call attention to it in upcoming interviews etc. I suppose if I get directly asked I should prepare some kind of answer though.
OP here--so I've heard that I'm moving to the next round for the FT role! I was also asked if I could start immediately on the contract and tried to push a couple days/week. Now both the contract team and the recruiters want me to start/interview the same week! which I don't know if could be an issue. Not sure if it's better to have said I was available earlier or to try and punt it. Any thoughts/ideas? And each week I don't start is about $5K not earned too.
Nope - don't disclose until you need to.
A contract role is quite different from a FT role in a recruiter or hiring manager's view and all would understand why you'd choose this, even if they don't like it.
However, you need to read your contract agreement with the contracting service very carefully to understand what the "conversation" from contract to full-time looks like. Often, a company will pay a contracting service a sourcing fee if they convert a contractor to a full-time employee before a set amount of time (i.e. 6 months.) If there isn't anything in the contract, ASK your agency contact how this works for the company.
If the company has to pay the contracting service a sourcing fee of 30% of your salary, then that's a penalty to hire you versus someone else, and may impact your desirability as a candidate.
Regardless, if you aren't working and need the pay, do try to work. Lots of good reasons to be working in a target company.
Thanks so much for your reply--it was helpful and particularly your advice to dig into the details of what would need to happen for a conversion. Contract is supposed to last for 4 months and possibly extended and when I'd spoken with the HM she had mentioned that they didn't have headcount right then so that was why they were looking. But it could be a good thing if in just the past couple of weeks while I was waiting to be on-boarded they posted an opening as I would assume they now actually do have headcount.
But as I was previously sent through by the staffing company I don't know if they could consider me for that role right now even if I applied directly without a placement fee of some sort (I haven't signed anything but may be bad form etc.). I don't know what the recruiter agreement between the agency and FAANG company but given that it was proposed temp to perm I would suspect there could be an early conversion fee for earlier than 4 months.
Not ideal for my personal goals to continue to contract and I prefer FT to freelance/consulting. I am currently working but only part-time (billing 4 hours a day) as a consultant through another recruiting firm because I wanted to give myself time to properly job search and interview from my last position which was very far from ideal and where I regularly worked 65-80 hour weeks throughout the year while simultaneously trying to apply to new positions every week. Since the part-time consulting is so light I'm planning to continue with this as well and continue to apply for FT positions over the next quarter (Q2).
OP here I should also add that in the time I was waiting over the past several weeks to onboard as contract the company put a new posting up for this team and for this same role so I would assume they have the headcount now for the FT role. But I haven’t applied or anything on the website to this role.