Contracting as a Plan A
The Transition of Temping from a Backup Plan B, to the New Plan A.
Today, according to Staffing Industry Analysts, there are approximately 1.5 million temporary workers representing close to 35% of our workforce. Temping, ironically, has become a permanent fixture in the labor landscape, and the rapid enlargement of its footprint can be traced back to the 1980’s.
As a nearly 30 year Technical Recruiter whose career spans the transformative years of contracting in our workforce, I have witnessed first-hand its evolution from a last choice to a preferred tool to proactively manage one’s own career path.
In the late 80s, as an underclassman at Boston University’s School of Management, the benefits of JIT (Just-In-Time) processes, rebranded as Lean, was highly touted. The “Toyota Way” drove to eliminate waste, lest it cost companies and consumers. To remain competitive in a global market, the squeeze on excessive production, inventory, and materials was on, and the hunt for waste was extended to headcount as well.
So by the time I started my staffing career, the environment was ripe for companies to employ temporary staffing, but what was in it for the workers themselves?
PLAN B TEMPS
I first worked in Manufacturing staffing, where nomadic troops of assemblers moved through their agency from factory to factory. For many who were recent immigrants, these were their first jobs. A permanent position would have been their first choice, but without a resume, options were limited. Temp-job by temp-job we would build up their skills and resume experience, making each successive job easier to get than the last – and their wages would rise accordingly.
Or perhaps someone was laid off and unemployment benefits were running out. At the very least, a temp job would pay those pesky bills that kept on coming, indiscriminate of one’s employment status. Not to mention, would-be employers seemed to be more interested in someone who was working than someone not working at all.
THE JOB SHOPPERS
But there was an interesting subsection of temps; the contract Machinists and CAD Designers. They were independently-minded, despised office politics, and embraced temping enough to label themselves “job-shoppers”. These rugged individualists were my first foray into the workforce of those who actually preferred to temp. They knew what they wanted in a recruiter relationship. That meant first and foremost all sides operating with integrity, because reputations would matter. And having jobs at the ready when they were ready to work, and holding off when they didn’t want to work, which was usually summer because the kids were out of school… and their fishing boats were launched.
BIRTH OF A FREE-AGENT NATION
My father was a company man. He worked as a chemist for the same paper company that just happened to be acquired by bigger and bigger companies. Think of the cartoon where the fish just get eaten by the next predator fish in the food chain. I remember his fatherly advice coming out of college to go find work with a prestigious, big company, because then you’d have “a job for life”.
I also remember that “job for life” unspoken promise being broken, when engineers throughout the 90s were laid-off in droves. They sought me out in search of their next position, bewildered by their betrayal.
These involuntarily emancipated engineers would go on to form the foundation of startup companies that forged the Technical Revolution of the Internet Age, a Free Agent nation in search of technical challenge and ground-floor opportunity. Where they once sought blue chip pensions, they were now sailing into a brave new world of IPOs and high-growth stock options.
PLAN A
Today the evolution is complete. A-Player engineers embody the spirit of the early job shoppers with their own Plan A twist in choosing to contract. They not only leverage their current skills in the free market, they continuously acquire new skills and industry experience to exponentially multiply their value.
Plan A Contractors’ proactive career management ensures they remain in-demand allowing them to outearn their full-time counterparts, expand their network and build their own brand. And when they decide to step off the contracting bullet train they might even try out a company while temping before committing to plum full-time positions.
But to nimbly and effectively navigate the job market to take full advantage of contract project work, Plan A Contractors carefully pick which recruiters to work with. They utilize subject matter experts like John Galt’s as their own Personal Recruiting Team to get a bird’s eye view of the market for them, serve as valuable sounding boards, and of course land their next project.
If you’re interested in taking advantage of the Top 10 Benefits of Contracting, we invite you to talk with a John Galt recruiter to determine whether it makes sense for your situation.
