Submitted by jonno12131 on
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BLUF: To what extent does switching from being an employee to Contractor impact your ability to develop, and ultimately get roles, as a Manager?
I've been in full time employment for the past 10 years. I am currently considering whether, at some point in the future, maybe 1-2 years away, contracting may be an option for me.
I have been an individual contributor throughout however I have aspirations to become a manager and help develop people. There may be an opportunity for this coming up with my current company as my current role is growing.
If I decide to go down the Contractor route later on, should I be focusing on my individual contributor / technical skills, or should I still be looking into enhancing my management skillset?
My perception of Contractors is that they are interim, brought in for specific skills or situations, and therefore are not typically utilised for Management positions. Is this an accurate perspective or am I way off?
Thanks for reading. Special thanks to any High D's who made it this far down the email, you're doiong well!
Hope to hear from you guys.
Jonno. DISC 4.1.5.7
I can't speak for private sector companies...
... In the federal government, one of the definitions of 'employee' is 'gives direction to other federal employees'. In other words, a contractor *couldn't* be a manager, in a single-person-contracting-gig. They could be brought in short-term, but they'd have to be brought in as an employee.
Of course, where there are a number of contractors all on the same contractor, *they* usually have a manager. On bigger contracts, that goes up to more and more levels; mine I think I have...three? Three levels above me. So being part of a contracting *company* you can become a manager.
Again, this is according to my understanding specifically of the federal government. (And I could be wrong; I don't think I am, since I was told this by someone whose job it was to teach people how not to get in trouble with government contracting, and this was one of the things he had to teach people.)
In private sector (tech fields)
I've never seen a "contractor" as a manager. Contractors are frequently used in my fields (high tech, software development, embedded systems). Typically used for two specific reasons:
* Company doesn't want to hire employees as contractors are easy to engage and disengage to fill skill holes, make whole teams, and get rid of at the end of a project.
* Company can't find a specific skill set they need within their company, and it'll be a fairly temporary need, so they hire a contractor with that specific skill-set for the short portion of a project that needs it.
In the first case, I've seen whole cube-farms of contractors. Always managed by a full employee. In the latter, it's typically a single guy coming in for the skill, working with a team of employees, managed by an employee.
Note that in both cases, contracting can be path to getting hired as a full employee. There's a fair amount of "try-before-you-buy" contracting in the tech field. So, it's possible you could go from contractor to individual contributor employee to manager (I've seen this happen).
And again: I've never seen a contractor be a manager.