RE: Obtaining contracts

Subject: RE: Obtaining contracts
From: "Robotti, Anne \(Carlin\)" <ARobotti -at- CarlinGroup -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 12:55:56 -0400


> They know the company as far as they know the quirks of the
> manager that the writer will be reporting to. Anyone can
> figure out what the market will bear by reading 10-15 ads
> posted on Dice. After that, the recruiter simply wants the
> candidate to show up every day - that's it.

I misspoke, when I said "They know what the market will bear" I meant
that they know what this company's going to pay and what they aren't.
And as far as the quirks of the manager - if he's the decision maker,
what else do you *need* to know?

> The explanation is simple: If a company is willing to pay
> $65 per hour for my services, why should I pay a middle-man
> $20 per hour, for the life of the contract, for putting me in
> front of the company for an interview?

But if you've valued your skills correctly and you're getting your
price, why would you care what the arrangements are between the
recruiter and the company? In that scenario, the $65 isn't the rate
they're willing to pay you, it's your rate with the cost of the
recruiter built in on top of it - the rate that they're willing to pay
you is what they're going to end up paying you anyway. In this case,
about $45-55 an hour.

>
> >"We need a tech writer. They have to do system
> >docs and there's some QA testing too. Knowledge of API
> documentation a plus. We can pay up to $15 an hour."
>
> This is where the recruiter accepts the task of finding a
> tech writer, but in this case he just puts the word "junior"
> before the words "tech writer".

Okay, but he certainly doesn't call *me* with it! He knows my
parameters, he knows my style, he knows how many kids I have and exactly
how much time I'm willing to spend in the office, and he checks all that
out up front before he even bothers me with a listing. When I go on the
interview, I know I'm not going to waste my time or the client's.

> This sort of leads back to my original question: How do I
> get notified of these positions as quickly as a tier-1
> recruiter? From previous posts, it seems that it might be as
> simple as building up my reputation by calling these
> companies directly, submitting myself through my corporation,
> and then fulfilling the contract with stellar results.

I guess it boils down to a matter of opinion, I just don't think that's
true. Don't most big companies have a short list of recruiters anyway? I
know AT&T always has. I just think the odds of finding the person that's
hiring in the company that's hiring at the time they're hiring and
hitting on a good fit seems slim. It's a Catch-22 in a way - if a
company *has* a list of Tier-1 recruiters, you're not going to find out
as quickly as the recruiters are because the recruiters are the only
ones who are going to get the phone call. If the company *doesn't* have
a list, then you have as much chance of getting in with a cold call as
a recruiter, I suppose, except that the recruiter is spending 75% of his
work week generating just this kind of lead, as opposed to the lunch
hours and after-hours time that one of us could put in.

I'm sure there are people who always do it that way, I guess I'll just
never be one of them.

Anne


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