Re: A contracting season?

[Mitch Berg <mberg -at- IS -dot- COM>]

At 04:40 PM 4/27/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Dave Brinegar mentions (twice) the "Spring contract techwriter's season"
>
>Is this a real phenomenon?  If so, why?  Does it exist across the board
>or just in some geographical areas or some industries?  What constitutes
>"spring"--February to June?  (When I go independent in a couple of
>years, it would be just like my luck to decide to take the plunge in
>September!)

It seems to work like this:
Companies start staffing up projects in the first quarter (figure second or
third week of January), and there's a hiring frenzy.  Things seem to taper
off in 2Q - replacement of attrition, maintenance of status quo, fine-tuning
teams and the like.  Third Quarter seems to pick up a bit - projects realize
they need contract help.  Fourth quarter slows WAAAAAAAAY down - projects
tighten things up at the end of the year.

In fact, we used to have a saying - have a gig by Halloween!  Seriously -
during the spring and summer, work's a-poppin, but toward the end of summer
you should be looking for something to tide you through the holidays - maybe
even sacrifice a little billable rate for some security to get through to
1Q.  There's nothing more miserable than a contract crashing at the end of
November...

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