The employee can also decide not to go forward. There is something to be said for getting to check out a company from the inside. And it doesn’t raise the alarms to future employees that job-hopping does.
It really depends on what everyone wants and how transparent and honest they are about what they are doing.
Common practice. And maybe the recruiter doesn’t know how long before a permanent position is offered. A lot will depend on the agreement with the agency. We have agreements which allow full time employment after 6months as a temp without any further compensation to the agency.
It’s a two way street. Employer and employee get to try each other out with no strings attached. If your friend is unemployed, it’s something to consider. If they are gainfully employed already, then no.
Have also seen temp to perm. options - as other have said its a good way to see if an employee is a good fit during the probationary period without the potential challenges that can be inherent in letting an employee go. Typically the potential employee cones from a temp agency and is an employee or contractor of that agency.
The government contractor I worked at for almost 30 years was doing this in the mid 80’s when I was hired. I got a permanent position, but I met many people at my job that were temps hoping to get hired.
I see law firms doing this too.
Very common in IT as @intparent stated, not new at all, and not shady at all as the terms are clearly stated and understood on both ends. I hired this way back in the 80s. Most of the temps ended up with permanent positions. Those who didn’t work out saved the company a lot of headache with low investment.
Sometimes employers receive a contract which requires expansion of the company’s workforce for just a year or two. Both employer & independent contractor / temp worker know this upfront. Often temp worker is covered under spouse’s health insurance, but if not, then health insurance can be a major barrier.
Not uncommon in the legal industry & with engineering firms.
The worker needs to understand their status and if the offer and set up are a fit for what they want.
Temp to perm can be extremely short and is helpful for job seekers during industry downturns. Years ago, my DH was hired as a temp to just clean up an accounting problem. The company was blown away by his knowledge and offered him a permanent management level position at the end of the first week. No sleaze involved. He had registered with a well known temp/placement agency in his field and had worked with them before.
Often temp agencies are paid a bonus if one of the temporary workers is hired as a permanent employee.
My last two jobs were in a similar fashion.
The first one was a 6 months contractor to full time hire position. However, it never materialized to being a full time hire. There were a lot of people hired as contractors at that company as well.
At another company people were contractors/consultants for years.
It can be ok for both sides as long as the contractor realizes that this could possibly be a just a short time gig and that they can be let go at any time. For those who need a full time offer for long term stability-No.
I worked for a company (small but growing) that used an outside HR department. Employees were permanent hires but no benefits until they’d worked two full calendar months. This was because it cost us a lot to put them on the benefits and we found many employees didn’t make it two months.
There was a case many years ago of a contractor (who clearly worked for the contacting company) who worked at a top 100 company. She had worked there for quite some time (I cant recall exactly how long) but she sued the big corporation to get all the benefits of direct corporate employees (instead of the benefits from her contracting company) and to be deemed an employee of the big corporation because of the length of time she’d worked on site. The day before (or it might possibly have been the actual day) her boss/the owner of the contracting company was to be deposed, he was found dead in his bed!! There were some suspicions as to whether his murder was related to the case, but it turned out to be his disgruntled girlfriend who was the culprit! Don’t know that I ever heard the outcome of the case…
“At another company people were contractors/consultants for years.”
To me, this is when it becomes a case of a company taking advantage. It’s not temporary and they are treating someone as a contractor that should be treated as an employee. Not sure what benefits the workers derive when it goes on for years.
But what if the contractors or consultants had other clients ? And were covered under their spouse’s health insurance ?
And/or the employer only needed additional specialized workers for a particular contract which was known or expected to expire in a few years ?
This is not indentured servitude. Workers are free to go elsewhere.
Also, what if the contractor or consultant leaves for a more interesting or higher paying position ?
Maybe the contractor or consultant preferred the freedom to be flexible.
This doesn’t apply to the case I’m talking about here, but it is illegal for a company to hire “individual contractors” who walk, talk and look like employees. If an employer tells the “contractor” how to do the job and prescribes hours, that person is not a contractor. A contractor has a contract to do a job, not a contract on how to do it.
People employed by temp agencies are not contractors. They are temp employees. Contractors have contracts.
Despite being illegal, it is still commonplace. I’ve seen such jobs posted and I’ve seen new college grads fall into the trap of those “individual contractor” type jobs.
This sounds illegal. If the contractor has to be on site everyday from 9-5, that sound like more an employee than a contractor and should be paid via W2.
I don’t believe this about Microsoft. In fact, I know it isn’t true. I was offered a pre-IPO job at Microsoft. It was not a contracting job, but a job with Microsoft itself.
Working as a true contractor for a company can be tricky. They can’t control how, when, where you work. However, you do have to show up for certain things, at certain times. Many companies will have a lengthy contract setting out the parameters.
Regarding Microsoft, there was controversy and/or lawsuit years ago about using contractors like employees, but it certainly was not “all” people working there, since it did have plenty of regular employees.
Perhaps the temp-to-perm tryout period most associated with the topic of these forums is pre-tenure assistant professors. However, they are presumably treated as regular employees during the tryout period. Also, if they do get tenure, their jobs are closer to “permanent” than most jobs (though that still will not save their jobs if their employer goes out of business).