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IT Contracting - 5 tips for a successful career

By Dave Chaplin

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Published: 26Mar2010
Word count: 623
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The prospect of leaving permanent employment to go contracting in the UK can be quite daunting. Concerns can be quickly alleviated by researching how to get started in contracting and also by understanding what to expect when you go contracting.

If you are thinking of becoming a contractor here are 5 tips to get you started:

1. Sales & marketing

As a contractor you are the product. You yourself have to market your product, typically by writing a high impact CV, to get yourself interviews. Then at the interview you need to pitch your product to the potential client. This all involves good sales and marketing skills on your part.

It doesn't matter how highly skilled you are, if you can't market yourself then you will fail at the first hurdle and will never get an interview.

If your marketing is good, but your sales is poor, you'll get interviews, but then never get the job offer.

As a contractor you will have to make many applications, and attend many interviews. Any time spent job hunting is time that you could spend earning. Learn some basic sales and marketing skills, to ensure you win the lucrative contracts.

2. Learn to negotiate

Your may be good at marketing, and sales, but if your negotiation is poor then you'll just increase the time it takes to build that retirement pot. Rest assured, your agent knows what you are worth to the client, and if you don't you'll just line their pocket with a nice hefty margin, and end up working longer than you should.

Any fool can sell £50 pound notes for £20, but not everyone can negotiate well. Making sure you maximise your return for your skills is key to ensuring your pocket gets filled with cash, rather than your agents.

3. Technical Skills - keep them updated

Many firms hire contractors because they have a project that needs completing for which they cannot justify hiring someone full time. Others hire contractors because they simply do not have the skills in house. And most firms want to live on the bleeding edge rather than employ older technology.

If you have cutting edge skills then you'll be more in demand than those contractors using yesterdays box of tricks.

Keep your skills updated, and this will ensure your charge rate stays high.

4. Deliver, deliver, deliver - the three D's.

Make sure you always deliver on time and to budget. Having a reputation for delivery will be valuable in the long term, because people will hire you again and again. Bosses like contractors who don't need hand holding and always deliver what they promise.

There's an easy trick to this - just under promise as much as you can. Give yourself plenty of wiggle room, and stand firm if someone tries to get you to do something that isn't possible. Then if a risk pops up you can manage it without running late. If no risks materialize you can simply deliver more than you promised. Either way you win.

5. Blow your own trumpet

If you are delivering the goods on a regular basis then your boss will certainly know this, but does their boss, or the bosses boss? Make sure, without being arrogant, that people know you deliver - especially those who sign the cheques.

If you don't blow your own trumpet then no one else will. Demonstrate that you are adding value to the person who is paying you money.

Being a successful IT contractor means learning 'contracting skills' which are outside of your usual skill set. It doesn't matter whether you are an engineer, IT contractor, interim manager, and so on - to be a great contractor you will need to learn some non-technical skills to be successful for the long term.

Dave Chaplin was an IT contractor in the City and knows what it takes to carve out a successful contracting career. He has turned all his experiences and those of dozens of contractor experts into a fantastic resource of how-to guides, advice and detailed contractor information, including loads of guidance about choosing a contractor accountant, which you can download free from www.contractorcalculator.co.uk.

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