Crosspost with r/recruitinghell as this rage fits just as well here as it does there. For context, I have a BA in Accounting and I have been out of college for a good 7 years now. When I am applying for jobs online, nothing makes my rage go to an 11 more than applying for a job, to then being contacted by a recruiter telling me about the job I applied for and then telling me it's a contract or contract to hire position. I have been doing these types of jobs since I have been out of college and…
LET ME TELL YOU, NEVER DO THESE JOBS UNLESS YOU ARE DESPERATE!
Contracting jobs are just the new way of pushing slightly better internships onto you. The only difference is that you are getting paid to do the job rather doing it for free. But do not think this is any better, because all other benefits you would get from a normal job, YOU GET JACK SHIT. You get NO INSURANCE OPTIONS, NO PAID DAYS OFF, NO WORK FROM HOME, NO 401k, STOCKS, and all other benefits.
You are not an employee at the company even though you work at the office for a full 40 hour work week. So guess what, you are treated as an outsider to bosses you work for and that means that they are most likely never going to hire you after your contract period ends as you are disposable.
I have had over 5 different contract to hire roles and they all end in a similar fashion. Lets say you have a contract to hire job that last over 6 months and then after the 6 months, the decided whether or not to keep you or “let you go” ie: fire you. Most of the time, the job will just extend the contract period and either after that, they will just randomly let you go one day, or get to a point where they legally cannot extend the contract can go on and never hire you on full time. Recruiters will love to tell you, “Oh, every person that has gone into this position has been hired on after the period has ended.” That cannot be further from the truth as all the jobs I worked at didn't have anybody currently working in the company that previously worked a contract to hire position. Big red flag there.
The worst part about all of this, when I am applying for normal jobs that I might like, 99.9% of the time, its a recruiter posting the job for the company and most of the time, they are contracting job or contract to hire. OH but you would never know it was a contracting job, because they know NOBODY WANTS THAT SHIT.
I hate this current job market for making this shit the norm and for treating normal working people work for way less than what they should be valued for.
In conclusion, FUCK RECRUITERS AND FUCK CONTRACT AND CONTRACT TO HIRE JOBS!