How to Move From Contract to Full-Time Employment

Tips to Ensure You Move from Contract to Full-Time Employment

As a staffing agency, we place candidates into permanent positions as well as contract positions. A permanent, direct hire position is one where you are placed with a business who also operates as your employer. In contrast, a contractor does work for a business but is employed by a staffing agency. Both are great opportunities to consider when on a job hunt.

Contract positions tend to have an unfair and negative stigma attached, when in fact, staffing agencies hire 17 million temporary and contract employees each year. While these positions allow people the ability to venture down new avenues and work in fast-paced environments, the goal is often to turn the opportunity into full-time employment. Whether you are considering accepting a contract position or are currently in one, here are some tips to help you ensure you are extended a full-time offer at the end of your contract term. 

Get to Know the Company 

Before you consider accepting a salaried, full-time offer from a company, you need to make sure it’s the right fit. Contract positions are great if you’re testing the waters in a new industry or position, but that doesn’t mean you will want to stay for an extended period of time. If you don’t agree with or aren’t aligned with the culture, mission, and values of the company you are working for, the employer will replace you with someone who is. Putting in the time to research the company and prioritize what is important to you, you’ll be able to better do your job as well as understand whether the company is a good, long-term fit for you or not. 

Be Proactive 

Wherever you end up, making a good impression is likely necessary to make successful workplace relationships. With contract work, making a good impression is especially necessary due to the temporary nature of the job.

Complacency is one way to avoid standing out, and standing out is something you need to do to secure permanent employment. The best way to stand out is to be proactive. Ask questions, offer help, learn as much as you can, develop new hard and soft skills, start and finish tasks early, and be proactive in building relationships with colleagues at all levels.

Build Relationships

If you are proactive in creation relationships with your colleagues, those relationships will go a long way. Chat with them during lunch, offer to help with a project, and spend time with them outside of the office. Not only do workplace relationships typically lead to better collaboration and produce better work, but they will make you less expendable. When you build these relationships, your work ethic will be more visible and your colleagues will be more likely to fight for you when it comes time for your manager to extend an offer. Even if you don’t get offered full-time employment, you ended up making valuable networking connections at the very least.

Work Diligently 

If you work hard and produce great work, you’ll prove your value to the team. When you prove value, you become indispensable. Put your best foot forward to get things done like you would a permanent job and you will have a greater chance at taking this opportunity and turning into a permanent one. Your mindset goes a long way and treating a contract position as though the temporary nature is inevitable, it will show. 

Conclusion 

You may find yourself in a contract/temporary position that you don’t want to turn into permanent employment, and that’s ok. But if you find yourself yearning for permanent employment, you should get to know the company, build relationships, be proactive, and make yourself indispensable by working diligently. Taking these steps might be out of your comfort zone, but embrace them and never be afraid of failure. Your ambition will be appreciated and will get you further than remaining complacent.

If Who Staffing can help you in any way with building a process that allows you to win the war on talent, please feel free to reach out to start a conversation or go here for more information about us.