When should compensation & benefits be discussed for a contract-for-hire position?« Back to Questions List

I like this question a lot because it gives me an opportunity to explain to our readers what to expect from your IT recruiter. Yes! You can ask to find out the company benefits once a contract-for-hire offer is officially extended. And you SHOLUD have your recruiter confirm that your salary expectations fit into the employer’s salary range slated for the role you are going to fill. Same goes for other components of your compensation package. For example, if you currently have a luxury amount of PTO and you want your prospective employer to match it, now is the time to have your recruiter work on that! There is no reason for you and the prospective employer to invest 6 months into this arrangement if their compensation package would prevent you from accepting their full time offer at the end of the contract period. Unfortunately a less experienced IT recruiter, or one with a “hit & run” mentality, may not confirm these details for you upfront without you firmly insisting that they do. Trust your gut feeling, if your recruiter doesn’t make you feel comfortable, request that they confirm the details in a formal signed document before you officially accept it. Lastly, if pre-negotiated correctly a contract-for-hire role may actually put you in better position when negotiating that final number. Usually when things work out well, your management is financially and emotionally invested in you, recruiting from scratch would be risky and expensive. They are a lot more inclined to put you to top of their salary range because they know what they are getting in you as apposed to negotiating with someone they have known for 3 hours and had never seen in action.