Contract Employee's Newsletter
Helping Contract Professionals Manage Their Careers

Vol. 4, No. 03
November 10, 2004

Edited by James R. Ziegler

A Companion to:
The Contract Employee's Handbook
www.cehandbook.com

Sponsored by:
P.A.C.E. - Professional Association for Contract Employment
www.pacepros.com

 

About The Contract Employee's Newsletter

The Contract Employee's Newsletter is a free online publication for technical and professional contractors containing news, commentary, tips, links to useful resources, nuggets of wisdom submitted by readers, and anything else that seems appropriate at the time. The CENewsletter is published intermittently, whenever circumstances warrant and time allows. Back issues are archived online, and content is eventually rolled into the Contract Employee's Handbook. The subscriber list is confidential and will not be disclosed outside this organization.


In This Issue

Read recent issues of The Contract Employee's Newsletter.

Featured Topic

Your Strongest Single Credential Is Your Reputation

Definition: Reputation is the perception of quality in a person, organization, product, or service, as distinct from the quality itself.

Reputation is all about PERCEPTION. Your reputation is what people think about you, regardless of the quality of your work. Just for fun, here are a couple examples to illustrate the obvious role that perception plays. The names have been changed to protect the author.

Hank "The Hatchet" Hatchcut is a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE). The CCIE is a certification recognized worldwide as the "doctorate" of computer networking. In the world of networking, CCIEs are gods. Hank's an absolute wizard in the control room, but his prospective clients think Hank is a doofus and a klutz. Why?

It's pretty obvious why. Hank hates promoting himself, preferring instead to work through agencies that repeatedly misrepresent his skill set. He doesn't care much for people, so he usually bombs the technical interview. He refuses to document his work. He snarls at "lowly" project managers, and he spits chewing tobacco on the server room floor. Need I say more?

If your "soft" skills don't complement your "hard" skills, your reputation will suffer.

Now consider Sammy "The Schmooze" Schmoozinsky. The Schmooze is the epitome of confidence. Clients love Sammy... at least during the first several months on a new project. Unfortunately, Sammy wouldn't recognize a Universal Serial Bus if it ran over him in a Greyhound parking lot.

The Schmooze graduated from High School with a 1.75 GPA, but you'd never know it by his professional appearance and authoritative personality. He has memorized every entry in every glossary in every networking manual in the computing section of Barnes and Noble. He's even read Networking for Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Networking (3rd Edition) from cover to cover.

Sammy can tell you the model number and color of 17 types of Internet routers. He lives and breathes networking jargon. His marketing collateral looks like a personalized Cisco brochure (which it is). He routinely aces technical interviews given by people with a Ph.D. in Human Resources. He religiously prepares intricately detailed weekly status reports on the progress of everyone else, and his performance in team meetings is stunningly brilliant. Not bad for someone who's favorite subject in school was happy hour.

Unfortunately, Sammy's clients eventually discovered that his hard skills sucked, and Sammy's reputation crashed in ball of flaming schmooze.

Your reputation is the very definition of your “brand.” It comprises the bulk of the information about you that circulates through your professional network. It is crucial to marketing yourself effectively to clients, and it impacts how you are treated on the job. In many situations, your reputation is of equal or greater importance than your technical credentials. In fact, your good reputation is probably your strongest single credential.

Your reputation consists of two equally important components:

  • Your technical and professional skills (your hard skills), and how well you apply them, and

  • Your promotional and people skills (your soft skills), and how well you apply them.

Think of your reputation as the confluence and integration of these two factors. Over time, as you build, maintain, and apply both your hard skills and your soft skills, your reputation grows accordingly.

However, to the degree that you ignore either component, your reputation will suffer. Imagine not being able to promote yourself and having to rely on staffing vendors to spread the word about your excellent skills. Not only will your income suffer by at least one-third, but the agency is able to build its own reputation at your expense. This was the plight of networking wizard Hank "The Hatchet" Hatchcut.

Or, imagine that your promotional and people skills outstrip your hard skills. It is inevitable that you will develop a reputation as a blowhard and a fraud. This was the plight of master promoter Sammy "The Schmooze" Schmoozinsky.

Because perception is everything, your skills are nothing if you can’t deliver them, and your delivery is meaningless if your skills are weak. Your reputation is optimized when your hard skills and your soft skills are in balance.

Reputation is often confused with character, which is the complex of mental, moral, and ethical attributes marking, and often individualizing, a person, group, or nation. For example, we have all heard someone say something like: “Her backhanded compliment was a clear attempt at character assassination.” Actually, only one’s reputation can be assassinated, never one's character. Consider the following passage:

“It would be well if character and reputation were used distinctively. In truth, character is what a person is; reputation is what he is supposed to be. Character is in himself, reputation is in the minds of others. Character is injured by temptations, and by wrongdoing; reputation by slanders, and libels. Character endures throughout defamation in every form, but perishes when there is a voluntary transgression; reputation may last through numerous transgressions, but be destroyed by a single, and even an unfounded, accusation or aspersion.'' –Abbott.

As a Contract Professional, it is vital that you build your reputation, maintain it, defend it, and apply it to the best of your ability, because your reputation is your legacy, and because, ultimately, your reputation is all that you've got.

Return to Table of Contents.

Kudos and Testimonials

What People Are Saying About The Contract Employee's Project

"Enclosed is a copy of Gurus, Hired Guns and Warm Bodies, an ethnography of contractors and contract labor markets that Gideon Kunda and I just published with Princeton University Press. In the course of our research we found PACE's website and the Contract Employee's Handbook very helpful. In fact, we cite you. We were quite impressed with the philosophy and purpose that lay behind your founding of PACE."

Stephen R. Barley
Charles M. Pigott Professor of Management Science and Engineering
Co-director, Center for Work, Technology and Organization
School of Engineering
Stanford University

(See my review of this groundbreaking study below. -- JRZ)

Return to Table of Contents.

Ask Dungaree Dan

A Shameless Promotion of P.A.C.E. by Dungaree Dan

Q: Dear Dan -- I looked into using PACE a couple of years back, but landed a full-time salaried position subsequent to my last inquiries.

At this time, I am considering contracting on a freelance basis again. If I were to negotiate a contract directly with a client, given that I am only registered as a sole proprietor "Doing Business As" (D.B.A.), am I correct in thinking that P.A.C.E. ProTrac could act on my behalf so that I could do Corporation-to-Corporation work? Although I don't have a specific contract in mind at this time, I am looking at preparing for such work.

Additionally, do you have access to a Group Medical Insurance plan or available information on Medical Insurance providers for contractors? I will need to organize coverage for both myself and family if I decide to go into freelance consulting.

Can P.A.C.E. ProTrac help me if I use an agency to find projects? And, finally, is P.A.C.E. ProTrac only available to Contract Professionals? What about other types of self-employed professionals?

-- Signed: Ready to Jump

A: Dear Ready to Jump -- First of all, let me congratulate you on finding work of any kind during the difficult past two years. Just as the definition of work has undergone a fundamental change as employment becomes increasingly volatile, so, too, has the definition of job security. Not long ago, job security meant not having to worry about losing your job as long as you showed up for work and did what you were told.

Today, job security means being able to find satisfying, well-paying work, quickly, and with minimum downtime, after being laid off from a regular, full-time position, or after the completion of a contract assignment.

Regular, full-time employment is rapidly morphing into contingent employment, and contingent employment is becoming the norm. In today's job market, every worker is essentially a contingent worker - regardless of whether they are working as a regular employee or as a Contract Professional.

Second, I want to thank you for thinking of P.A.C.E. ProTrac as your vehicle to enter the contingent job market. ProTrac is P.A.C.E.'s superb employer of record service for independent professionals, and we believe that the ProTrac business model represents the future of compensation and benefits administration in the United States.

ProTrac offers the best of both worlds because it combines the benefits package of corporate, executive employment with the tax advantages of self-employment, in a single package that is extremely desirable to both employers and independent professionals.

Employers love ProTrac because it mitigates the risks of co-employment by offering W-2 employment status and excellent benefits, thereby virtually eliminating any risk of reclassification by government agencies or the risk of class-action lawsuits by disaffected agency contractors. Employers also appreciate the low cost of ProTrac compared with the high markups of ordinary staffing vendors.

Contractors love ProTrac because they are covered by the best benefits package available to any Contract Professional anywhere in the USA. Contractors also appreciate the low cost of ProTrac compared with the high markups of ordinary staffing vendors.

Great benefits: You asked if you and your family will have access to group medical insurance. The answer is a resounding YES. As a P.A.C.E. employee (W-2 status), you and your family qualify for many benefits, of which some are:

  • Major medical, dental, and vision care insurance.

  • Free employee assistance program (EAP).

  • Guarantee issue life insurance and AD&D insurance. Coverage up to $500,000 per employee, up to $250,000 per spouse.

  • Guarantee issue, long term disability insurance. 90-day elimination period, benefit equals 60% of gross wage up to $6,000 per month in tax-free dollars. Portable, supplemental coverage is also available.

  • 401(k) retirement saving plan from Charles Schwab, with no waiting period, immediate vesting, self-directed, tax-deferred contributions up to $41,000 per year with employer match.

  • Tax-free reimbursements for out-of-pocket expenses, featuring:
    • Business expenses up to 50% of gross wage
    • Medical expenses up to $10,000 annually
    • Tuition and training
    • Childcare

  • Leaseback program for tools of the trade over $750 per item.

  • IRS maximum Per Diem and auto allowance on remote assignments.

  • Credit Union Membership - Meriwest (Formerly IBM Employees Federal Credit Union).

  • 1% override on revenues for employee referrals to P.A.C.E.

  • Customized payroll with direct deposit.

  • Dedicated division administrator for personalized support.

  • Online access to time sheets, division revenue & expense reports, and pay stubs.

  • Continuity of corporate employment makes possible:
    • Easy qualification for home loans, auto leases
    • Freedom from interruptions and constant COBRA for health insurance coverage
    • Freedom from chasing constant rollovers and interruptions in retirement plan contributions

You asked, "Can P.A.C.E. ProTrac help me if I use an agency to find projects?" Again, the answer is YES. Of course, it goes without saying that you will take a big hit in the pocket book if you contract through an agency. Nevertheless, you will generally earn a higher net compensation when P.A.C.E. subcontracts through the agency as your employer of record. And you will certainly receive far better benefits -- plus the country's best 401(k) plan -- than if you were to be employed by an ordinary staffing vendor.

You also asked, "Is P.A.C.E. ProTrac only available to Contract Professionals? What about other types of independent professionals?" And again, the answer is YES. Any independent professional, such as a real estate agent, architect, personal trainer, accountant, -- in fact, ANY independent professional or small business owner -- , will benefit from using P.A.C.E. as their employer of record, not only for themselves, but for their professional staff as well.

P.A.C.E. ProTrac was originally created for self-reliant Contract Professionals. However, the high cost of individual health insurance, and the hassles and costs of building one's own benefits infrastructure also make P.A.C.E. ProTrac the logical solution for all types of independent professionals and small business owners.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to extol the benefits of P.A.C.E. ProTrac. I look forward to welcoming you aboard soon as a P.A.C.E. Division Manager.

-- Signed: Dungaree Dan

Questions for Dungaree Dan
Send your questions about contract employment to Ask Dungaree Dan. We will try to answer all of your questions, and we will publish the most interesting ones in The Contract Employee's Newsletter.

Return to Table of Contents.

Resources

Read This Book or Die

Title: Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies: Itinerant Experts in a Knowledge Economy
Authors: Stephen R. Barley, Gideon Kunda
Pub. Date: September 2004
Format: Hardcover, 352pp
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691119430

*****

Editor's note: I did, in fact, come across two Web pages devoted to firearms and their ilk that listed Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies, complete with an image of the book jacket. Look again at the cover illustration, folks. That's a pocket protector over the man's heart -- not a target. What could they be thinking? I can see the headline now. Oh my, oh my, oh my:

Extra! Extra!

Guru Using a Hired Gun Leaves Warm Bodies in Wake of Wild Rampage.
NRA denies alleged link to insurgent recruiting firms.

*****

Well, maybe you, personally, won't die, but I contend that contractors who do read Gurus will be less likely to see their contracting business visit that great cubicle in the sky.

In this groundbreaking book, Steven R. Barley and Gideon Kunda discuss how the market for temporary professionals operates from separate perspectives of the three major players in the market:

  • The contractors who do the work,

  • The managers who employ them, and the permanent employees who work beside them,

  • The staffing agencies that broker the deals.

In this regard, the study provides an intimate view into the changing nature of work and employment, and technical contracting in particular.

Gurus dispassionately summarizes the findings of a two-year-long ethnographic study by the authors and their graduate students, during which time they conducted numerous interviews and made field observations of the principle players that make up the contingent marketplace where gurus, hired guns, and warm bodies ply their trades.

Make no mistake, Gurus is an academic book. It is impeccably organized. In fact, it reads like a fleshed-out outline. The content is dense with information, and it's delivered with no judgments or moral conclusions. It is, after all, an ethnographic study, and neither a position paper nor a politically charged treatise. The book is relatively free of jargon and obtuse theory, and the authors make good use of footnotes to explain the contexts of their discussions.

Gurus is written from the top down. That is, the authors present their empirical findings with little or no attempt to explain the underlying "why fors" and "how tos" of the issues that beg questioning while reading the book. The devil may be in the details, but this book is about broad patterns.

Because I am so intimately connected to contracting, every sentence of this book elicited paragraphs and pages of new connections and insights. Gurus is actually an easy read, but I found that after spending a couple of minutes reading a paragraph, I would spend another 15 minutes (or more!) thinking about the reasons and consequences behind the information. From my perspective, Gurus is absolutely fascinating.

For one thing, the book validates points about the behavior of staffing agencies that I have made for the past seven years in the Contract Employee's Handbook and the Contract Employee's Newsletter.

Gurus also documents why companies use contractors, including reasons that fly in the face of conventional reasoning, and it documents the many lifestyle choices that fall under the general rubric of contracting. In doing so, the authors convincingly dilute the popular stereotype of contracting that is so often glorified in the media.

Gurus documents that the overwhelming majority of career contractors do not use agencies at all, and most don't even use the Internet to find contract assignments. What hard core contractors use mostly to locate projects is their reputation (human capital) and their professional network (social capital). I find this fascinating, especially in light of the enormous influence that agencies have had up until now in defining the contracting marketplace.

I suggest that you read the last chapter (Chap. 13) first. (I always do this with mystery novels anyway.) This is where the authors pull it all together, and attempt to justify the creation of a new category of itinerant professionalism. But I'm not entirely convinced that a new category is necessary.

Barley and Kunda describe three types of professionals:

  • Free professionals - Stand-alone doctors, lawyers, and architects, for example.

  • Professional firms - Businesses owned by professionals who have expanded their practice by employing other professionals in order to increase the reach and breadth of their offerings.

  • Corporate professionals - Professionals, mostly occupying support roles, who are employed by large corporations.

The authors note that most contractors are refugees from the ranks of corporate professionals, having grown weary of the tedium and politics of corporate life. They then argue that these contractors form a new category that the authors dub itinerant professionals.

Free professionals are either itinerant or not, depending on the nature of their work. Some go to where the work is, and for others the work comes to them. I think it is easiest to think of contractors as free professionals who (usually) go to where the work is. After all, doctors used to visit their patients at home, and they still go to the patient in the hospital to do their work. Insurance agents still go to their clients to conduct much of their work, as do real estate agents and locksmiths. Consultants of all sorts have always gone to where the work is. Also, I don't believe it is especially useful to differentiate between hourly and project-based billing, or to rely on the use of agencies as a determinant of contracting as the bases for defining a new category of professionals.

My experience with P.A.C.E. has taught me that all business boils down to cash flow:

+ Revenues

- Capital Expenditures - Fixed Expenses - Variable Expenses - Taxes

= Net Profit

Independent professionals (including contractors) are individuals who have chosen to take control of the cash flow generated by their business activities They take control to a greater extent (by finding their own business opportunities), or to a lesser extent (by working through agencies, franchisors, and other types of dependent relationships). From where I stand, I see no fundamental difference between contractors and other free professionals. I do, however, see gradations of scale, but, then, don't we all.

Of course, this is a semantic niggle, and hardly a criticism of the book or the authors' research, which is groundbreaking, enlightening, and truly remarkable.

After you get a lay of the land by reading the last chapter, go back and read the entire book from cover to cover. Gurus produces one revelation after another. It pulls no punches, and it tells it like it is.

Every Contract Professional should read this book. Not because it's a how-to manual (which it most certainly is not), but because it provides a topographic map of the wilderness in which contractors operate. Reading between the lines will reveal the many pitfalls and hazards of contracting, and will ultimately guide you over the safest route to contracting success.

* * * * *

Purchase the Book:
Buy Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies online at Barnes and Noble, www.bn.com. Enter the title in the search window.

* * * * *

See Steven Barley Live:
Listen to a talk on contracting delivered by Steven Barley at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) delivered on September 16, 2004, shortly after publication of Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies:

Return to Table of Contents.

Contract Employee's Glossary

Terminology For Contract Professionals
More terms from Appendix B: Glossary of Terms for Contract Professionals of The Contract Employee's Handbook. These terms are from the greatly expanded new glossary that is currently in development (not yet available online).

In light of the discussion of reputation in the Featured Topic, above, I have chosen to include a few definitions from the upcoming glossary that refer to reputation in their definitions.

Appraisal
Context: Business Practices
A formal estimate of the value of an item of personal property, real property, or a business on the open market. An appraisal also describes how the estimation and conclusion of value was made. The appraisal of a business’s value is often referred to as a valuation and includes both goodwill and tangible assets.

The value of a consulting business consists almost entirely of its goodwill, which derives from intangible assets such as the owner’s reputation and the loyalty of the business’s customer base. On average, when the goodwill of a business depends heavily on the owner’s charisma and personal knowledge, the value of the business on the open market will be about one-half as much as when goodwill depends on reliable systems and procedures in place that are independent of the owner’s personal contributions. Thus, while the owner’s credentials contribute positively to the immediate success of a consulting business, they will detract from the business’s appraisal (valuation) on the open market to the degree that the owner’s contributions are indispensable.

Credential
Context: Training and Development
A valid certificate, license, permit, or other documentation held by an individual that authorizes the holder to perform certain functions or to make certain claims about his or her competencies as a professional. Credentials are issued by state agencies (or in some cases by other organizations), post-secondary institutions, professional associations, or manufacturers, and are based on education, training completed, experience, assessment, background verification, and possibly other requirements. Without a doubt, a Contract Professional’s strongest credential is his or her reputation.

Credit
Context: Business Practices

  • A contractual agreement by which a buyer of goods or services receives something of value now in return for the promise to repay the seller at some later date. Accounts receivable are extensions of credit by a vendor to its customers or clients, usually at no additional charge unless the buyer pays after the agreed-upon net days.

  • A contractual agreement by which a borrower receives something of value (perhaps a loan of money) now in return for the promise to pay the lender in regular payments over a period of time. In other words, the lender extends credit to the borrower, usually at a rate of interest, plus finance charges, and service fees.

  • The borrowing capacity of an individual or company. For example, a line of credit from the bank.

  • The rating or reputation of a borrower, as in: “She has good credit.”

  • An accounting term that refers to the right-hand side of an account record in which the amounts are entered in a double-entry system of bookkeeping.

Defamation
Context: Contracts and Legal
Defamation is an intentionally made false or malicious statement about another living person, either spoken (slander) or published (libel) that damages the other person’s reputation. In some cases an employer's blacklist or a poor reference may be defamatory. Regardless of one’s feelings about an individual, company, or situation, a Contract Professional must always refrain from communicating anything about another person that is not absolutely true. As the old adage goes, if you can’t say anything nice about a former client, supervisor, or co-worker, don’t say anything at all. After all, your reputation is your strongest credential, and when you defame another you necessarily debase your own reputation as well.

Dilution
Context: Intellectual Property
A type of infringement of intellectual property in which a well-known trademark or service mark is used by an individual or business in a context that tarnishes the reputation or blurs the distinctiveness of the owner's mark. For example, a manufacturer of inflatible, adult dolls most certainly would face a dilution lawsuit from Mattel, Inc. if it ever attempted to market a product that closely resembled the famous Barbie® doll.

The plaintiff in a dilution lawsuit does not have to prove that there is a likelihood of confusion between the well-known mark and a challenged mark. It is sufficient to demonstrate that the challenged mark dilutes the distinctiveness of the well-known trademark among the product’s targeted customer base, or within its product category, or within a certain geographic region.

General damages
Context: Contracts and Legal
Damages to compensate for injuries where an exact dollar amount cannot be calculated. For example, loss of reputation.

Get-out-of-debt gig
Context: Employment and Human Resources
A contract assignment that one takes just long enough to pay off his or her debts, and put a little extra money in the bank. Individuals who view their consulting “career” as a succession of get-out-of-debt gigs find it difficult to build a professional network, productive skillset, and a strong reputation. These individuals are the first to complain that finding gigs is difficult (a bad economy not withstanding), that recruiters are ripping them off, that pay is low, and that they receive little respect from their co-workers and supervisors.

Intangible personal property
Context: Contracts and Legal
Also called intangible assets. Personal property that represents real value, but which has no physical existence. Some examples of intangible personal property are a bank account, bond, certification, contract, franchise, goodwill, lease, license, reputation, and stock certificate. Intellectual property is also a form of intangible property, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. Intangible personal property (intangible assets) are listed in the assets category (sometimes as “Investments and sundry assets”) on the statement of financial position.

Liability insurance
Context: Business Insurance
Individuals and businesses purchase liability insurance to protect their financial interests in the event the insured or the insured employees are legally responsible (liable) for bodily injury or damage to their customer or their customer’s property (general liability insurance), or are liable for damages to their customer’s business or reputation (errors and omissions insurance).

Libel
Context: Contracts and Legal
An untruthful, public statement, in writing, about a another person that injures that person’s reputation. Libel is a tort (civil wrong), meaning that the injured party may bring a lawsuit for damages against the person who made the false statement. Libel is a form of defamation, as is slander, which is an untruthful, spoken statement about another person.

Moral rights
Context: Intellectual Property
Certain rights of authors, beyond those recognized in copyright law, as recognized by the Berne Convention and the legal systems of some European and other countries, that are considered personal to the author and that cannot therefore be bought, sold or transferred. Moral rights generally fall into three categories:

  1. The right of an author to receive credit as the author of a work, to prevent others from falsely being named author, to prevent use of his or her name for works he or she did not create, and to disclaim authorship of a work and object to any modification or use of the work that would injure his or her reputation;

  2. The right of an author to prevent the mutilation or destruction of a creative work;

  3. The right of an author to withdraw a work from distribution if it no longer represents his or her views.

U.S. copyright law does not recognize the authority of moral rights, and the U.S. Copyright Office and the courts have generally held that U.S. authors and artists are adequately protected under U.S. statutes. However, U.S. laws do not entirely protect authors and artists from infringement of their moral rights. For example, the colorization of films and the removal or defacement of certain murals are not addressed by U.S. copyright statutes.

Redeeming value
Context: General Usage
Having the ability to restore the honor, worth, or reputation of someone or something. Having the ability to redeem, as in redeeming social value, or socially redeeming value. For example: “In our society, it seems that financial rewards are generally bestowed in reverse proportion to the work's perceived socially redeeming values,“ or “One wonders if contract employment agencies have any redeeming value at all.”

Rehabilitation
Context: General Usage
The restoration of someone to a useful place in society, and/or vindication of a person's character and the re-establishment of that person's reputation. For example:

  • The weaning of an agency-dependent Contract Professional from total reliance on contract employment agencies to a condition of total self-reliance in locating contract assignments.

  • The process by which a contract employment recruiter is redeemed from a life of greed and exploitation.

Slander
Context: Contracts and Legal
An untruthful, spoken statement about another person that injures that person’s reputation. Slander is a tort (civil wrong), meaning that the injured party may bring a lawsuit for damages against the person who made the false statement. Slander is a form of defamation, as is libel, which is an untruthful, public statement, in writing.

Return to Table of Contents.

The Contract Employee's Project

The Contract Employee's Project is the larger context under which the following interrelated vehicles operate to promote and defend the interests of Contract Professionals:

  • The Contract Employee's Handbook
  • The Contract Employee's Newsletter
  • The Contract Employee's Workshop
  • Professional Association for Contract Employment (P.A.C.E.)

Return to Table of Contents.

Copyright and Publication Info

Copyright (c) 2004, James R. Ziegler. All rights reserved.

You may copy or forward this free publication provided it is left intact with all links and this notice unchanged. Any unauthorized duplication, including republication in part or in full for commercial use, is an infringement of copyright. We encourage you to freely distribute hyperlinks to this issue of the Contract Employee's Newsletter.

Published by:
P.A.C.E. - Professional Association for Contract Employment
1355 Willow Way, Suite 244
Concord, CA 94520
USA
http://www.pacepros.com/

Editor:
James R. Ziegler, Ph.D.
Executive Director
P.A.C.E. -- Professional Association for Contract Employment
(925) 680-0200
CENewsletters@pacepros.com

Return to Table of Contents.

Disclaimer

The Contract Employee's Newsletter is designed to provide information in regard to the subject matter covered. Use is granted with the understanding that the publisher and authors are not engaged in rendering legal or financial advice. If expert assistance is required you should seek the services of a competent professional.

The purpose of this information is to educate and entertain. The publisher and contributors shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this Newsletter or by information contained in any web site or resource referenced by citation or hypertext link within the pages of this Newsletter.

Return to Table of Contents.

Subscribe to The Contract Employee's Newsletter

The Contract Employee's Newsletter: Sign Up Now! Useful News & Updates

Return to Table of Contents.

Sign-off

I hope you have found the information in this newsletter to be interesting, informative, and provocative. I encourage you to share the CENewsletter with your friends, colleagues, coworkers, clients, and agency recruiters.

Why clients? Because you need every ally you can get. Why agency recruiters? Because they need to know the jig is up.

Wishing you success in your contracting career,

James R. Ziegler, Ph.D.
Executive Director
P.A.C.E. -- Professional Association for Contract Employment

Return to Table of Contents.

>>> Go to the P.A.C.E. Home Page