Interviewing at a GS/JPM/MS for commodity operations in a temp to perm position soon. I am a recent graduate and at this point have no other leads I am applying like crazy but I figured I would not hear anything due to holidays / new years.
Is it worth taking a position like this or am I better off just looking for FT work. Is there networking potential for those who have done similar things that could lead to FT work? What is the general time frame for a temp to go perm.
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Temp to perm is the norm for off-cycle non-front office roles now. It keeps headcount and expenses reduced as the temp does not add to headcount and does not get benefits from the company.
Temp to perm time frame depends on the specific situation and can't really be judged holistically. I've seen 15 months to 3 months be the time frame for the switch.
Well, you probably have a better sense of your prospects than we do.
1.) Are there FT opportunities you can get interviews for?
2.) Do you like earning money?
If NO to 1 and YES to 2, I'd think long and hard about the temp opportunity.
Right now, the economy is looking OK. Not great, but OK. I see some layoffs coming in finance perhaps in 2015 if the fed starts raising short-term rates, but I think, at least this year, many temp roles will convert to full-time.
But if there are layoffs, the temps and the contractors are the first out the door at a bank. Then they start cutting Associates and VPs and the occasional analyst or manager. You want to convert that temp role into a full-time role before the next downturn. The best way to do that is to take the offer and start interviewing elsewhere after about three or four months. Get a full-time job somewhere else and force their hand.
You're a temp; the implicit contract on a FT hire is "about 18 months" even though it states at-will; I would argue that the implicit contract on a temp hire is genuinely "at-will". My view is that you should not feel guilty about interviewing for FT positions all of the time. But WSO has grown to the point where we probably have a manager who has hired temps, and they may be able to give some better insight than me.
My take is, if a temp gets a FT offer elsewhere after a couple months (not his second week on the job), no surprise, no hurt feelings, and now your manager has to think about whether to match the offer or not. This would be very different if a FTer left three months after getting hired.
There are some snafus around contracts, but if there is a recession and long-term restructuring, the temps are a heckuvalot easier to fire than the full-timers. 80% of our full-timers survived the layoffs, 20% of our temps survived.
I think we have two different experiences with this- your experience has just been a general minor layoff that banks occasionally will do in a flat or up market. A recessionary series of layoffs are a lot tougher, a lot more demoralizing, and generally hit a number of your friends. The temps, contractors, and consultants rarely survive these kinds of layoffs.
If there is a recession, you are much better off as a full-time employee than as a temp. That was what I remember from '07-'09. If we have a rates-driven downturn in 2015- I'm not saying we will but we could- expenses will get cut and non-core costs will be removed from the firm even if they hurt revenue some.
If long-term revenues decline and long-term expenses need to be cut, the contractor is often the least indispensable person on the team. Contracts will either not be renewed or terminated early, and FT employees who don't cost an arm and a leg (analysts), are getting OK reviews, and are doing something that is still generally important and relevant largely keep their jobs.
Recessions are tough; in finance, they almost always result in layoffs. Recessions completely change the atmosphere and can sometimes turn it very ugly. It can go from "how can we add more to the bottom line" to "who is the next person to get laid off".
There is a lot of fatigue with potentially round after round of layoffs during a market pullback, and managers are looking for anything they can do to mitigate that. Firing a temp or contractor is simply not as depressing and distracting for the team as firing a full-timer. Temps and contractors are sometimes seen as part of the team; sometimes not; usually they're not quite as much team members as the full-timers. Either way, getting rid of them is rarely worse for morale than getting rid of an equivalent full-timer, especially if more layoffs may be on the way.
So that was my two years of experience during the last recession, talking with old managers and MDs after the fact, and getting advice from a couple VP mentors who had seen the dot-com recession during that time. Maybe some of the rules of a traditional recessionary layoff have changed, but I still think the rule of who gets cut first largely holds. First it's (1) the screwups and slackers, then (2) it's the contractors, then (3) it's the expensive senior rank and file employees who are replaceable, then it's (4) anyone else who is replaceable, then (5) they start having to make some painful decisions if revenues keep falling. At this point, they are often kicking out entire groups and lines of business.
I guess we were referring to two different forms of 'layoffs'. Glad we were able to explain each then.
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