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Contract-to-Direct Staffing

Our contract-to-direct staffing services allow you to avoid a costly hiring mistake by assessing a candidate in an on-the-job setting before making a ‘permanent’ hiring decision. With ever-increasing employment costs, this is a great option to ensure the candidate has both the desired technical expertise and personality traits necessary to excel in your firm.

As with contract staffing, we source, screen, and refer for your consideration qualified candidates for your technical openings. Take advantage of the cost benefits of the contract period while evaluating candidates as they perform specific job responsibilities over a period of time. Should you wish to hire the candidates at the conclusion of the contract period, you may convert them to your employ with no additional fee.

Importantly, many candidates welcome the opportunity to evaluate a prospective employer before making a long-term commitment. A contract-to-direct arrangement can be an appealing proposition for both parties!

How it works

If you are considering the contract-to-direct option, you are seeking a candidate who proves to be a great fit for your firm for the long-term. So although the successful candidate will begin as a contractor, we approach the search in a manner that has similarities with both our contract process and our direct hire process.

We begin by gaining a complete understanding of your company and your open position. This includes key facts, engineering departmental structure, day-to-day responsibilities for this position and the desired background and technical expertise of the successful candidate. Because the contract-to-direct arrangement involves a time in which the candidate is a W-2 employee of TRIAD Engineering, and a time when the candidate transitions to your payroll and becomes your employee, it is important for us to discuss the way the candidate is compensated during both phases. When recruiting, we consider your budgeted salary range for this position once it becomes “permanent”, making sure we refer only candidates who fall within that range.

With this information, along with our in-depth knowledge of the local job market, we will be able to provide an assessment of current market conditions both in terms of candidate availability and contract bill rate and salary ranges for candidates with the desired qualifications.

When sourcing engineering professionals for a contract-to-direct arrangement, we rely heavily on our database of local candidates. Having placed engineers, designers, drafters, R&D technicians and other engineering support staff in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island for more than 45 years, our network is extensive.

We will present you with just a few candidates to review, generally within a day or two. We will not waste your time by flooding you with candidate resumes. Should our initial efforts not produce a candidate of interest we will re-address the search and present additional candidates based on your feedback on the initial resumes.

When we send a resume for review, we will include the candidate’s hourly bill rate for the contract period as well as his/her desired salary range for the position upon conversion to your employ. This contract bill rate is all inclusive and is the only cost (direct or indirect) you will have with respect to the candidate during the contract period.

As you identify candidates you would like to interview, you may choose to conduct phone screenings or in-person meetings. Some of our clients begin by phone screening a few candidates and then choosing which candidates to bring in for an interview. Others conduct initial interviews on-site and then determine which candidates they would like to bring in for a second round of interviews. Regardless of how you prefer to interview candidates, we will coordinate the details and make sure everything runs smoothly.

After you select a candidate whom you would like to hire via a contract-to-direct arrangement, we will extend the offer and facilitate any negotiations. We will have already spoken with professional references, and will verify degrees and run a criminal background check.

During the contract period, we will invoice you weekly based solely on the number of hours the contractor worked, and you approved, for the previous week. At the conclusion of the contract period, or sooner with the payment of a conversion fee, you may convert the contractor to your payroll with no additional cost.

No obligation

You are never under any obligation to convert the contractor to your payroll. The primary benefit of a contract-to-direct arrangement is that you are able to thoroughly assess the candidate’s fit for a position in your firm. If you determine at any time during the contract period that the candidate does not have the qualifications for the role, you may terminate the contract. When recruiting for contract-to-direct positions, we are quite clear with candidates that there is no guarantee of eventual direct employment with our client. They fully understand that the assignment may end during the contract period.