Dilemma

Caroleol

Ok, my dilemma is this: I am considering giving up my full time job and to advertise myself as a temporary worker for administration and financial duties on a self-employed basis. (Basically working as a temp and cutting out the middle man i.e. Agencies). I qualified in 1997 and have been a full member since 1998 with over 25 years’ experience in Finance both in the public and private sectors. My problem however is I would like to advertise and make sure I get a relatively long term temporary contract (at least six months) before I give in my notice but I believe before I advertise I will have to register as a MIP! This will take time, additional work and expense and at the end of it I don’t know if I am going to get the work. The other option I suppose would be to end my membership with AAT which I don’t really want to do. I would appreciate your comments as to which way I should go and any advice would be appreciated as I have been pondering the self-employed route now for some time. Also does anyone know the best place to advertise my services?

kkelly

Hi Dilemma,
I can't advise you much t.b.h. but what I would say is that! You have a full time job which I assume you've had for years and in my opinion I wouldn't give it up without a lot of thought and fair surety as to what you would get in the temp role you talk about. If you havent given notice and your employer finds of the road your going, you may ruin the relationship with them before you have got this other work!! I'm sure you have thought about this a lot but just make sure its the right road for you and you dont regret it!!
Regards
Kevin

sjkr

Hi, I think that if you are serious about this you should register as a MIP as you don't want to end your AAT membership. Also, do give it very serious consideration - getting the work isn't that easy in my experience. I have seen several posts on here in the past with regard to the difficulties of getting clients and starting up on your own. It may not be right for you if you are giving up a full time job.

Moominyak

Hi Caroleol,

If you are interested in temp work, is it so bad to work via an agency? They make their money from the client (employer), so as long as you can get a position with a decent hourly rate, it shouldn't be a problem - and you would also then get paid holiday etc.

I am currently temping part-time (through an agency) in a job which was supposed to be for 9 months, I'm still here over a year later :-)

I also work as a MIP on a part-time basis, and I'd agree with earlier posts which say that the work isn't that easy to get - although I confess I haven't really marketed for it as I'm quite happy with my current situation. Yes, the work is far more lucrative, but it also comes with its own special kind of hassles, whereas with the temp job, I can pretty much forget about it outside of the workplace.

Temping has its plus points - a guaranteed weekly pay-packet for one!

Good luck, whatever path you choose