Can a Company Hire a Contractor Direct?

“Can a company hire a contractor direct?”

We get asked this question from time to time here at Expect, so I thought we’d focus today’s blog on it.

The short answer is yes, but a better question to ask is whether your company should hire a contractor direct, and the answer to that depends on your access to quality candidates, your ability to vet these candidates and your supply of hiring process resources, including time.

In honor of tax season, let’s take a look at the situation from a different perspective, using a different question. Before hiring we should know about Engineering Contractor Rates

“Can you file your own taxes?”

Again, the short answer is yes, but the real answer depends on a wide variety of factors.

1. How complicated are your taxes?
2. How familiar are you with the tax code?
3. Do you have past or current experience as an accountant?
4. Are you talking about personal income tax or business taxes?
5. Do you have adequate time to devote to the filing process?

As you can see, there are a number of factors that go into this question, making it impossible to give a straightforward answer across the board. Whether or not you should file your own taxes is entirely dependent on your situation, capabilities, and resources.

This holds true with just about any project or task:

1. Can you repair your car?
2. Can you remodel your bathroom?
3. Can you plan your wedding?

The list goes on, and the answer is always yes. When you switch the question to “should you do x”, everything depends on your specific situation.

Hiring a contract direct is no different. If you are a small, specialized company with a very specific position in mind (and the knowledge and resources to assess competency for that position) then hiring a contractor direct might be feasible.

You can scour LinkedIn for candidates, reach out to the ones you think might fit, and interview candidates then draft up a contract once you have found the right employee. This is time-consuming, but if you want 100% control over the process, it is certainly possible.

For companies without the time to devote to this process, it is generally more practical to go with a 3^rd party staffing agency that specializes in contract placements, as they have the ability to streamline the recruitment process and source a great contract employee in a cost-effective, time-sensitive manner.