The difficulty here is that no one who is even mediocre would ever do a "contract to hire".
I would, but at a real consulting rate (over $150 per hour) and not at a salary rate, since it comes with none of the benefits of being salaried.
That kind of arrangement is going to lead to adverse selection in the end. At typical tech salaries, you'd be asking me to take a 50% pay cut for (not much) additional job security. The main upshot of being FT (aside from benefits but those don't merit a 50% pay cut) is that it takes ~30-60 days to fire someone without severance. For contractors, they don't have to do that PIP bullshit. But I prefer to plan my career based on upside, not job security/what happens if I'm fired.
The rate at which I'd take a contract-to-hire gig is one at which I wouldn't happily convert to full-time, unless there were a huge promotion in the mix. The people who would convert without a big promotion are the ones you don't want, because they plan on coasting.
I was skeptical of contract-to-hire situations until I did one myself. I got a significant increase my salary in the contract phase (even including what I paid for benefits) and got an increase on top of that at the time of hire (not counting benefits).
I was toward the top end of what I could make being traditionally employed locally (Helena, Montana). The remote contract-to-hire opportunity put me on par with folks living in cities, save places like NY and SF, or those working for huge companies.
Definitely a good deal for some of us that don't have professional networks that would support consulting. And whatever you might think, I'm not a coaster or I wouldn't have been offered full-time employment.
I would, but at a real consulting rate (over $150 per hour) and not at a salary rate, since it comes with none of the benefits of being salaried.
That kind of arrangement is going to lead to adverse selection in the end. At typical tech salaries, you'd be asking me to take a 50% pay cut for (not much) additional job security. The main upshot of being FT (aside from benefits but those don't merit a 50% pay cut) is that it takes ~30-60 days to fire someone without severance. For contractors, they don't have to do that PIP bullshit. But I prefer to plan my career based on upside, not job security/what happens if I'm fired.
The rate at which I'd take a contract-to-hire gig is one at which I wouldn't happily convert to full-time, unless there were a huge promotion in the mix. The people who would convert without a big promotion are the ones you don't want, because they plan on coasting.