Pros
- You may get extremely lucky and enjoy your placement - You can get 2 free weeks of (fairly poor) training before being contractually bound for the next 2 1/3 years.
Cons
- You are a contractor, and who you end up placed with for up to 2 years is completely and utterly up to chance. There's nothing you can do once placed to either choose post-training, or change once contracted out. 2 years is an incredibly long time. Working as a contractor often involves doing the work no internal staff are willing to do. Believe me, I have done exactly this for the past 18 months. - The holiday entitlement is genuinely illegal, coming in under the statutory minimum of 20-per-year with training included (I had 15 days last year). - Abysmal wages which barely scrape into the 'living wage' category, and are a *tiny* fraction of the day rate FDM charges its clients. - Utterly appalling sick pay practices for those on-site. Any income (less SSP which is pennies) is deducted from your pay check and you quite literally have to fight to receive even SSP. Creates a toxic culture where consultants feel obligated to work while incapacitated. - Extraordinary bureaucracy around pay, with absences frequently over-charged for and no accountability taken when pay is withheld. - 'Personal Development' and 'Mental health' are merely used as buzzwords, nothing else. No proactive support is offered to consultants unless Account Managers give up their personal time to do so. - The mentoring scheme is a complete and utter joke - effectively non-existent. - Extraordinarily punishing exit fees trap you in your role and are borderline criminal (in excess of university tuition). The quality of work you do on site has no impact on this whatsoever. - The training is worth about 1/10th of its quoted value.