Onboarding as a Contractor (6 months to start)
I'm halfway through Rahul's Onboarding Course and am wondering if his advice in the course changes given that I'm on a contract 6-months to start. What triggered this thought was he says in the video Get Maximum Value Per Answer that you should consider yourself "Fully Onboarded" by Month 6 (and therefore take more time before asking questions). Since my contract is 6-months to start, I imagine I should strive especially hard to onboard quickly, but that the advice in the course doesn't really change. There are, after all, human limits to how quickly you can onboard and those don't change whether you're FTE or on contract to start. I believe my situation might be closer to that of an intern. So maybe I should go through Alex's Intern Course?
Appreciate the feedback!
Discussion
(4 comments)- 2
4 months agoThoughtful TarodactylTaro CommunityI apologize that this does not answer the question but would you be open to sharing how you got the contractor role and if the interview process was easier?
- 24 months agoMid-Level Data Engineer [OP]Instacart
Yeah, for sure.
In my case, I actually interviewed for a FT role that I didn't get because they ended up giving the role to someone internal. I passed the interviews as an L4. Fortuitously, a 3rd party recruiter reached out for a contract role around the time I heard back about the FT role. When I found out I didn't get the FT role, I asked about the contract role and they used my FT interview results for the contract role. The interview process for contract is def easier than FT. For FT, I did 6 interview (7 if you count the HR screen). For the contract role, I only did 2 interviews (manager + skip) and I believe I skipped one because of my FT results.
- 1
4 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroI think the onboarding course advice is more or less good. A lot of the advice in the intern course is generally applicable, but I don't recommend going through it as:
- A lot of the advice overlaps with the onboarding course
- A lot of the advice is Meta-specific
- The course is pretty old, and the video quality is kind of jank (I really need to remake it, lol)
- You are not an intern 😂
The main thing to take from the intern course (interns are essentially 3 month contractors) is that the feedback loop must be very tight. Really take advantage of your manager 1 on 1s and be sharp asking for feedback: This Is How You Get Feedback - Making The Process Smooth
- 14 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
The advice still applies, but the true test is the onboarding doc! I'd establish the success criteria for each month that you're a contractor with your manager in the onboarding.
Hearing the manager's feedback will really help to calibrate where you want to be on the spectrum of learning vs impact.
