How to talk about being on contract?

Question

I'm currently working on contract at Doordash. How should I keep/mention contract on my resume and in the interview process?

I work in person in the main SF office and most of my team is also full time/contract. I also do work pretty much the same if not more complex than some of the full time engineers who were hired on a similar start date

Should I even mention contract on the resume? and if so how to do it without sabotaging myself/shooting myself in the foot before I even get a chance to interview. Resumes are after all 90% prestige screen so it does make a huge difference

Rahul Pandey · Accepted Answer

I agree with you that resume screens are largely about having a name-brand company on your resume, and it's extremely valuable to have a strong brand like DoorDash.

Is your employer of record DoorDash, or some staffing company?

If it's DoorDash, you are absolutely a DoorDash employee and I wouldn't mention that you're on contract.
If it's some other employer (e.g. Accenture), it's probably still fine to just say DoorDash as your experience, since it sounds like you're embedded on the team.

I put some thoughts about this here: Can I claim Ex-FAANG if I was a contractor at Amazon?

The litmus test is whether you are meaningfully interacting with the FTE at DoorDash, and you can understand/have opinions on how you are accomplishing the work (ie. you're not a black box code monkey).

How to talk about being on contract?

Discussion