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Comment by donw | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm just inexperienced, but can't you get around this with contract-to-hire? E.g., bring your prospective salesguy in for a 90-day contract, and if they cut the condiment of choice, keep them?

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A contractor is a very different thing than an employee. In most circumstances employees and contractors are not interchangeable [1].

Companies that hire Permatemps [2] can get bit hard. As a regular contractor I work hard to keep that line very clear.

[1] http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=179115,00....

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp#Vizcaino_v._Microsoft

All true, but he'd talking about temp-to-hire (which I've done with success (well, I wasn't the owner, just the direct report of the employee). And the author of the article pretty clearly doesn't want to try to play the Permatemp game.

What is temp-to-hire?? I think the "temp" part is an extended probationary period, right? I don't think you could fire someone 45 days into a 60 day probationary period and then expect to not pay unemployment because of some agreement between the employee and employer. Does the concept of temp-to-hire exist as law or policy in any government agency?

Temp-to-hire is hiring a person for a temporary period say 3 - 6 months as a temp with the expectation that if everything works out they'll get a job offer at the end. If it doesn't then the contract is finished and they leave.

You can do this and there are some guidelines to follow to make sure the IRS doesn't classify the contractor as an employee. Some things to consider, how often are they in an office? How much do they control their daily activity? Are they their own boss or do you look over their shoulder? How do you pay them? Hourly? Salary? Per Project? Commission. You need to talk to an accountant, but the contractor relationship works for my company with zero employees. Everyone is 1099.

Probably was the case, and in some countries, still is the case. But workplace rule-makers know this and have been long trying to bring a contractor under a long term arrangement to be seen as an employee. The employers don't want it, the contractors don't want it, but the rule makers do, because they see this type of free-association employment as a way around the rules, rather than as a contract people willingly enter into.

All things being equal, if someone is offered a full time position and a contract-to-hire, which will they take?

And if that became the norm, I'm not sure the ploy would stay legally viable.

Added after reading the fine article: I'd really wonder if it would fly in Illinois. Surely the author has considered it?

I would gladly take such a position so long as the system seemed fair (e.g., seeing several long-term non-owner/management employees working there). The terms are spelled out clearly, and I'd rather work somewhere that I add value. If I can't make serious contributions in a couple months, then it's a bad deal for both me and the employer.

However, you might have trouble getting people with families to take the job, especially if they're relocating.

But that's not the proposition I posed, it was one with two offers from two different companies, only the starting terms were different. I noted in another reply that I'd done this as the direct report of an employee---and for that matter, for the one we hired that didn't work out at all (wanted to try to solve a programming problem by reinstalling NT!!!) it worked out very well (I hate firing people).

And, yeah, I'd forgotten about relocation, that makes it a non-starter for a lot of people and types of jobs.

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