jackson23's comments

>According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the term project stakeholder refers to, ‘an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project’ (Project Management Institute, 2013).

As a PM, I usually refer to the stakeholders as the people that requested the project, the people that pay for the project, and the people that need to be informed about any changes related to schedule, scope, cost, impediments, etc.

>What's the difference? A Project Manager is rarely a stakeholder, though it could happen if the stakeholder is actually managing all aspects of the project.

It may benefit you to read the PMBOK and read some books on Agile and Scrum techniques. There are still many projects that use waterfall methodologies and are successfully on-time and on-budget. I was once a Portfolio Manager for a large insurance company in charge of data migrations from acquired insurers...there is nothing that stand-ups and scrum could have done to make the migration process any faster or better. Point: learn the basic methodologies first, then build on your knowledge. Agile and Scrum in the wrong hands can be terribly destructive. Knowing which methodologies may work best for different teams/projects/situations is key. Sometimes the overhead and bloat of Agile isn't necessary for simple projects. I once briefly worked as a subcontracted developer for a crappy consulting/recruiting company. The company wanted to "provide value" to the client by mandating that the client's IT Director and I had daily conference calls with the company's scrum master who only had 6 months of PM experience (I had 8 years of exp at the time). Which wouldn't have been unusual except I was the only developer, the IT Director wasn't involved other than "get it done" and gave two shits less about the daily stand-ups and agile process to design a 3-page site and a couple of forms, all of which had excellent requirements docs. I ripped through the work and got out of there in a week. Why apply such a ridiculous process/methodology to something so simple?

Glad you liked it. I use a cheap $9.99 1080p manually zoomable camera and a 20 foot USB extension cable routed under the chair mat and up a 5.5 foot tripod to the camera. Having the camera taped to the tripod (no proper mount on the USB camera) makes it super easy to use the tripod controls to pan, tilt, or lock in place. Due to a conveniently located shelving unit, the tripod's legs are not fully spread out, reducing the tripping hazard. A simple loop of paracord and a knot 'secure' the tripod head to the shelving.

I've been mostly working remotely (80-90% remote work) as a developer and consultant for over a decade. The changing point for me was to have a dedicated office space (an entire bedroom or den). Let's face it, if you are working late in the evening at the office and no one else is in the office, what difference is there from working remotely? Now, for me, it mostly doesn't matter where I work from: home office, rented space, living room in a La-Z-Boy, coffee shop, etc; anything but a cubicle or an open floor plan.

Slightly off-topic: my wife, who also works remotely and has a dedicated office space (a tricked-out bedroom), commented today how she hasn't had a sick day in over two years because she is not exposed to the multitude of germs and viruses she was exposed to in the corporate office. I noticed similar results: I have not called in sick to a client in many years while working remotely. Not getting sick as much is definitely a productivity boost. Not having to shave and dress up (good ol' pj pants and a polo shirt top works great on skype) and make a two-way commute are also productivity/lifestyle boosts.

I also have a camera behind me, overlooking my monitors and the back of my desk chair (the monitors are not readable by the camera, can only make out color blocks but can't read 12pt text). When someone skypes me, I just turn around to face the camera. The viewer can more easily see that I am actually working and if I have to check something on the computer, I just turn around and let them watch me work on it. This has been very effective in eliminating comments/feelings that remote workers are ineffective.

This week I do have to be onsite and the weekly commute will eat 15-20 hours, depending on traffic, for my 26 mile commute (each way). That is 15-20 hours of basically nothing but listening to podcasts or music. That's a productivity hit, as other than the feel good of being in the office, there is nothing that I could not do remotely, but it is a new client so I think it is a fair trade off.

I also stopped using the phrase "work from home" as I truly can work remotely from any location with electricity and optionally, wifi/cell service. I once worked remotely for two weeks from the campgrounds near the Redwood National Park and just drove to Crescent City to send/receive emails and code every evening during my nightly and rightly beer run. I did have regular or extended cell service (no data tho) if someone needed to discuss anything urgent.

>You list 40 positions on your resume?

On one version. I also have a standard one-pager, a 6-pager, and a 12-pager resume for those HR/recruiters looking for depth + breadth experience. Per one 'job board', I actually get about 30% more contracts from my 12-pager than the other two versions combined: keywords and keyword density I am sure.

I have a 2-pager "Contracts" list that just lists companies, dates, position, and a 1-2 sentence blurb about each...and this is just for SharePoint/MS Project/O365 contracts since 2008...not even my whole career, nor oddball stuff [Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management Config: WTF?, Clarity PM Development, custom map software, etc.], nor short <30 day issues if the client wasn't "notable".

I have seen other Consultants with significantly more experience than me that have multiple pages just for publications, books, courses taught, etc. and/or patents on their resume. Due to the enterprise market that SharePoint once exclusively targeted, most of my clients are large Fortune 500/1000 companies and listing the numerous ones I have worked with has not been a noticeable, or even real, detriment.

My line of thought: "Would $hiringManager hire someone that only worked at 2 or 3 places [no gaps though!] to solve this problem, or would $hiringManager hire the consultant that has blasted problems away at over 40 notable companies, wrote/taught courses on x, wrote the book on x, etc." My gaps are [invisibly: not listed] filled with 'smaller' work/contracts, that if listed, would multiply my resume's page count by some factor of ridiculous and, to some uninitiated, dilute my value. First world problems.

I do see that Architect/Administrator work for on-premise SharePoint/Project is declining while more SMBs are buying into Office 365/SharePoint Online/Project Online. Yet, just today, no less than 3 contracts/RFQs came in for on-prem SP2013 to SP2016 migrations. One contract I cannot take because it is in NYC and for a City government migration (not top fees and typically difficult to work with, and too far away); a largish Seattle company (~7B revenue FY15) that is qualified and has an interesting business and requirements; and a consulting company in Hollywood that needs someone 'yesterday' to fix/correct workflows in their large studio client's workflow manager farm prior to the SP2016 migration.

I digressed.

I see your points. As a [freelance] Consultant, my resume has over 40 over-lapping, yet relatively short duration (2-6 months) positions listed. As a Farm/Server Architect and Admin for very specific technologies like SharePoint Server, MS Project Server, O365 SharePoint Online/Project Online, I typically Architect the server farm(s), install and configure the servers (automated as much as possible) and turn over the keys. Every day a recruiter calls or a client questions me about the short durations, I simply say "How long did you keep your Architect around after your house was built?" Very few companies need a relatively expensive Architect full-time...which suits me because I've had exposure to so many problem sets, environments, company cultures, great people [mostly].

At many companies I meet some IT folks that have worked at their company for 15+ years. They are typically the ones that need the most help as they have mostly only had exposure to their problem sets and methodologies. New tech, in some cases, scares the heck out of them. The younger ones seem more eager for the change(s)...but c'est la vie.

Be careful, looks like these may be owned by the same person and are all located in KC MO. The prices look good, but some research should be done. Nocix is/was datashack.

https://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1559810

If a C or S corp, you still need to file a Form 1120 [1] U.S. Corporation Income Tax Return:

"Who Must File Unless exempt under section 501, all domestic corporations (including corporations in bankruptcy) must file an income tax return whether or not they have taxable income. Domestic corporations must file Form 1120, unless they are required, or elect to file a special return. See Special Returns for Certain Organizations, below"

LLCs have a similar requirement.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Maybe some of us are thinking about this wrong. Do you know who actually talks to the hiring manager? 9 times out of 10 it is the Account Executive...the sales person that speaks to the hiring manager not the recruiter. An epiphany for me at least.

Perhaps we're looking at recruiters as a means to get to the goal, when it really should be us reaching out to the Account Executives as they are the most necessary person in that chain. Consider hoe valuable and AE is to the recruiting company, and to us. Interestingly, when I ask a recruiter if I can talk to the Account Executive working the account I am usually politely told "No." The reason I have asked is because it was obvious the recruiter was reading a poorly worded position description to me without understanding the client's actual needs. However, I have only spoken to a handful of AEs and that was usually due to client requirements that required more resources than originally anticipated.

Thanks to all of the recruiters that are also AEs and also technical and are in this thread.

You are right about the long term relationship needs to be a two way street. Tangentially, not all recruiters are as good as you. Over 90% of the recruiter calls I get are from middle eastern/Indian/Pakistan native-speaking people that work for recruiting companies that are basically spam calling every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Minor issues with that, but more importantly they are another [unnecessary] layer. For instance, Tata Consulting, a very large Indian-based company, is looking for a SharePoint consultant to work full-time FTE for them...I got a call from a recruiter that was basically the fourth middleman in the transaction...his company was to be paid $x%, the company that brought his company in was supposed to get $x%, and so forth...all promised to be paid from my work. Fee-splitting should be banned if it is more than two layers between hiring company and contractor. Further, these types of companies have no direct relationship with the end client so there are multiple translation layers (opportunities for mistakes) before my resume gets in front of the client, if it does at all. Also, I typically don't contract with out-of-state third party recruiters due to laws and jurisdiction (company must/should have nexus in the state the work is performed in).

In my humble experience, the real issue is some/most internal HR folks need to be trained on technology and how not to pass on a resume that doesn't have a keyword they don't understand even though it is included in another keyword they don't understand (looking for someone that has javascript experience but passed because Node.js and jQuery were listed more times than javascript).

Hiring/finding contractors is broken, but it doesn't have to be.

I get many calls from third party recruiters and some directly from Hiring Managers or internal HR...all from posting my resume on job boards and LinkedIn. Most of the third party recruiters are unfortunately worthless and from New Jersey...I have no idea why, I live in Portland, OR. I am a Sr. SharePoint Consultant/Architect/Admin/Dev with over 20 years of IT experience and 8+ years of SharePoint experience. I now run my own consulting company and utilize the job boards only to get corp-to-corp or direct contracts with companies. Of the many of thousands of third party recruiters only two have really stood out to me. I am not otherwise affiliated with them or their companies (though I have worked with them):

Lisa Matar, founder and owner of Collaborative Vision http://cvhires.com, a boutique third party recruiting firm based in Portland, OR has fostered a positive relationship with me and with the companies that she works with. I had a question about a corp-to-corp SharePoint migration contract I learned of from a different recruiting company. Lisa reached out to the CTO of a large Healthcare company most of us have heard of within minutes and provided the information I needed. While the role was cancelled due to a long story, I was blown away by her execution. She is also very competent with current technologies, though she is not a developer or admin. Lisa really understood my background and experience and has proactively pinged me about positions and sometimes for my feedback. She is also very willing to place consultants corp-to-corp if the end client allows it. Thank you Lisa, you are the best.

Another recruiter is Susan Schmidt at InfoGroup Northwest with offices in Portland and other cities. Susan called me, I aced the interview same day, got the ball rolling, let me sign the paperwork electronically, and had me in a client-paid-for hotel room in a different city the same day, working the next day on a contract (it was kind of urgent for the company and me at the time). Unfortunately my recent experiences with InfoGroup have been negative...no feedback, no pings, I'm just a wet bag of meat that has potential to put money in their hands from my work. Chris R, the owner of InfoGroup is a very impressive woman and has a great business sense, which means shrewd in her case. I hope IGNW gets it back together, because they have coordinated several corp-to-corp contracts for me that I would not have otherwise known about and are mostly great to work with.

Does anyone know of any other recruiters in Portland that are open to finding corp-to-corp opportunities?