I exactly have the same qualifications as you require except for one drawback i live in Pakistan. But i m feeling very sorry for not being able to work for you this would have so exciting. Any ways

Best Regards

Haseena

Good note. We have been having exactly that dialog with both our lawyer and CPA. The conclusion – we are cleared to go with contractor status, but we all agree there is the potential of skirting the line. The status will need to be reconsidered once we have a little working history to provide perspective. We are learning what this position is as we are interviewing. This will be our first non-technical person and it’s an exploration. If you read our blog (see Do You Have an Employee in Contractor’s Clothing), this is an issue dear to our hearts. I’m right there alongside you.

Long term, the right person may end up an employee (maybe even 3-6 months out). If they really are that helpful, we will want to be the focus of all their attention. If part time really solves our problem and they have other customers they provide a similar service to, then contract may be the right solution. Since the key differentiator is control of their time, that is the key in our decision making process.

In response to your specific quotes:

“…work to exacting deadlines”

We work for our clients to exacting deadlines. They do not define neither how we do the work nor when we do it, but they sure do insist it gets done on an agreed time line. That deadline more often than not is yesterday. In the interviews so far, we have told each candidate “I don’t care when you work, where you work or even how you do it, as long as the quality is high and everything on the task list is done on time.” That fits pretty well into the contractor space.

“We are happy to train the right person ”

Now this is a good point and requires clarification. I’m the first to admit that this is a potential chink in the contractor choice. It’s a question of approach and we are thinking about it quite a bit. We are requiring they use their own tools and their own space. We require the candidate know more than we do about 90% of their tasks. That’s said, no one knows neither our business nor our clients better than we do. My hope is to find someone with a strong skill base, but who can help in other areas. We are a small business and the more hats you take from our head, the more helpful that is. If you happen to be a phenomenal organizer, office manager, team coordinator, h.r. person, but have never done books (and you are willing to help us out there until we can grow some more – small business curse), then we will gladly accept the support and offer any training we can. I will need to check with my lawyer and CPA on exactly where that puts us. I would guess the difference is who is paying for the training. If they pay for it from an outside source, then contractor status is maintained. If we pay for it, things become iffy.

“Support the CEO & CTO in the daily activities”

It seems to me the issue is the word daily. You are definitely correct. It’s a good think we are not requiring daily work. I explained during our last interview that we are a service/project based company. Our workload goes in cycles. Some periods we (the technical teams & project managers) work 18 hour days and sometimes (like the next two weeks) things calm down a bit and we have the freedom to spend time with family and only work 2 hour days. That said, many of the tasks that need to be done are not part of the project cycle, making us think that the person we work with will have a fairly consistent basis of hours to work should they choose to. The possibility of daily work and daily support is there, and if that is truly the case, then employment begins to make sense. Since we have never had an office manager / administrator, we don’t really know what to expect or how it will work out.

In essence. We think about this enormously, but its a learning lesson for us. That is why we are blogging about it and we appreciate the feedback so much.

Thanks Janice. Feel free to follow up with more questions, either online or offline.

-S

“…work to exacting deadlines”
“We are happy to train the right person ”
“Support the CEO & CTO in the daily activities “

D. L.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Warm regards,
Samantha Altomare

Evangeline English