Contract Employee

[DCJ]

Hi Stacy,

I graduated from college 4 years ago and have 3 years of full-time work experience. As of this January I've been working as a contractor doing part-time work for a company. I went that route to give myself the flexibility to prepare for Business school. I know schools like to see fulltime work experience, however, so will it count against me that I am technically not an employee of the company that I work for and am only doing part-time work? Should I go ahead and try to secure a fulltime job now to prevent that from happening?

[Lisa Anderson]

Dear DCJ,

Schools will want to know why you went from full-time to part-time employment. If it was solely to take courses and write applications, then I would suggest trying to return to full-time status this fall to add another year of full-time experience on your resume prior to entering business school in fall 2010. Whether or not your decision to step back to part-time work so you could focus on going to business school will be viewed negatively remains to be seen as there are certainly some schools that will view that decision with skepticism. It is not a negative that you are a contractor though.

Good luck,
Lisa

[DCJ]

Thanks for your response. I understand that schools want to know that an applicant is "employable" so I'm definitely looking for full-time jobs now. I had to leave my prior job because I was in a very tricky situation where I worked long hours and could not reduce my hours or take time off (I couldn't even take a sick day) to do what was necessary to prepare for b-school (take classes, attend networking events, visit schools, etc). Also it would not have gone over well to mention to my boss that I was pursuing business school. I was not a bad employee; quite the opposite. I simply worked in an environment where the management did not like when people left or were thinking about leaving (and sometimes preempted that by firing an employee). Please give me your feedback on whether this makes sense?

[Lisa Anderson]

It makes sense; you just want to be prepared to explain your decisions if asked. Schools will not have issues if you have a legitimate reason for your decision.

Regards,
Lisa