"Contract vs Permanent"

After fifteen years in recruitment, you’d think nothing would surprise me anymore. But last month, a situation came up that reminded me why I keep writing these articles.

Here’s what I’ve learned about contract vs permanent over the years. The surface issue is rarely the real issue. When a candidate tells me they’re struggling, we usually need to dig deeper. When an employer tells me they can’t find good people, I start asking harder questions.

The hiring process is fundamentally broken in most organisations. Not because people are incompetent, but because incentives are misaligned. HR wants to reduce risk. Hiring managers want to fill seats. Candidates want to advance. Finance wants to control costs. These goals conflict constantly.

Understanding this changes how you approach the whole thing. You stop taking rejection personally because you realise it’s often not about you. You stop wondering why decisions take so long because you see all the competing priorities. You stop expecting fairness because you recognise the system wasn’t designed to be fair.

None of this is cynicism. It’s clarity. And clarity gives you power.

My advice? Stop focusing solely on the technical aspects of job hunting and start paying attention to the human dynamics. Yes, your CV matters. Yes, your skills matter. But so does your ability to read situations, build rapport, and navigate uncertainty.

These are learnable skills. Every awkward interview, every confusing rejection, every drawn-out process – they’re all teaching you something if you’re paying attention. The question is whether you’re learning or just complaining.

I’ve seen people transform their career trajectory by simply becoming more aware. Not by getting new qualifications or gaining more experience, but by understanding how the world they’re operating in actually works.

That’s the edge that separates people who get stuck from people who move forward.