Contract, contract-to-hire or permanent

Three ways to bring a technical person onto your team, explained plainly.

If you approve the budget rather than write the code, you may be asked to sign off a contractor one month and a permanent hire the next. The words sound alike and the commitments are not. Here is the difference between the three arrangements we place, in the terms a finance or operations leader would use.

Contract

For a defined piece of work

What it is: A contractor or consultant joins your team for a project, a backlog or a busy stretch when the work in front of you is bigger than the people you have.
How it begins: We agree the scope and the skills it takes, then find someone who has done that kind of work before and can start without a long ramp.
How it ends: When the work is done, or when you and the contractor decide together that there is more to do.
What you commit to: The work itself, not a new line on the org chart.

Contract-to-hire

For a role you expect to keep

What it is: Someone starts on a contract basis with a shared intention: a permanent role once both sides are sure it is right.
How it begins: The same search and the same screening as a permanent hire, with the longer view in sight from the first conversation.
How it ends: With an offer of employment from you, or with a plain and courteous parting if the fit is not there.
What you commit to: A fair trial in real work, taken seriously by both sides.

Permanent

For a seat you are building around

What it is: A direct hire onto your own payroll from the first day, for a role that will still matter to the business long after the current project.
How it begins: Role definition with the people who will work beside the hire, a written profile, and a search that reaches people who are not looking.
How it ends: With an accepted offer, a start date, and check-ins after the person has settled in.
What you commit to: A person, and the time to interview a short list properly.

Choosing between them

When each one fits

The arrangement should follow the shape of the work. A few signs that point one way or another.

Contract fits when

The work has a visible finish line: a migration, an integration, a reporting build, a system upgrade.
Your team lacks one skill for now and will not need it every day afterwards.
The money is project money rather than an approved position.
You need someone productive quickly and can give them a clear brief.

Contract-to-hire fits when

You are sure about the work and less sure about the person or the fit.
Approval for a permanent position is coming, but it is not signed yet.
The role is new and you would rather see it done for a while before you define it for good.
You want the candidate to be as confident in you as you are in them.

Permanent fits when

The role owns a system, a platform or a team, and continuity matters more than flexibility.
You want someone who plans in years rather than in sprints.
The knowledge the person builds should stay inside the company.
It is a pivotal leadership seat, or an individual contributor others will learn from.

A candid note. Sometimes none of the three fits yet, because the role itself has not been settled or the team has not agreed what a good fit looks like. When that is the case we would rather say so and help you sort the role out first than run a search that is likely to stall.

Whichever you choose

What stays the same

The commercial arrangement changes. The way we find and screen the person does not.

One scorecard for every search

Every candidate is screened the same way, whether they are joining for a project or for the long haul: skills, motivation, compensation alignment and references, written down so the decision is consistent.

Cultural fit alongside skills

We take the time to learn how your team works and who does well in it. A contractor who cannot work with your people costs you as much as a permanent hire who cannot.

A short list, not a stack

You hear about a small number of people, each one worth an interview, rather than a pile of résumés to sort through on top of your day job.

Fast feedback in both directions

We tell you promptly what candidates are thinking and we ask the same of you, because a slow decision on a good person is usually a lost one.

Passive candidates included

The people best suited to a role are often not applying anywhere. We source from warmest to coldest and reach the ones who would need a reason to move.

Candour about fit

If a search is not something we can do well, we say so at the start. Relationships matter more to us than any single transaction.

Where we work

Areas of focus

IT and information systems roles, from the people who keep the lights on to the leaders who set direction.

Cloud and infrastructure

Cloud engineers
Systems engineers
Network engineers
Help desk and support

Software development

Software engineers
Project and product managers
Business analysts
Quality assurance

Data and analytics

Data engineers
Data scientists
BI developers and analysts
Data analysts

Technology leadership

Heads of IT and infrastructure
Engineering and development leaders
Data and analytics leaders
Other pivotal leadership roles

We place these roles with technology companies, with hospitals and health systems, with manufacturers, and with banks and financial firms: often companies whose product is not software but whose operations depend on it.

Where we are

The Middle Tennessee base

Affinity Search Partners is a founder-led recruiting firm based in Brentwood, Tennessee, founded in 2013. Most of the relationships behind our searches began in the Nashville area, and Middle Tennessee is still where we know the most people and the most companies.

That base does not limit the reach. We run searches for employers across the country, and the same process, the same scorecard and the same short list apply wherever the role happens to be.

Because the firm is small and led by the person doing the work, you will talk to someone who has met the candidates and can tell you what they are like, not an account manager relaying notes.

Not sure which one you need?

Tell us about the work and the team it sits in. We will tell you which arrangement fits, or whether there is a question to settle before any search starts. No obligation, just a conversation.

Ask which fits Company page on LinkedIn