During my library program, I often heard about classmates’
post-graduation career goals. I remember plans to become public librarians,
academic librarians, archivists, anywhere-so-long-as-I-___ librarians, a few
corporate librarians, and even sometimes civil servants. What I don't recall,
except in occasional references a few professors made to "Beltway bandits,"
was anyone talking about government contractors. As someone who became a
government contractor after graduation, I soon realized I had not learned to
ask the right questions for academia but not contracting. This post is my way
of helping others benefit from what I learned as a government contractor.
Your Employer May
Follow Small Business Rules
There are a lot of players in the contracting game and they
vary in size. If your employer has fewer than 50 people, they follow small
business labor rules. Seems obvious, but when an interviewer tells you they
have employees in 10 different states, they may only mean 20-30 people. Easy to
remember at a small historical society, less so at an agency of 5,000 civil
servants + contractors.
I have been very lucky that I haven't needed to use FMLA,
because that's something my employer doesn't offer as a result of being so
small. Additionally, I buy my health insurance through the Affordable Care Act
exchange because my employer is a small business located in another region of
the country and they did not have the staff or investment to negotiate good
coverage or plan options that work in my region.
Advice: Ask. Not "hey,
will I get FMLA?" but "So tell me more about ____. How many
librarians do you have? What other contracts do you have?”
You Work for Two
Different People
You work for your employer. You also work for your agency.
At times, your agency will treat you as an outsider. Your employer may not
always act in the best interests of your agency. Many contracts also have a
subcontractor. My boss and I work for different contractors. It gets a little
weird. I might get put on his contract next time or he on mine.
This disconnect is something you will have to live with.
From knowing plenty of other contractors, I can say that it's more prevalent at
some places and less at others. But it's still there.
Advice: Ask whether
you want to do job X or whether you want to work at agency Y. If this job
matches the kind of work you want to do, take it. If your motivation is that
you really want to work at ____ agency and you think the job's good too, great.
If it’s a great job but you’re not keen on the agency, take a step back and ask
evaluate how you’ll feel about being slightly outside. If you don't like the
job, take 30 steps back. You don't want this unless truly desperate. In which
case, I can relate, I'd been on the market for quite a while when I finally got
this job.
It's Not in The
Contract
If I had a nickel… Contracts thoroughly spell out the work
they do and don't include. That awesome new reference service or cool digital
project idea you came up with? Sorry, that’s probably outside the contract.
Some offer flexibility. Mine's fairly rigid. It protects me from new tasks I’m
not getting paid for but it limits me, too. You can hit limitations in any
library, but it’s quite painful when everyone agrees with you, you have the
resources and even the time to do it, and you’re still told to
twiddle your thumbs instead because of The Contract.
Advice: It’s not
unreasonable to ask your interviewer to describe what’s covered in the
contract, how they handle changes, etc. Or, if nervous, ask whether they've
done any special projects recently or what new service excites them.
Conclusion
At this point, I feel compelled to point out that there are upsides to working on a government
contract. Many agencies contract most of their library jobs, so if you want to
do a particular kind of library work for a particular kind of agency, this may
be your only opportunity. Some contractors pay more than the civil service
(find them!). Many manage multiple contracts and may be amenable to giving you
internal candidate status for a job that comes up at an agency where you'd
rather work.
Beyond what I shared above, I have three more pieces of
advice for people considering a job in government contracting:
- Put some time into research. It can be hard to research the company, so I'd suggest researching contracting in general.
- If you've been looking primarily at academic jobs with 10-15 days of sick leave alone, be aware that the contracting world follows corporate norms. 15 days combined sick and vacation is normal. When considering a salary, take this into account. Academic salaries are not comparable, as you have less buffer for illness. Any additional sick time comes out of your salary, and your sick leave may not roll over. Mine doesn’t.
- Figure out why you want to work for a government contractor. It won't necessarily get you closer to a civil servant job or make you really a part of that agency. But it may allow you to build skills and gain that experience you really needed coming out of library school—and that's a perfectly good reason.
The Beltway Bandit is an obvious pseudonym, for obvious reasons.
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