My experience on both sides is that most companies don’t want to deal with independent contractors. I’ve had two cases where a company was wiling to pay $x + recruiter markup to hire someone they found directly so the person they wanted could make $x than just pay the person they wanted got $x.
One of those times was my former CTO who had moved on to another company and his company didn’t want to pay me directly. But they had no problem hiring me through a recruiting company I knew who I reached out to and they signed a contract with them with the markup.
While I have worked in consulting for six years, I refuse to do staff aug. It’s the fifth level of hell.
