[mikester]

In my opinion - the interview process should be generally sufficient enough for them to make a hiring decision.

Right now I have a job, I know that I will likely have it indefinitely but the conditions are becoming risky. To mitigate that risk I have looked at other positions.

In a contract to hire scenario - I take the risk that they will decide that they do not want to hire me in the end and they simply cut me loose. How is this really different from a direct hire situation - I'm typically an 'at will' employee - if they don't like me they just have to do their due diligence and cut me loose that way. They don't need much in the way of ANY reason to let me go - they just have to say 'it's not working out.'

Still, with direct hire there is a commitment on their end that is not there with a contract to hire situation. I've never done it, I've done 1099 work in the past as a contractor and still do it today but I also maintain my day job. I don't do test drives, while I can see their benefit - I've had jobs that I interviewed for and thought would be great but in the end they sucked. A test drive would have been good but still not the way I want to d it. I've learned through those 'test drives' that the right questions in an interview are essential to getting the lay of the land prior to accepting the job.

Since I would probably be an individual contractor - that means no benefits which since I am the bread winner is not okay. I could (and have in the past) purchased short term medical policies but that's just short term.

I am contemplating if I should move on to the next step of going to the real interview or not. Right now, I think it may be best if I tell them my concerns and allow them to respond. It sounds like a decent gig but the contract to hire really threw me plus they could not give me any ball park numbers on compensation. They just said 'competitive'.

So - I'm contemplating saying 'I'm really concerned about the contract to hire aspect of this position.' I have not done that in past and I want to know what the strategy is surrounding how the contract would play out and what performance guidelines I would need to meet to ensure that upon completion of the contract time line that I am actually hired.'

Something to that effect at least.