The Vendor Concept For IT Consultants

Understanding the layers of the vendor onion is a must for every IT consultant .Though you have the required skills and work permits you can not just work as a consultant directly for a company in the US. Corporations in the US hire consultants only through a preferred vendor. Preferred Vendor is nothing but a business term for a body shopping company. And this preferred vendor will in turn have his preferred vendors who employ you. This can be compared to the Computer Networks OSI Model where the  layers below provide services to the layer above. The only difference in our case is that we are the only layer that provides services to all the layers above.

Even when you get paid on a 80-20 percentage basis, depending on where you stand in the food chain you end up getting paid half or less than what the client pays the preferred vendor. So working directly for the preferred vendor or the client should be our goal as a consultant. Not all preferred vendors process our visas and green cards. And that is just one good reason why we should get your green card processed ASAP through the employer we work for. Having a green card or at least an EAD will help us switch to different vendors and work directly with the client or preferred vendor.

While we get busy doing our best at our new clients place we should also keep up  with the happenings in the technical as well as immigration spaces. And when you are ready do not hesitate to run your own company to skip one or all the layers in between. In the consulting business even a dollar an hour makes a big difference and running pay checks and handling taxes is no big deal.

Read the following articles for further details:

1)Employer agreements for Visas and Green Cards

2)Use your EAD ASAP

3)File Your Green Card on Day One

4)Start your company today

5)Tips to start your company