Details of Full Disclosure* and Fixed Markups

Synesis works on the assumption that full disclosure promotes trust and loyalty. We disclose every expense related to placing you with a client company as accurately as possible. During the course of your placement, if we find an expense overestimated, we will adjust your pay rate, and give you a bonus for time worked at the lower rate. For expenses that cannot be known in advance, an accurate year-end review will determine the exact amounts spent in support of your contract. A bonus will be issued to return any excess amounts.

For example, legal fees are estimated and used to calculate the markup. If the actual legal fees during a year are substantially lower than normal, you will get a year-end bonus returning that money to you.

Another example that you MIGHT find at other shops is the increase in your pay rate when you reach the Social Security wage base. At that point, most shops effectively get a 6.2% increase in their profit since they are no longer paying the matching company portion. With Synesis, not only do you get the 6.2% no longer withheld from your gross, you also get the 6.2% that we are no longer liable for.

*Full Disclosure Caveat: Since full disclosure of billing rates is a new paradigm in the contract employment industry, some vendors have negotiated fixed markups and require strict confidentiality. Usually, these negotiated fixed markups are much lower than those charged by a standard contract shop, and are therefore much closer to ours. In order to comply with those confidentiality agreements should you be placed at one of these companies, your year-end bonus will include any amounts in excess of our stated fixed markup. However, there will be no breakdown of the refund amounts (which would allow simple calculation of the confidential markup). That keeps the client's fixed markup confidential, but still provides you with everything to which you are entitled through this service.

True Independents

Independents were foiled by the IRS in their attempts to control their financial future when 1099s were virtually outlawed in high tech industries. You can be certain that the resolution to that limitation will be the next target -- single person corporations. With Synesis, you can be prepared and still maintain the benefits of incorporating.

The easiest way to use the full disclosure placement method of Synesis is to identify an open position and apply for it. This should be done directly to the hiring company, not through another contract shop or headhunter. When the details of the position become the topic of conversation, make clear your intentions to work as a contractor through "your own" selected shop -- Synesis Inc. Refer them to this website to convince them that you have a vested interest in Synesis, and that it's in their best interest as well to authorize Synesis as a vendor. You can take control all the way through rate negotiations, or hand the details to us at any time. You're always in control and calling the shots even if we're negotiating on your behalf.

Before approaching a potential hiring company, make sure you have selected the pay rate that you desire, and have calculated the required billing rate based on the fixed markups. The rate calculator makes this step easy.

Normal Job Seekers

The standard job seeker depends on the contract shop to locate the job and negotiate the rate. Synesis provides this service but keeps overhead low by concentrating on the independents who locate their own positions. When you submit a resume to Synesis, we will attempt to locate a position for you as any other shop would, but we will still do it with full disclosure and fixed markups.

We recommend that you post your resume to our partner JobWarehouse.com and review their posted jobs for a possible match. When looking for open positions, keep in mind that the vast majority of online job postings are competitor contract shops or headhunters. If you apply directly for one of these positions, you must ascertain whether that shop will work on a "corp-to-corp" arrangement. If not, it is best to locate other open positions elsewhere, or find the hiring companies without the assistance of other shops.

When hiring companies are identified, please contact us with that information. We can see if Synesis is already approved to do business there, and if not we can attempt to get through the red tape to get you in and working. Once you're in, then your ability to refer others through our referral "system" is much easier.

Corp-to-Corp

The corporation to corporation arrangement is not the best scenario to set up when finding a position. Many national shops who locate the position will work this way by paying you as a corporation (Synesis Inc) instead of as a W-2 employee. The problem is that they still want a sizable twenty or thirty percent cut for doing next to nothing. Although the best case is to find the hiring company without their assistance, if there's no alternative, you simply deal with them as you would the hiring company by spelling out the required billing rate. You'll never know the rate that they charge their client for your time, so there's no sense wasting your energy.