The Software Contractor's Guild

How to Join the Software Contractors Guild

Qualifications: You must be working as a software contractor/consultant or actively pursuing such a position. We accept software contractors from any place world wide. If you would like to be identified with this professional group, please join.

Requirements: You will need a forms-capable web browser and an email address.

Fees: There is a small membership fee of US$20.00 per year. Go ahead and sign up and we will email you an invoice for the first year's dues. This way, you can try it first to see if the service will work for you. If we do not receive a payment within 30 days, we will assume you do not wish to continue. We will cancel your membership and delete your entries.

Payments may be made by Visa, MasterCard, or American Express credit cards. After you complete the sign-up process you will have a profile page. To pay your dues, go to your profile page and scroll to bottom. Click on the credit card icon, fill in the form with your credit card number and expiration date, and submit.

You can also pay by check in US dollars, drawn on a US bank or the equivalent in Canadian dollars drawn on a Canadian Bank. Checks may be sent to the webmaster at one of the Local Chapters or to the address shown above. See their web page for address. Be sure to include your member number on the check so it will be credited correctly. Very important: when you mail your check, please include a printed copy of the invoice OR print your name and member number in the memo area of your check. Both would be fine. Very often we get checks with no indication who the payment is for!

If you are having difficulty with payment arrangements, however, please contact us. Other arrangements can be made.

What do we do with your data? We post all of your data on our web site (except the password). We do not distribute it to other parties without your permission. But be aware that there are other parities on the internet that extract resumes and distribute them. This is outside our control. For example you will find that your resumes get copied into the database at Net-Temps as well as other databases that are sold to agents. Please read the Privacy Statement.

Signup Procedures:

STEP 1: Fill in the data in the Profile Entry Form and enter any data you want displayed. Fill in as much information as you can now. If the information is incomplete, you can edit or update it any time.
Submit the form to initiate the service. When the submission process is complete, you will have been assigned a member number. An Information Profile Web page will be created from the information you entered in the sign-up form.
STEP 2: Go to your profile page. Review all of your entries to make sure that they look the way you want them to. To make a change, click on the "this page" button and enter your password. You will get your information form again to modify.
If you modify your entries, be sure to use the RELOAD button on your browser so your browser will see the change. Otherwise you will be seeing only the old version of a page in your browser's cache. If your entries did not change, you probably forgot to use the RELOAD button.
STEP 3: Go to your Information Profile web page. On this page there is a button at the bottom called "Resume". Click this item and enter your new member number and password. You will be presented with a form with a large text area into which you can paste your resume. This can be in plain text or formatted in HTML. (See FAQ section for more information).
STEP 4: Put yourself into Skill Set categories - On your information Profile page click the "Skill Set" button. Enter your password and you will be given a form with a list of skill categories. Check each category in which you are expert.
STEP 5: Put yourself into Geographical Location categories - On your information Profile page click the "Location" button. Enter your password and you will be given a form with a list of geographical areas. Check each area in which you are willing and able to work.

What you get

Your resume is displayed where it can be viewed by prospective clients and agents alike indexed and sorted by skill specialty and availability date. If you are available immediately, your name automatically appears at the top of the list for your skill specialty. (This index mechanism also gives you the chance to book work ahead if you and the client agree.)

You also get a consistent format for the presentation of contractual summary information, which provides clients who are looking for contractors/consultants with a better screening mechanism.

A professional technical writer is available to assist you in writing your resume and adapting it to HTML for display on the Web.

Finally, you get that valuable "association factor", which lists you with other expert men and women in your field. In short, you get lots of visibility for a very small fee.

Later obligations

Every four to six months, please update the data on your form, in particular the availability date. If you do not update after six months, the data is marked as out-of-date. After 12 months the data will be removed unless you renew for another year.

Convinced?

Fill out the Profile Entry Form and join the Software Contractors' Guild now.