Sure, managers of all stripes will hire and use junior contractors, but to me, that’s akin to playing russian roulette with your operations and projects. The supposed cost savings evaporates from the rework that inevitably happens when using junior contractors. Just don’t do it unless there’s a way to provide the necessary support. Otherwise, you’re asking for a lot of trouble for not alot of upside. My personal experience says that a truly qualified senior contractor is worth many times the junior contractors available out there. I’d hold out and negotiate it as a cost savings.

As for using junior contracts on projects as Shree points out, yes, that’s fine because there’s senior oversight. What so often happens is that senior oversight is non-existent and junior contractor is asked to perform outside his/her competency and the fire fighting begins. Personally, I’d rather pay a senior contractor to do something faster and with better quality than a junior contractor cheaper, unknown quality, and often longer time.

This isn’t to say there aren’t any good junior contractors out there – there are – however, caveat emptor. All of this is of course dependent on the company’s environment and needs.

But that’s just IMHO.

Cheers

Not sure about the corporate policies, But being a Senior Consultant myself, I would always like to have a junior consultant to shadow me, as a way to express/share my knowledge and to make that person competant (My ego satisfied). There are things that I hate to do over and over again for years, and I would provide my best (Combined ROI is much higher), when these day to day tasks are handled by a junior (A benefit to the company)….

I do believe that in some companies the corporate contracting office, in an attempt to save the company money in the only way available to them, set rates that ensure only junior contractors can be hired.

Now as to the appearance of doing something, at the end of the day (yes there are end of the days for projects as forever that may be sometimes), the free lunch stops and an accounting will happen. It might cost a few people their jobs…hopefully not one’s own!

Only inexperienced managers hire “junior contractors” or management consultants as the case may be…

(1) It looks like you are doing something.
(2) It doesn’t cost much money.

Of course it is a waste of money, but often (1) is what people are after, mere appearance (see, for example, Congress, U.S.).