> Sounds shocking... but having worked as a contractor for a goodly portion of my career, I'd argue that something is seriously wrong if you can't get at least one employee to vouch for you.

That sounds reasonable, although I could see a need for some exceptions. For example, I could see a company using a contractor for its front end web development and another contractor for running the web server. The first contractor would be working with employees, such as sales and marketing that decide what is supposed to go on the site, and they could vouch for that contractor. The second contractor, the one running the web server, could easily end up only interacting with the front end web contractor.