Now that you have decided to take advantage of the opportunities available to a temporary professional, executive, or technical employee, how do you go about choosing which staffing service or services you will work for? (You can work with several at the same time.)
Several things can guide your selection process, including Internet information, referrals from people you know who are temping or have worked with a staffing services in the past, the reputation of the staffing service, friendliness of the staff, convenience, pay, flexibility, benefits, location, the type of job you are looking for, and whether the staffing service is employer or employee-paid. Your career goals and where you want to work are also important.
Reputation-Who Pays the Fee?
Remember, a temporary employee is just as valuable to the staffing service as the business where the staffing service places the temp on the job. A staffing service must have both temporary employees and clients to send them to on jobs in order to be successful. If a staffing service cannot bring the temps and clients together, it cannot accomplish its goal. If a staffing service does not value you as a temporary employee, stop working with it and switch to a staffing service that does value its temps.
For example, Banking Staffing Service may have a great working relationship with the bank that hires the staffing service to fill temp orders for the bank. But, if Banking Staffing Service does not have the same excellent working relationship with its temps, it cannot be successful, because it will not have a product (temps) to sell the bank. Banking Staffing Service must be friendly and cooperative with the temporary employees in order to find people to send to the bank. Make sure you select a staffing service that values and treats temps with respect.
What kind of reputation does the staffing service have? Do you have any friends who have temped? If so, what staffing services did they like to work for? Many staffing services give a referral bonus to temps for recruiting other temps. Find out what staffing services your friends like to temp for and why.
Choose only a staffing service that is employer-paid. You never want to work for a staffing service where it will cost you money to find a job. There are too many staffing services that will not charge you looking for temps for you to need to work with the others.
What Happens If You Pick the Wrong Staffing Service?
Beth had a very bad experience with brand z service. She went to work for that staffing service and was punctual in reporting for work. She also turned in her hours when she was supposed to. But, when Beth went to pick up her paycheck, it was not there.
What Beth did not know was that Brand Z Service had a terrible reputation for dealing with its temporary employees. Brand Z would be very nice to the businesses it sent temps to but treated the temps like they were just a number, not a valuable part of the business. Beth did not receive a paycheck because Brand Z did not take the time to write her a check, nor did the company care that she had financial obligations to meet. When Brand Z finally did give Beth her pay-check, it bounced! Brand Z was having financial problems and had a notorious reputation in the community for financial instability.
What Happens When You Investigate and Select the Right Staffing Service?
Be like tom instead. When tom decided to become a temp, he called his local chamber of commerce and got a list of staffing services from them. He then reviewed the Internet, the yellow pages, and the newspapers for advertising. He saw a few ads that attracted his interest in the jobs they were recruiting for.
He then called three staffing services and asked questions about their ads. Two services even said they could pay him what he was asking for if he tested to meet their qualifications.
Tom is now temping through two services. One keeps him busy most of the time and the other still calls him to offer him jobs. He has no problem getting paid on time and has been placed at reputable companies. One of the services is a locally owned independent service and the other is a national service.
The locally owned service works Tom the most as a customer service representative at banks from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Friday. The national service keeps Tom busy when he wants to work evenings and weekends supervising the market polling that the national service has a contract for.
