Every person is different. You need to select a staffing service or several services that work well for you. You may rarely talk to your service or you may have contact with them every week. A staffing service that meets your needs now may not be in the position to meet your needs next year. This means a service may pay you well, offer you great benefits today, and keep you challenged with great jobs. But next year that staffing service may lose some major contracts with clients they service and may then not have as many jobs to offer you.
Services can be either locally owned or part of a national or international chain. Examples of international services are Manpower and Adecco (formerly Adia), operating both in the United States and overseas. The big staffing services may have contracted with international corporations because big companies with offices in many cities often choose a vendor, in this case a staffing service that has lots of locations in multiple cities. Examples of these services are Kelly Services, Manpower, and Olsten. All of the major staffing services are listed in the Appendix to this book.
Large staffing services offer advantages to temps who need to move. You can fill out an application with a national staffing service and it can transfer your temp records by computer from city to city. Your records will include your area of expertise, the type of jobs you like, and what you need to be paid.
Some big companies may have contracts with national staffing services. This means these companies have an agreement to use the same national service in all their offices throughout the country. Even though a corporation has an agreement with a national service, it does not mean the corporation will use the same service from city to city. In other words, there are exceptions to every rule. Many corporations will allow a local office to use a staffing service other than the service the corporation has a contract with.
Services that are locally owned are independent and not part of a chain. The temporary industry has grown so fast that many people have started small temp services to meet the growing need for temps. As a result, there are many cities that have excellent locally owned temporary services. Both large and small technical staffing services offer Internet services that will allow you to sign up online or submit your resume by e mail.
If a locally owned service has the best reputation in your community, that is the service you should pick. You may get more individualized attention by working with a locally owned service.
Many large international companies may choose a few small technical staffing services to find technical and professional temps or consultants to work on projects at these large companies. This means some small information technology staffing firms, engineering services, or accounting specialists may spend all their time recruiting temps for a few major clients. A large company may find it receives better service from a small technical staffing service as opposed to locking in to a national staffing service.
For example, International Q Company selected Small Staffing Specialists to fill its information technology temp and full time jobs because Small Staffing is located in the Silicon Valley area of California and has access to many people who stay up to date on the latest information technology. If Small Staffing cannot fill the jobs, it sources another staffing service to be a backup. When the other staffing service finds a qualified person, it works through Small Staffing, which "tiers" or handles all of the staffing needs for International Q Company. Any service that sends people who are information technology temps to International Q sends them through Small Staffing, which in turn keeps all of the paperwork and controls the invoices for the information technology temps working at International Q. International Q likes this arrangement because the tier staffing cuts down on its paperwork, and Small Staffing likes it because the service can control the work of the information technology temps even if Small Staffing does not find and recruit all of the information technology temps who work at International Q.
You can expect to see more of this working together or tier arrangement by several staffing services to take care of a big client. This is because there are some skills that are in great demand and often just one staffing service cannot find enough people who have these skills. Therefore, several services will work together to find the skilled workers. This should be a win win for the professional technical temp who has the skills that are in demand.
How flexible are you regarding travel and relocation? Do you want to stay in your community and commute for the day and come home at night? If so, some of the staffing services located in your hometown may offer jobs that fit this lifestyle. Do not overlook both the independent or locally owned and the big international staffing services where you live. There is no consistency from city to city about what staffing service fills what orders. Just because a staffing service fills a job for a company in Milwaukee does not mean the same staffing service fills the same kind of jobs for the same company in San Diego.
Do your investigative work when choosing a staffing service. Again, check reputation and make sure the service always pays its temps on time.
