The application itself can be lengthy (up to 10 pages) even if a staffing service already has your resume. Again, this is to comply with government regulations. The application can include extensive sections on your education, work history, the types of skills you have, and the scores for any tests you might take, as well as an analysis of your appearance and personality and a place for references. This chapter addresses the application by section, much like many employment service applications are divided by section.
The application will include spaces for your name, address, Social Security number, phone number, and who is to be contacted in case of emergency. The rest is pretty standard and is likely to include the following:
Education
There will be a section for your education that includes high school, technical, college, or any advanced degrees you have. Be accurate on your education, because more and more correspondence is sent and phone calls are made by prospective employers, including services, to verify that what you have listed for your education is true.
Tim listed on his application that he had a B.S. from the University of California. The service he applied with did a background check on Tim's education and found he was eight hours short of a degree. As a result, Tim was fired from the staffing service for falsifying his records.
Work History
Staffing services want to know the type of job experience anyone wanting to temp has had, so they can better match the current skills of the temp to the job market. Services may ask you to list your employment history for many years or just through the past couple of years. Every staffing service is different.
What staffing services may ask you in the work history section of the application is where you worked, when you worked there, what your title was, what your job responsibilities were, who your supervisor was, the reason you left that job, and what the phone number is there. The reasons for these questions are to match you to the most appropriate temp job and to be able to have a reference to check.
Amy had been a paralegal for a law firm in Chicago. When she went to register for temp work she listed the years she had worked there (1988 1996), her title as a paralegal, what her responsibilities were, her reason for leaving or layoff, her supervisor's name, and his phone number.
The service where she registered asked that temps complete their work history for as long as they had been in the workforce. Amy had been working for almost 20 years, so she continued listing her work history. Her most recent job had been with the law firm. Before that she had worked as a researcher for a national information technology company for eight years on a part time basis. She could not remember her supervisor's name, so she gave the service the name of the personnel officer. She then gave the name of another company where she had worked years previously.
The service could tell that Amy had office experience from the law firm and some research experience before that. The main thing to remember when completing the work history section is to be as accurate as possible. Services are interested in what you have done, and you also want to make sure you tell the truth about yourself. The reason for that is the staffing services may use your work history as part of checking your references.
Some staffing services will take resumes as a summary of a temp's work history. Other services will ask anyone completing an application to complete the work history section of the application and will file a resume with it.
References
One of the reasons businesses use staffing services is to have qualified people working in their offices. Staffing services have become more aggressive in checking out people's background because many businesses do not want to take the time to check references on their staff, so they rely on the staffing service to do so. That is why some staffing services will pay an outside source to check out a prospective temp and will ask that the check include criminal, education, and reference checks. Other services will conduct their own reference checks, usually calling those listed as references on a prospective temp's application or by contacting the references listed on resumes submitted by the professional technical temp.
The service where Amy applied called her supervising attorney at the law firm to get a reference on Amy. Many businesses will only verify dates of employment of its former employees. Some will say whether an employee is eligible for rehire and what type of employee that person was when he or she worked there.
Some staffing services may ask temps to complete a written request for a reference check, and the service will mail that form with the former employee's signature on it to the former employer asking for a reference. Other services do all of their reference checks by phone. Be prepared to give references when you apply to a staffing service. If you have any written letters of recommendation, take copies with you to leave with the staffing service.
When the staffing service called the supervising attorney about Amy, he told them it was the policy of the law firm to only give out the dates of employment of its former employees on the phone. He said Amy worked for them from 1988 to 1996. He did say he would comply with a written request for a reference from the service if they mailed it to him.
Amy had also obtained the permission of her adviser and a former teacher to use them as references, and listed them on her application. If you have limited work history, ask someone you know to be a personal reference. People at schools and organizations where you may have done volunteer work are good choices.
Sarah, on the other hand, did not tell the truth on her application and got caught. She listed that she worked for a major telecommunications company in San Francisco from 1991 to 1996 as a technical writer. When the staffing service called to check her work history, it was told the company could only give out dates of employment. The company said Sarah worked from 1992 to 1995. When the staffing service called Sarah to check on the dates, she admitted she had wanted to look like she had more experience than she really did have, since the job she wanted listed five years' experience as a requirement. The staffing service would not offer Sarah a job because she lied about her dates of employment and falsified her application.
