After you have gotten through the first impression stage of your interview, concentrate on matching your skills to the jobs you will enjoy and in which you will make the most money. The person who interviews you may be the person who places you on the job or may introduce or refer you to the person in the service who does that.
What the interviewer will do is review your application. You will be asked about your job history. Be prepared to say what you liked and disliked about previous jobs. For example, if you like working in a fast-paced environment, tell the interviewer that. If you hate answering phones, share that also. If you like figuring out how to use various computer programs, say so. What you do not want to happen is to be placed in an environment where you cannot be productive. The interview should be the place to address your preferences.
The interview should cover areas like how proficient you are with computers and whether you have any accounting or bookkeeping skills. Every temporary job is different, and it is the duty of the interviewer to determine where you fit in.
Other Suggestions for Interviewing
The book power interviews: job-winning tactics from fortune 500 Recruiters, by Neil Yeager and Lee Hough, published by John Wiley & Sons, revised and expanded in 1998, offers the following suggestions.
Practice interviewing in the car, in front of the mirror, and with friends. Learn as much as you can about the employer you will be working for (in this case the staffing service, and later the company where the staffing service places you).There are practical questions you can use in any interview, such as asking why the job is available. Is it a new position created by growth, or is it available because someone was promoted or terminated? Was the temp in the job before you hired by the company, or did the temp quit the assignment because of working conditions?
There are two commonly asked questions that come up in most interviews, and Yeager and Hough offer answers to both. The first is, "Why do you feel you can be successful in this position?" The winner answer is, "Given my history, this is the perfect position at this point in my career. I have been studying this field and watching your organization for several years in anticipation of such an opportunity. I have the requisite skills [tell a brief story to prove it]. I am in a perfect position to take this job and really run with it."
The other frequently asked question is, "What are your greatest strength and weakness, and how will these affect your performance here?" The winner answer from Yeager and Hough is, "In terms of strengths, I believe my greatest asset is that I have a highly organized mind, capable of creating order out of confusion. My greatest weakness perhaps is that I have little patience for people who don't value the same sense of order that I do. I believe my organizational skills can help this organization achieve its goals more quickly, and that my appreciation for streamlining complex problems can sometimes rub off on my coworkers."
The bottom line is that a staffing service is trying to find out how you can make them money. The staffing service has already sold a business on how that business will make money by using the staffing service; now it is up to you to sell yourself as the right person for the job, whether it be a short-term temp job, a temp-to-hire job, or a long-term working relationship with a staffing service.
Yeager and Hough suggest keeping in mind the popular term "value added," which means everyone in a company will be able to "demonstrate in very specific terms the impact of his or her contribution to the strength and prosperity of the organization." Or, "that each player makes a clear measurable contribution" at one's place of work. In your answers in the interview process, keep thinking of what you bring to the table, what you add to the company, and what skills you offer.
It is not always skills that will cause a staffing service to select you. In fact, Paul Sharps of Global Dynamics, an information technology staffing service in California, says attitude and aptitude go hand in hand. A willingness to learn and the right attitude are often the deciding factors when a service selects a candidate for the job. That does not mean you should have a phony personality, but you should make the effort to be polite and get along with someone. Take the story of what happened to Fran and Bea.
Fran and Bea were both candidates for a job through an information technology staffing service. Both of them contacted the service through the Internet, and both had great resumes. The recruiter from the staffing service set up a time via e-mail to do a phone interview with each of them to see who would be the better candidate for a 12-month assignment that paid $I22,000.
When the recruiter from the service spoke with Fran, she was very abrupt. As the recruiter tried to verify Fran's skills and the type of salary she needed, Fran answered the questions in a condescending and sarcastic manner. There was no need for her to be rude to the recruiter. The recruiter was just doing a job, but Fran acted superior to the recruiter, who she believed was stupid and unimportant.
What Fran did not know was the recruiter was very important, because the recruiter was the first person in the staffing service structure who needed to be convinced the applicant would make a good information technology temp for the service. Then the recruiter would need to sell or convince the supervisor or account manager, who would screen the temp again before setting her up for a job with a client.
When the same recruiter called Bea, the recruiter could tell she was nervous, because she spoke rapidly. Bea even admitted she was nervous, but she also said she really wanted the job and asked the recruiter what advice the recruiter had for her. The recruiter told Bea to relax and take a deep breath and be herself.
When the recruiter met with the account manager to discuss hiring Fran or Bea, the recruiter said Fran had more programs and skills listed that would qualify her for the job, but the recruiter also hesitated when recommending Fran. The account manager asked why there was hesitation, and the recruiter said the service would probably have to spend a lot of time coaching Fran on her people skills in order to work with the client. The recruiter went on to say Bea had fewer programming skills but a better attitude. As a result, the account manager for the staffing service chose Bea as the candidate to be presented to the client, because people skills were a deciding factor when sending temps to this particular client. As a result, because Bea took the time to be polite, she received a better-paying job than Fran simply because the staffing service people liked her better.
The moral of this story is, manners count. Fran could have been insecure or just having a bad day. Some people who find themselves entering the world of temporary employment do not have good self-esteem. They may view themselves as failures when they are not. If they view themselves as failures, they may have a tendency to be hateful to others who are trying to help them. If you are having one of those hours or one of those days, watch the tone of your voice and the way you communicate with others. Being nice is never the wrong thing to do when talking with a staffing service.
