Working as a temp in order to find a permanent full time professional career used to be frowned upon by the staffing services, but then they got smart and started negotiating a signed agreement with the employer so as to receive a fee when a temp professional was hired as a regular employee. Consequently, temps no longer have to subvert their present employer or engage in subterfuge when seeking to transfer from temp work to permanent work. As personnel expert Carol Kleiman of the Chicago Tribune wrote March 16, 1997, "Today, the transition from 'temp to hire' is out in the open with full approval from all involved. What's more, some employers are hiring staff on a temporary basis as a means of evaluating them for full time jobs."
In a recent study of over 150 human resource and personnel managers at the nation's top 1000 companies, OfficeTeam, a national staffing service, reported that companies used the temp to hire procedure about 23% of the time. The study found that employers actually offered permanent jobs to temps almost 40% of the time but many of the temps declined, so as to reduce the temp to hire average to 23%. Another recent study by Manpower, Inc., a staffing service that employs 750,000 persons, found that over 40% of Manpower's temps have become employed permanently by the client companies.
Many of you are working temp to find a permanent job. There are ways to use temp work to your advantage and network your way to the job you want.
Work a Variety of Temp Jobs
If you do not know what you want to do when you grow up (and who does?) you should work a variety of temp jobs and see what you like the most. One week you might work in a publishing house, the next week in a bank, and the following week in a law firm or medical practice.
There is no teacher like experience to show you what the real world is like. Many people have preconceived ideas about what a certain job will be like only to be disappointed when they actually get the job. If you temp in a position you might be interested in, you do not have the commitment you would have if you had accepted the job as a permanent position. You can simply ask the staffing service to change your assignment and keep changing the assignment until the service matches you with a job you like.
Choose the Staffing Service That Can Maximize Your Opportunities!
You should be working with a staffing service that has a good reputation and has successfully placed temps in the kind of job you want. For example, if you want an accounting job, make sure you are working with a staffing service that has lots of job orders for temps in accounting and has successfully placed people in temp to permanent jobs.
Debbie had completed three years at Vanderbilt University and was working toward a degree in accounting. She decided to spend the summer before her senior year of college working as a temp on accounting jobs. She signed up with a staffing service and was placed on two accounting jobs that summer. Each job lasted approximately six weeks, and Debbie was able to use many of the skills she had been taught in school and also used her accounting computer skills.
The first job was in a big corporate accounting firm. The work was very structured and left little room for individual contribution. Debbie felt very stifled there. The second job was a better match for Debbie. She worked for a small company that sold equipment to factories. The company was starting to grow but was still small enough for the employees to pay attention to each other.
Debbie decided when she graduated from college to ask the staffing service to place her in another company similar to her second job. Debbie also asked the equipment company to keep her resume on file for any permanent opening it might have. Debbie called the equipment company all through her last year of college and the company offered her a full time job after her college graduation.
Make Your Staffing Service Your Cheerleader!
The point of peter's story is that as a professional technical temp, you may have to sell yourself to the staffing service that can help you land the full time job you want. That means you need to make a good friend of the representative from the staffing service who can help you the most.
Find out which supervisor handles the company where you want to work. Ask to meet that supervisor in person. If you cannot meet that person, at least get an appointment on the phone with him or her. That supervisor is the one who will determine whether you get a chance for a full time job in the company where you want to work. Send a thank you note for speaking with you. Find out what day the supervisor's birthday is and sent a card or call. Ask about hobbies and family. Let the supervisor know you care about him or her as a person.
Remember, many staffing services demand a lot from their employees, which means the employees are constantly trying to balance recruiting temps, paying temps, and selling their services to businesses. Anything you can do to distinguish yourself in a positive way from other temps will be a plus for you. Your supervisor will work harder to find you the right job, and may also tell other people in the staffing service to help you. It can make all the difference in the world for you whether you get a mediocre temp job or one that will let your talents shine.
Write the president or owner of the staffing service and compliment the person who has been helpful to you. People appreciate compliments in writing. Many times these compliments are filed in the personnel file of the person you are writing about and are used as reasons to give people a raise. People at staffing services who are popular with the temporaries they manage should be paid a financial reward and you, the temp, can help make that happen.
As a result, you should be treated well and be given good temp jobs.
Send the person who sends you on temp jobs a thank you note. Your thoughtfulness will be appreciated and you will be remembered when the next really good temp to perm job comes along.
