Professional temps will be called consultants in the near future. The image of the industry has changed, and some staffing services call temps consultants to reflect the respect that the corporate world now has for people who are a part of what has been called temporary employment.
The professional temp or consultant will go to staffing services that have something to offer. What will services offer? An attractive business mix.
Many companies have a list of vendors with whom they do business. Many are companies that are global and do business worldwide. They want to use staffing services that can send employees to their offices all over the world. So if your goal is to work for an international company or you want to travel, you need to select a staffing service that is global.
Search the Internet. The Web sites will tell you where the offices are for various staffing services. The offices will change daily with many of the services. A service that is in only a few states today may be as big as Adecco, Kelly, or Manpower through consolidations, mergers, and acquisitions in the near future.
The more professional technical temps a staffing service has working, the more jobs it will have to offer future temps. The more jobs a service has, the more temps it can attract. Therefore, services that have the most jobs will attract the most temps.
Services will become more and more competitive with benefits and training. The professional who decides to make temping a full time career will look for a staffing service that offers training. This is especially true for those who work in any area of information technology. And, almost every aspect of professional technical temping involves working with computers. Engineers, CADs, accountants, and even healthcare and research professionals all interact with computers. If someone is going to make a living as a full time temp or consultant, that individual will look for a service that will help find state of the art training.
The advantages of working with a large service are the opportunities for networking and the resources of a big company. These resources should include customizing the needs of the consultant and client, better pay, more benefits, global travel or work, and state of the art training. If a service is smart, it will train the staff so that you, the temp, feel important and special every time you talk or interact with them. The service should develop a customized plan to meet your needs and at the same time customize a service delivery plan for the business it sends you to work for.
The disadvantages of working for a big service are the advantages of working for a small service. You may get more individual attention with a smaller service. But, you may feel like a big fish in a small pond. You need to be with a company that meets your needs. If you "think outside of the box," find a service that operates the same way. In other words, if you are open to working other than a 40 hour week, five days a week, between the hours of 8 A.M. and 5 P.M., look for a service that will match your needs.
A service that is proactive and plans ahead will be looking for ways to make sure its temps have the skills a client is looking for. You will know you have found the right service when you ask yourself, "Do I matter?" and the answer the service gives you is "Yes, you do and here are ways we can show you matter. We will offer you good pay, benefits, and training."
What skills will services be competitively recruiting for in the near future? Information technology skills will be in demand any thing that is a keyword driven skill, from help desks to consulting that can pay from $30 to $250 an hour. Do you have a speciality in the information technology business? What have you fixed or accomplished? Get a list of information technology skills and research. The skills change daily.
Legal, accounting, and other skills that are technical in the fields of engineering, healthcare, and research will be needed. People who can work on projects will be in demand. Some generalists such as top management and CEOs may not find themselves working for staffing services but may instead be a part of the type of project work that companies like Arthur Andersen do; that is, where a company wants a solution to a problem and brings in a team of experts to offer suggestions on how to reorganize and to recommend who gets downsized or fired. Those people will come in, do their job, then go away. It remains to be seen whether the staffing industry will provide people to do these types of projects.
