Staffing Agencies

[Anxiety94]

Hi. I am looking for the best way to find a job. Now, my best friends brother went through a staffing agency and in less then a week they got him on an awesome job. And I have known a lot of people who have had great experiences with a staffing agency finding them good jobs pretty quickly. I have an appointment tomorrow at one, but I was really curious about others experience with a staffing agency. Did they find you a good job relatively fast? What kind of job did they help you find? And so on. Just what was your experience with them?

 

[Tiffins]

I haven't gone through a staffing agency but it is a busy season in our company right now so we've brought on about 15-20 temps from the staffing agencies. Everyone I've spoken with loves the agencies. You work either till your time frame is up or if the company likes your work, they may keep you. We are keeping one of our temps because she is a very hard worker and is reliable. So far though, everyone I've spoken with likes it. It's a change in environment and they get experience in companies and positions that they wouldn't always get the chance in had they applied on their own.

 

[Anxiety94]

Do they ever give permanent jobs?

 

[Tiffins]

It depends on where you go. If the company wants to keep you then they may bring you on permanently.

 

[G4JC]

I am currently looking for work as well, I haven't tried staffing agencies - but I can give you a tip. Forget online job apps. You NEVER get call backs, and you get a bunch of spam instead.

Considering online job apps such as Kronos actually go as far as discriminating people doesn't help either.
More on that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_Incorporated#Litigation_with_EEOC

So, I started seeking out companies that still have paper job applications, two interviews already. Much better than zero call backs or interviews and a bunch of spam by discriminating computer job app trolls.

 

[posthuman]

i went through a staffing agency a couple of times, and got seasonal and temporary work there OK but never anything full time.
for another job years later i had to have a background check done, and only through that process found out that the staffing agency had given my SSN to illegal immigrants so they could put them to work.
so i would never use "@work" again, if that place is still in business, and i'm leery about staffing agencies in general now. *shrug* maybe just isolated incident..
i know that a lot of factories hire through temp agencies and then hire permanent people from the temps. it lets them train people and pick out the ones that are best for the job while paying less than regular salary to people that they don't want to keep.

i've had good and bad luck with online applications.. mostly no luck. you have to either be an exact match to what they want or have a really shiny resume for that to work i think, but for some other entry-level jobs with a high turnover it does get you an interview. you could get the same thing usually for that kind of job by just walking in and asking for an application, because they're always hiring.

of course there is no replacement for going to the place you'd like to work personally and trying to at least hand an application to someone in charge instead of 'whoever is at the desk' and having a reference that already works there seems lame but does better the odds. makes you more than just one more piece of paper in the stack.

indeed.com is i think one of the best job search engines, and local newspapers may carry ads that aren't listed anywhere else. i don't like monster or careerbuilder or most of the others.

really though, that's just reporting the news. to be honest every job i've had has come to me one way or the other by God's favor. seriously, praying that He puts you in the right place where He wants you, to use you in the job to do what He wants to do with you is a very good idea. be diligent and trust Him to take care of what is out of your control

 

[posthuman]

So far though, everyone I've spoken with likes it. It's a change in environment and they get experience in companies and positions that they wouldn't always get the chance in had they applied on their own.

yeah i like to do different things at work. i actually like repetitive tasks but i enjoy changing scenery or task pretty often too. i could have gone on full time with some jobs i got through a staffing service but i just didn't want to, or couldn't because of the travel. i did do some interesting things through temporary services that i never would have even thought was a real job ;D it's like spinning the wheel of jobs haha

it's good for someone looking for work that doesn't want a certain job in particular, and it's good for some companies, because they don't have to pay their own human resources people to interview people and they get to pay less than regular salary to train and weed out the best matches for permanent work.

for some things like if you have a major sports arena near you, it might be the only way to get temporary work as event staff, and sometimes you also get offered work nobody wants to apply for!

 

[Casper72]

Staffing agencies are different everywhere adn they are just like regular businesses where as some are good and some are not quite as good. The main thing about online apps that you must remember is that so many sites are set up promoting companies and it is not the actual company. and that is where all the spam and such comes in. I do not know what kind of a job you are looking for. I apologize if I did miss you saying so. But places like Kroger have went to online apps. But it is through their own site. If you are applying to a big company go to their actual site and work through the career link. If the place is an online company and they pick people from all over then you have to realize that they are probably getting hundreds if not more apps all the time. I applied to a place to see if I could do the work cause at present I have some issues. Within one week got an email to proceed to the next level and take some online tests for them. I was reading reviews of the place yesterday and one person said it took four months for them to contact them back after initial application. So every place is different. My advice is watch where you are applying through. Back to temp services. I have never used one but had many friends use them and liked them for the most part as they needed the money and the temp place got them jobs to work through those times. I was going to work for a factory place here but at times they worked through a temp servie and I had a friends dad that worked there and he said in no uncertain terms to not go through the temp place. He said no matter if you are good or bad worker, after 30 days you were gone cuz management did not want to take the time to interview people. But when they allowed their own hr to hire people were kept if they were good. So all places have pros and cons. Online is not all bad just watch whee you are applying and do it through their website.

 

[Tiffins]

One quick thing to consider. I keep hearing people talking about spam. Yes you may run in to spam but make sure you read it though. Often times When I have a position open in an area, I'll pull all the applications in that zip code and blast e-mails for responses to set up interviews. Many times those can come across as spam. Now looking at my old "spam" messages that I used to automatically trash, I realize I threw away many opportunities as well not realizing a person was behind their computer awaiting my response.