Pittsburgh & Temp Agencies...? (Paint: sales, insurance, lawyer)

[Tiger Beer]

Anyone in the 'Burgh use the Temp Agencies for jobs? Which ones have you used?

I have word processing, spreadsheets, and powerpoint skills...and they seem to serve me well, and been able to use those skills to get jobs through the temp agencies before.

I'm curious if others do that as well, and their experiences with placement for the short term or temp-to-hire situations in Pittsburgh...what kind of pay did they offer? Experiences with them, etc.?

[Hopes]

You can get temp-to-perm jobs through temp agencies, but make sure you also contact the permanent placement agencies too.

As for temp agencies, Pancoast pays the best because it's a local company.

The national companies are restricted to corporate pay structures that don't fall in line with what Pittsburghers earn.

[Internet Superman]

As a rule of thumb, unless I am desperate and down to my last dollar, there is no way in hell that I will work for a temporary agency.

If you think about it, the company is willing to pay $3 - $6 more a hour, not to hire you then to hire you and give you benefits and a liveable wage.

A temporary agency is ok for someone that doesn't want to be physically employed by a company. Brown nosers who already have a job and would like to see the company make as much as possible in profits to line their own pockets will tell you how great a temporary agency really is.

My brother brags all the time how Siemens and ABB hires through a temporary agency. They get to hire you, train you and work you for 6 months. All that time you are not physically employed by the company. In that 6 months they get to see what kind of worker you are and how you are going to work out. At the end of that six months, they can either hire you, let you go or put you back on probation for another 3 to 6 months while they decide if they want to hire you or not.

If it is a physically demanding job and you get hurt, which the temporary agency doesn't care if you live or die, as long as you go to work everyday, they get a pay check just for you showing up, and the employer doesn't physically employ you - then if you get hurt no one has to pay.

The workmens comp insurance is usually so sketchy that by the time you get around to getting someone to pay for your injury, the temporary agency has gone out of business and will reopen the next day with a new name and a new workmens comp insurance policy.

It's a win win situation for the employer. They give the employee a opportunity to prove themselves and at the same time they do not have to physically hire that person. The employer can work you like a rented mule and when he is done, he can laugh all the way to the bank and no one cares because you were the one that was stupid enough to work for them.

My opinion is that if the government made it legal to shoot and kill someone that the temporary agencys and the employers that used temporary agencys would be the first ones to get killed.

How can a man make a liveable wage when the employer is not forced to hire you and is not forced to give you any medical benefits and the temporary agency is more then willing to hire you and will offer you a policy for say half your wages per a month.

Even if the employer does hire you, if you had 6 months where you had to work for the temporary agency and then another 3 months of probation before the employer put you on the payroll perminently, you just worked 9 months with no benefits and with no time accumulated towards your vacation or retirement.

In that 9 months, the employer actually hopes that you will quit or get fired so they can hire another sucker and not pay them anything and get extra work out of that person and keep the cycle going so they can maximize profits while minimizing costs.

The less money a company pays out in benefits, the more money there will be in the profit sharing for you and your co workers to divy up.

Paint as pretty a picture as you want to about how nice it is that you can work for a temporary agency, in my opinion - when you are a man and you have to provide for yourself and your family, how is a man supposted to do it when all he can find is a $9 or $10 a hour job in Pittsburgh?

[Hopes]

Let Internet Superman's negativity speak for itself, Tiger Beer.

Many people are hired as a permanent employees through temp-to-perm jobs.

It's a great foot in the door for many people.

People who aren't hired might blame the company before they'd admit to themselves that they are less than stellar prospective employees.

The temp pay scale for your skills is between $10 to $20 per hour with the average being in the midde. (National chains pay towards the lower end.)

I would definitely call agencies to determine the best time to move. From talking with sales reps visiting my office, I know business is slow right now for the agencies.

[Internet Superman]

Sounds like Hopes is in the benefit end of the temporary agency hiring policy of big business today.

Anytime Hopes would like to come to my house and scrub my ****ter for $9 a hour and no benefits, she is more then welcome.

Take it from a man that has had 65 employers in his life. If they are not willing to openly hire you when you walk in the door, walk out of the door.

My brother Steve says all the time, we love hiring people through a temp agency. That way we get to try them out, at the end of 6 months we have the option of hiring them, letting them go or giving them another 3 to 6 months before we decide if we want to hire them or not.

Now you tell me - how can a man make a liveable wage when the temp agency is making the money for doing nothing - while you are the person that is physically doing the work and not making a liveable wage.

If you can show me a temp agency that is paying more then $11 in Pittsburgh right now today for a entry level temp job I will buy you dinner at The Olive Garden!

I can name the temp agencys off the top of my head.

Isn't it ironic that one of the temp agencys is named Topps.

I drove the whole way to Pittsburgh once to take their aptitude test. Let me put it to you like this, I graduated from high school in 1982 and I went to IUP for two years in 1988 - 89, I also attended a technical school for 9 months. So I have many talents and a education. I have 8 years of heavy construction experience and I have warehousing experience and I have a degree in Machining technologys - no CNC experience.

I was told to my face that unless I was willing to work permenent night shift, 3rd shift and all weekends that they could not get me a position with any of the companies that they represent. When I told them that I had a 6 year old daughter at home and I spent $20,000 on a lawyer to get custody every other weekend and every other holiday and that I was not willing to give up my visitation - just to make $9 a hour, they threw my application in the garbage - right there in front of my face. 145 miles traveled to go to the interview for nothing!

Nobody in Pittsburgh is willing to pay anything right now unless you have some sort of engineering degree or some sort of technicial degree where you can just walk in the door and start working with no limitations.

Most employers will only hire new hires if they have 3 or more years of experience. The only question is - how do you get 3 years of experience when no one will hire you until you have 3 years of experience?

Either you join the military or you accept less then a liveable wage or do some type of apprenticeship program while you are still in school and a position is offered to you once you graduate.

[creepsinc]

Originally Posted by Internet Superman

Sounds like Hopes is in the benefit end of the temporary agency hiring policy of big business today.

Anytime Hopes would like to come to my house and scrub my ****ter for $9 a hour and no benefits, she is more then welcome.

Take it from a man that has had 65 employers in his life. If they are not willing to openly hire you when you walk in the door, walk out of the door.

My brother Steve says all the time, we love hiring people through a temp agency. That way we get to try them out, at the end of 6 months we have the option of hiring them, letting them go or giving them another 3 to 6 months before we decide if we want to hire them or not.

Now you tell me - how can a man make a liveable wage when the temp agency is making the money for doing nothing - while you are the person that is physically doing the work and not making a liveable wage.

If you can show me a temp agency that is paying more then $11 in Pittsburgh right now today for a entry level temp job I will buy you dinner at The Olive Garden!

I can name the temp agencys off the top of my head.

Isn't it ironic that one of the temp agencys is named Topps.

I drove the whole way to Pittsburgh once to take their aptitude test. Let me put it to you like this, I graduated from high school in 1982 and I went to IUP for two years in 1988 - 89, I also attended a technical school for 9 months. So I have many talents and a education. I have 8 years of heavy construction experience and I have warehousing experience and I have a degree in Machining technologys - no CNC experience.

I was told to my face that unless I was willing to work permenent night shift, 3rd shift and all weekends that they could not get me a position with any of the companies that they represent. When I told them that I had a 6 year old daughter at home and I spent $20,000 on a lawyer to get custody every other weekend and every other holiday and that I was not willing to give up my visitation - just to make $9 a hour, they threw my application in the garbage - right there in front of my face. 145 miles traveled to go to the interview for nothing!

Nobody in Pittsburgh is willing to pay anything right now unless you have some sort of engineering degree or some sort of technicial degree where you can just walk in the door and start working with no limitations.

Most employers will only hire new hires if they have 3 or more years of experience. The only question is - how do you get 3 years of experience when no one will hire you until you have 3 years of experience?

Either you join the military or you accept less then a liveable wage or do some type of apprenticeship program while you are still in school and a position is offered to you once you graduate.

So, a temp agency decided (through testing) that you were inept for anything but light industrial, so therefore they're no good for anybody?

To the OP: Go with Office Team. I tried Adecco when I first got here, and they couldn't find me anything that lasted more than a couple weeks. I tried Office Team and they found me an assignment the next day in the medical (mental health) field, making decent money. It was supposed to be for two months. I've been here 2 years now, the last year of it as a permanent employee with the best benefits I've ever had.

[Tiger Beer]

I've went through tons of temp agencies in other cities, and have a strong preference for starting out somewhere with them. They really put you into the companies and you can begin networking, figuring things out, etc.

By the way, what kind of pay/hour have most of you usually gotten when you went through them? Speaking of word processing, spreadsheets, and powerpoint types of placements?

[Yac]

Calm down and discuss the topic, not each other.
Yac.

[groar]

i got my current job through a temp agency (i've been here almost 4 years). unfortunately the agency was sold and i'm not sure how they are anymore (or even what their name is now), but i was really happy with them. they deal mostly with nonprofits, and i worked one assignment for a month where they said they'd hire me if they hadn't just hired someone, and then got hired from my next assignment. i am a smart and skilled person but before this job i lived a pretty footloose life and didn't have a very impressive resume - temping allowed me to show employers what i can do where my resume probably wouldn't have gotten me an interview. yeah, it's a bummer that it took me 6 extra months for my company match to become vested in my 401k, during a time when the future of the organization and my job was in question, but it still would have been worth it to have this job with excellent pay and benefits, valuable and varied experience, and a nice working environment. and in any case i'm vested now.

i do agree that temping is sort of a bum deal, when a temp agency takes 1/3 or so of your pay for practically nothing, but in a tight job market where you need degrees and/or experience to get any decent job, it can be a valuable foot in the door.

in hindsight i really wish i'd started temping sooner after moving to pittsburgh instead of working a bunch of dead-end jobs. i temped a lot in nyc but i was intimidated by pittsburgh's public transportation system, or relative lack thereof. i didn't feel like i could easily get around to unfamiliar places on short notice without a car.

anyway, i've heard good things about pancoast and pitt's temp agency - i think they're called all-temps. but i don't have experience with either of them.

[MissShona]

Originally Posted by Internet Superman

If you can show me a temp agency that is paying more then $11 in Pittsburgh right now today for a entry level temp job I will buy you dinner at The Olive Garden!

I can name the temp agencys off the top of my head.

I worked as a temp for AllStaff in Wexford and made $14.50/hr.

I don't like Olive Garden though!