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Old 05-07-2018, 04:06 PM
 
7 posts, read 13,577 times
Reputation: 21

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Another job I had - I was hired by Kelly Services to work in a "Customer Service" role, and told to show up at an address on Monday morning. I got there and there were 15 other people who were all starting the same day. We soon found out that it was a call center and that the pay was lower than what we had been originally told. We were told that not everyone there would last, as it was an ongoing interview process and at the end of every week, people who didn't measure up would be let go. We were also told by the call center staff that we wouldn't be paid for 4 weeks. Many people just walked off the job right then and there. Several people were very angry and upset and we called the Kelly Services headquarters and complained. A week later I got an email response just saying that there had been a "miscommunication".
The recruiter who placed me in that job barely spoke English, and was from some other country.
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Old 05-07-2018, 04:17 PM
 
7 posts, read 13,577 times
Reputation: 21
Temp agencies post ads like "Recent Grads!! Start your career with us!!!!" and that kind of thing. They'll tell you "This is a great way to gain experience and try out different companies!!"

It's actually not a great way to gain experience, working for a company, because as a temp, people don't treat you like you're a real employee. As a temp, I've been excluded from company meetings, and generally just treated like an outsider. You don't have a say if something bothers you, because you can easily be replaced. You can't go to HR for any reason.

Actually WORKING for a company is a good way to gain experience. Not going to a temp agency. A temp agency is like a pimp, they just use you and make you do all the work and then they take a big cut of your earnings. And they don't do anything.
Plus your health benefits are either non-existant, or they don't kick in for 90 days. In a REAL job, you get health benefits almost right away.

I think my career has been ruined by working for temp agencies. I don't care what these 2 posters on here are saying about how they helped them. I haven't known anybody in real life who has had a positive experience with a temp agency or a staffing agency. I have friends who also wasted their time interviewing with these people only for them to never contact them again.

I have been on dozens of interviews with these agencies and they are almost always staffed by rude, obnoxious, or else totally naive 20 year olds who have no real world work experience.

I have been told by them that they need me to come into the office so they can see if I have a "professional demeanor"
Well, you idiots, obviously I do, since you can see on my resume that I already have years of office work experience. Why is a 21 year old naive little girl going to judge how "professional" I look?

Why can't they just interview you over the phone? Why do they need you to come into the office or else do a Skype interview-- so they can see what you look like? So they can judge you by your skin color, or age? Isn't that borderline racial discrimination?

I'm a woman and it takes me a long time to get dressed up and looking nice to go to these interviews. What a huge waste of time it has been for me. Once you're at their office they usually ask you your salary history, they ask you what other jobs you're applying to, what other companies are interviewing you, and then they make you take THE SAME STUPID Prove-It Microsoft Office test. Then you'll never hear from them again. BTW, I have taken the ProveIt test so many times by now that I always get 100% on all of the tests, and I can type 75 WPM.

I have had too many temporary jobs and now my resume looks like swiss cheese. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID!!! DON"T EVEN WORK WITH THESE CLOWNS EVEN ONCE!!!
I have been pigeonholed as a "temporary worker" and every time I go on a REAL interview with a real company, they ask me why I have had so many "Short term jobs"
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Old 05-07-2018, 04:28 PM
 
7 posts, read 13,577 times
Reputation: 21
I am ranting here but what pissed me off so much is that I met with a smaller temp agency last week, and the recruiter was another 20 something year old who even said something to me like "Oh I was in middle school in 2009, hehe!" which was totally unprofessional and an ageist comment. And I'm in my early 30's btw. This little girl has no real world job experience and she told me that she was new there, and it showed.

She told me about a job in town, and she even named the name of the company ( I won't write it here), and then she said she had to ask her supervisor to come in and meet with me. So the supervisor comes in and is talking a mile a minute and is acting like she's in such a huge hurry. Then she leaves. Then 5 minutes later the 20 year recruiter girl comes back and says "My supervisor says she doesn't think you'd be comfortable in this position, but we have another one for you, it's with XYZ company, and they want to hire right away!! I'll get back to you later today and let you know if they can set up an interview with you soon!" So i was excited to hear that.
That was last week. I heard nothing from them last week, even though they said they'd call. then I email her today and she says "XYZ company is still interested in you but they're checking their schedule and we hope to hear back from them soon!!!!"

btw, I looked on Indeed and I literally saw the exact same job that they had originally told me about, posted by the first company they mentioned. So let's see, what do you think?
You think that that company would HIRE a temp agency, AND pay money to post on Indeed for the same job??

Or do you think that maybe this temp agency was LYING and that they were not a client with the company at all, and they just said that was the job they're recruiting for?

I applied to the job on Indeed directly to the company. I don't expect to even hear back from the temp agency anymore. They went from saying that XYZ company was in a huge hurry to hire, to now saying that they're "checking their schedule"
YEAH RIGHT

It's a classic bait and switch and I can't tell you how many times I have interviewed with a temp agency and they tell me "The job you originally applied for has been filled, but we have this other position that you might be interested in, it pays less money and doesn't match your resume, but you would you consider it?"

That's how you can tell almost all their job ads are FAKE
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Old 05-07-2018, 04:49 PM
 
1,153 posts, read 1,040,222 times
Reputation: 4358
If it doesn't work, why did it take you 5 years to figure out that it was the wrong approach for you?
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Old 05-07-2018, 05:05 PM
 
7 posts, read 13,577 times
Reputation: 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by InchingWest View Post
If it doesn't work, why did it take you 5 years to figure out that it was the wrong approach for you?
Because I needed a job, and there were a few times that temp agencies did get me a job - as I said. It was about 10% of the time, though. I had one good experience with one recruiter 5 years ago and I kept hoping I would find another good, honest recruiter like her. I also had to move to 2 different cities and so I was applying to every job I could, including ones that were through temp agencies.

I also did get a call center job from a head hunter who found my resume online, and I was at that job for 6 months before I had to move due to a family issue.

I am just hoping that other people will learn from my mistakes.

Working with a temp agency can get you pigeonholed very quickly into being nothing more than an expendable, "temporary employee", as that seems to be what people perceive me as. It's demoralizing and it has made me extremely jaded about work in general.

Even the idiot temp agency recruiters will look at my resume and stupidly ask me "Why have you had so many temporary jobs?" when it clearly says on my resume how most of the jobs were through temp agencies. I have been hired into jobs where they told me that the job would only last for 5 months, or 6 months, or 9 months, etc. And I took those jobs because I needed a job.

It has been a very nerve wracking way to live and I don't wish it on anyone. It's almost as bad as being a contractor, which I have also done, and hence why my resume looks like swiss cheese.
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Old 05-07-2018, 05:10 PM
 
7 posts, read 13,577 times
Reputation: 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by MechaMan View Post
Ugh, this country is screwed.

Between the Bangladeshi recruiters, the retarded Gen Z recruiters, the capricious Gen X hiring managers, and the dysfunctional executive Boomer leadership this economy is going to get squeezed from all sides. Nothing, absolutely nothing works as it should. No one is qualified to recruit, lead or manage anything anymore in corporate America. This is all just a big joke.

I hope I can last at my present company for at least 10 years. I just need enough time to pay off my student loans and then I am leaving this country for good. The only business I will have here is family, friends and for when my entrepreneurial endeavors abroad require interfacing with American corporations. If I did not need to maintain good credit for business purposes I would have expatriated along time ago. Unfortunately, China and Japan did not pan out how they were supposed to economically so that has kept me here longer than anticipated.

However, at least in countries like China you can cut through incompetence and ineptitude with enough Yuan to grease the cogwheels of the right person. America is quickly becoming the land of catch-22s where nothing is possible and it's all up to luck. You have to catch the manager on the day where his left testicle is hanging at a perfect 47 degree angle and he's in a good mood. Or if it's a female her ovary has to be emitting just the right amount of progesterone to be open to your suggestion. God forbid they wake up on the wrong side of the bed nothing is getting done that day, week, month or year. They will throw a temper tantrum give you a PIP and talk sh** about you at industry conferences and try and wreck your livelihood all over a perceived slight of the ego (referencing threads I've read here and situations I've personally witnessed with colleagues)
I agree. I am a "Millennial"and that usually gets me hated on by most of the older workers, even though I have been working since I was 15 and I'm not afraid of working hard.
I also want to escape this mess and have been thinking about how to do so for years now. I am afraid to go back to school again and take on more debt. I just wish I had a job that paid me a living wage but that has apparently been too much to ask for.
We are being screwed by all these J1 and H1b and other types of foreign workers who are being brought here to depress the wage and glut the employment market. Employers are greedy. It's also driving up the cost of living while the wages are being driven down. Which I one reason I have to move twice now, to try to be somewhere affordable.

I'm sorry to hear that Japan didn't work out for you - were you teaching English? Japan looks like such a nice place. I would never want to go to China for fear someone would kidnap me and steal my organs
I wish you luck at your present company, though, you're lucky you have a steady job.
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Old 05-07-2018, 05:18 PM
 
1,765 posts, read 1,175,014 times
Reputation: 4015
My employer uses thousands of contract workers.. . . Don't see the problem. Many have multi-year employment with us via the agency.

I am sorry you had a bad experience but don't think it makes them ALL bad.
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Old 05-07-2018, 05:21 PM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,289,173 times
Reputation: 25941
Quote:
Originally Posted by Molten Lava View Post
Why do they do this? I think they are selling the data to a 3rd party data broker. I also KNOW for a fact that these temp agencies have QUOTAS and that every single person they bring in to an interview in their office counts, so the recruiters are constantly trying to trick people into going to meet with them in their office, so they can show their supervisor how many potential candidates they have.
I have spent an entire day at temp agencies filling out forms and giving them all kinds of information. It's a fact that they use that information for other purposes. You can bet they sell it to third parties.


They also want your references up front, so they can use them as sales leads!
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Old 05-07-2018, 05:24 PM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,289,173 times
Reputation: 25941
Quote:
Originally Posted by ihatetodust View Post
My employer uses thousands of contract workers.. . . Don't see the problem. .
You don't see the problem with your employer using thousands of temp and contract workers? This is a problem in itself. Using an endless rotation of contract workers, never - or rarely - hiring anyone perm. Sure, you don't see any "problem" because you are a permanent employee and not a contractor desperately hoping for a perm job one day.


It also sounds like you've never temped. If you had, you would have said so. The OP has experienced temping from that angle. You haven't. Those of us who've temped for a year or longer know what these agencies are doing is often crooked. The OP's experiences with temp agencies match my own.
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Old 05-07-2018, 05:36 PM
 
17,387 posts, read 14,919,159 times
Reputation: 22609
We've hired several people through 'Placement Agencies".. Mixed bag.

I've been looking for a job, talk to someone there.. That's the last I ever hear from them.. UNTIL I've got a job, then they start calling.. As someone else mentioned, they've got a quota of contacts per day.. I think they figure if they call the people who they talked to 2 years ago they can pad their numbers or something.

I've not had a good experience with them when looking for a job at all.

People hired from them.. Again.. Mixed bag.
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