Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,981,862 times
Reputation: 40635
Advertisements
I've only had luck with them. Twice lead to permanent positions. The other times they served their functions in trying out industries or provided a quick buck between contract gigs. Always got jobs within a couple of days of signing up at most. Often same day.
I've also had good luck with temp agencies. After being out of the finance field for over 5 years, I got a temp job in a major investment bank and that one temp job boosted my resume and my salary level.
The key with temp jobs is to not get comfortable and to always keep looking long term for a permanent job.
I've had nothing but sleezy experiences from them. Also they demand the same level of background and credentials as direct hire employers so I don't see how one can expect to use them to gain expereince or credentials.
They were OK when an underqualified person could use them to get experience covering for a short project or someone on maternity leave but now they cater to scumbag companies that view their staff as dispossbile commodities to be lowballed and denied benefits.
I and others have commented on their sleezy tactics and lowballing many times in the past.
They have also absolutely destroyed my profession. One does not have to spend much time talking to people on the net to make the observation that the profession is filled with people actively disengaged that hate their jobs and are abandoning the field at a steady rate ...
I don't see how temp agencies created the problem you decry. Greedy corporations that do not want to pay benefits, do not want to employ older adults, and do ANYTHING they can think of to depress wages are the problem. Complaining about the temp agencies is like trying to put convenience stores out of business because you are against cigarettes. When cigarettes are illegal, convenience stores will sell something else.
Who promoted the idea that the purpose of a temp agency is to give "an underqualified person job experience" so they can improve their future? Certainly not temp agencies! They're just people trying to make a buck and taking advantage of a circumstance that certainly IS unfortunate, but not their doing. You can question their ethics, but not much else. They are no more sleazy than their clients.
If corporations cannot get workers to exploit from local temp agencies, they will go overseas to get them. The solution to that abhorrent situation has nothing to do with temp agencies. The solution is our government mandating higher minimum wages and putting in place incentives that will pressure corporations to hire full-time workers at fair wages with benefits. America cannot a sustain a system in which 99% of its citizens are exploited by the remaining 1%. The very rich are engaged in a concerted effort to destroy the middle class. If American voters allow that to happen they are fools.
And oh look we have another thread starting about a staffing agency demanding to bother references before you even have an interview and surprise surprise it needs to be supervisory references [sales hint hint].
I worked for a temp agency for almost 4 years off and on - and I absolutely loved it. Admittedly, it was more of a specialized staffing service in the commercial driver field, but the pay was good, the benefits were great, and if I ever had a problem with a client all I had to do was make a phone call and it was resolved quickly. I rarely stayed at the same company for more than 2 weeks, and the only time I didn't work was when I wanted a day off. Overall, it was probably the best job I ever had aside from running my own business.
I worked for a temp agency for almost 4 years off and on - and I absolutely loved it. Admittedly, it was more of a specialized staffing service in the commercial driver field, but the pay was good, the benefits were great, and if I ever had a problem with a client all I had to do was make a phone call and it was resolved quickly. I rarely stayed at the same company for more than 2 weeks, and the only time I didn't work was when I wanted a day off. Overall, it was probably the best job I ever had aside from running my own business.
Did it ever occur to you that this may be why you rarely stayed at the same company for more than 2 weeks?
The thing is, if your field has very little demand, then really temp agencies will follow suit. If you're being "low balled", it's generally because what you do isn't worth very much to begin with. Hate to put it so bluntly, but if your field were worth something, it would be in that temp agencies best interest to line you up with a competitive rate. The temp and staffing world is VERY competitive. There is no one who really dominates that industry, and if one temp agency isn't going to play fair, ANOTHER will. But if the demand isn't there to begin with, they don't really have to care.
Is it really the temp agency's fault that your field doesn't have a high demand? No, it's just the market. Blame yourself for getting involved in something that neither corporations or temp services have any interest in paying much money for. It happens, that's life. You can't go playing the blame game just because things aren't working out the way you think it should.
And for the administrative assistant jobs, the market doesn't have very much demand for that. This is the most misleading position in the entire market. Oftentimes administrative assistants are victims of their own hype. A lot of them get this type of job with a fairly decent company, builds a relationship with their hiring manager, and then eventually they're making 50-70k. Oftentimes that's just your boss being nice enough to pay it, not really you being worth that much. So that you leave that company, voluntarily or involuntarily, and you go to the next job. You think you're still worth 50-70k, when you're really worth 35k to 40k. The market is going to pay you what based on demand. If administrative assistants on average made that type of money, then temp services would try to stay competitive with the market. The real issue is that the temp service doesn't need to offer you 50-70k, because on average administrative assistants are not worth that much.
You see, some people live in a bubble. I noticed people who stick with one job for several years get themselves caught up in a bubble, and become out of touch with the market. This is the reason why there is job rehabilitation for people who suffered devastating layoffs after being with a company for a long time. They have no clue how the market work anymore, because they spent years not actively searching. The same thing happened to my mother, and she had to retrain herself for nearly 2 years before she could find a new job.
STOP BLAMING TEMP AGENCIES. THEY ONLY PAY YOU BASED ON THE MARKET!
STOP BLAMING TEMP AGENCIES. THEY ONLY PAY YOU BASED ON THE MARKET!
While some are great others lowball the crap out of you. I don't take jobs where I take home less than around 2k a week, yet I'd get tonnnnnns of calls offering me jobs for half that.
I had a contractor offer me a job paying $70/hr for 56hrs a week for a year project a few weeks back.
I also get calls for companies looking for the same qualifications offering 28/hr. It certainly varies and no desperation is key and patience is key.
While some are great others lowball the crap out of you. I don't take jobs where I take home less than around 2k a week, yet I'd get tonnnnnns of calls offering me jobs for half that.
I had a contractor offer me a job paying $70/hr for 56hrs a week for a year project a few weeks back.
I also get calls for companies looking for the same qualifications offering 28/hr. It certainly varies and no desperation is key and patience is key.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2
It also seems like you have the ability to say NO when someone lowballs you, because you are in a position with in-demand skills. I think that was the point she was trying to make: once you have more in demand skills you can say NO to lowball offers. When you don't really have that level of marketability, you probably have to accept what you can.... and that's not really the fault of the agency.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
