As we’ve posted before, growth in the temporary services sector usually leads recovery in the permanent jobs market.  All told, about 379,000 temporary jobs have been added to the rolls since September of 2010, and growth in that area will probably continue — especially since employers are still hesitant about the recovery, and because there’s evidence that temporary and contingent staffing will be a larger and more permanent trend in employment going forward.

That said, there are still myths, half-truths and outright falsehoods out there that every temp candidate may have heard — and that should be dispelled with the facts.

Temp jobs are bottom-of-the-barrel: The truth is, many temp jobs are for specialized or general positions at middle and upper level of organizations, from legal to IT and beyond.  Temp hires aren’t always the “seat fillers” of the employment world, somehow comparable to migrant labor…nearly every job on the corporate org chart could be filled by a temporary hire.  Interestingly, one example is Ed Whitacre, the recent chairman of General Motors — he was strictly transitional in the job, coming on to get the company from Point A to Point B in its restructuring.  An extreme example?  Sure.  But it’s a honest example of the nature of a lot of temporary positions, as companies look for quality people to help them in specific situations.

Temp jobs aren’t challenging: See above.  Often, they’re among the most challenging in the organization, because they deal with circumstances that are unusual, and require skillsets that are lacking in the current staff, but are sorely needed — often in a hurry — to tackle the job at hand.

Temp jobs pay poorly: Quite commonly they pay better, at least on a cash-per-hour basis, than salaried jobs, because of the need for highly-qualified people to come in and immediately deal with significant challenges.   And employers often allow temporary and contingency employees to access the same benefits as their permanent staffers, which can even include skills training programs.

Don’t put them on the resume: On the contrary, a jobseeker should definitely include temporary positions on their credentials, if only for the sake of honesty.  And if they worked in a skilled or specialty position where you attacked special challenges, there’s absolutely no reason you should exclude that experience!

Temp job seekers pay fees to work with a staffing firm: Respectable staffing firms never charge candidates, because fees are covered by their client companies.

Temp work will get in the way of finding permanent work: It’s almost the opposite — not only does temp work provide flexibility, in many cases, that lets you devote time to pursuing a permanent job, but many employers use temporary positions as a way to audit candidates for full-time roles.

It’s unfortunate if any of these assumptions keeps even one good prospect out of the candidate pool.  So part of  the job of a good recruitment professional is to help dispel these kinds of assumptions about temporary employment, and make sure a truer picture is shown.

Based on our own experience at North Bridge and some of the best practices at large in the recruitment and staffing industry, these are some pretty worthy tips for any organization looking to bring on temporary or contingent employees.

One good rule of thumb, to start?  Approach temp hiring with the same standards and expectations you’d have in mind if you were looking for permanent employees.  Your business deserves the best possible people on staff, regardless of how long they’ll be on the team!

1. Know thy market: the depth of talent in a given category can vary greatly market-to-market; a national surplus of widget engineers doesn’t necessarily mean your area has the same profile.  Work with your staffing firm to make sure you know the real availability of the types of role players you need, or may soon need, so you’ve got a true picture of how long it will take to land the talent you want so you can project accordingly.
2. Be precise with your recruiting firm in terms of skillsets you need, and the salary range you’ll offer.  That will obviously help narrow the field to candidates you can really afford – and will save you considerable time, of course.
3. Move it or lose it, because even in times like these, the best candidates go first – and you’d better be prepared to get in front of them quickly and decisively, whether they’re temporary or permanent hires.
4. Set benchmarks for what constitutes success for your temps, just as surely as you would for a full-time hire.  Measure their contribution: it’s surprising how many businesses think there’s some sort of efficiency in throwing people at a task or problem simply because they’re temporaries.  It’s still money ill-spent if you’re not auditing results.
5. Ask around: get perspective from others in the organization about how a temp could be put to work on its behalf.  There may be needs beyond the obvious assignment where an interim hire could make an impact, especially if they’ve got specific expertise that could benefit different facets of your enterprise.
6. Let the recruiter inside your organization, so they can have a good handle on its organization, culture, expectations and projects.  The time you spend indoctrinating a recruiter will pay off in better candidates.
7. Vette your recruiters thoroughly, because just as in any business, there are good and not-so-good providers out there.  There’s absolutely no substitute for the due diligence and quality of service you clearly find in a good recruiter – and they should be proud to offer up referrals who’ll testify to that!

We’re happy to introduce you to Jessica Stacy, Account Executive, the newest member of the North Bridge team.  With over 4 years of sales experience, and a “work hard, play hard” mentality that will be a huge asset to our clients,  Jessica was drawn to North Bridge’s mission of continuously exceeding client objectives by finding the perfect candidate fit.

As her bio puts it, Jessica’s greatest achievement in life — thus far — was winning the Women’s Basketball National Championship in college.  She also enjoys working out, beach volleyball, photography, and going out with friends, and has a real passion for traveling.  We’re happy to have her on board, and we’re positive our clients will appreciate her intensity and dedication as well!

There are various theories as to why the jobs picture hasn’t been as positive as some have hoped.  The most recent unemployment figures posted by the government show only a modest improvement.  That’s largely because employers — and consumers — don’t entirely trust the recovery that seems to be underway, and are wary about spending — which means companies have to keep it lean and mean.

For staffing and recruitment firms, it obviously means embracing strategies that let them meet employers’ needs for highly-qualified and capable people who must fit into temporary or qualified positions.   But they also need to be mindful of the fact that the picture may change — upward or, unfortunately, downwards (if there’s a “double dip” recession), and they’ll have to make the corresponding changes right in stride in order to stay competitive!

The American Staffing Association provides tremendous resources for its members, like its programs for helping reduce the legal liabilities and risks that confront staffing and recruitment firms as they conduct their business.

Each member staffing professional can use the ASA’s  Certified Staffing Professional™ and Technical Services Certified™ programs.  These enhance the knowledge and competency of professionals who interact with candidates, employees, and clients.

It’s critical to understand employment and labor law in the state or states where an employer or recruiter operates.  These ASA programs and professional certification exams test the staffing professional on federal and state employment and labor law, with state-specific workbooks to help bone up on each state’s regulations.

Excerpts from the federal workbook and a sample state workbook, and information about how certification can give your firm a competitive edge, are available at americanstaffing.net.

If you’re an employer – or a staffing consultant – who’s considering placing a temp or contingent employee of any kind, there are a few simple “to-dos” that will make the experience run more smoothly – and rewardingly – for employer and employee alike!

Tip #1: Ask the existing team. They’ll have the best possible information on where and how temporary workers should fit in, and for how long.  And by doing this, you lead into the next tip…

Tip #2: Keep up a dialogue with existing workers about temp hires; employers need to make sure they know who’s being brought on, why, for how long, etc.  Even a secure staffer can be intimidated by the presence of a temp.

Tip #4: Lay it out clearly. Make sure the temp plainly knows what the job is, what the firm’s policies and rules are, and what you expect of them from the get-go.

Tip #4: Who’s in charge here? Be absolutely clear about who they’re reporting to, where their job occurs in a department or company’s org scheme, who they should ask for help or guidance, and so on.  Have their supervisor meet them and help walk them through their job from the minute they arrive at your door!

Tip #5: Ready, set, work! Don’t get caught unprepared on day one of a temp hire’s tenure – have their space, phone, computer, office supplies and everything they need to do their job ready and waiting for them, so they can hit the ground running – and you can get your money’s worth out of them ASAP.

Tip #6: Feedback matters, both to the temp and to the firm you may have used in acquiring that employee.  Look in on the temp regularly, talk about their performance, give them input.  And make sure the staffing company that brought him or her to you is apprised of how they’re doing, too.  If they’re competent and reputable, they want every ounce of feedback they can get from their clients!

Here’s a relevant survey by CareerBuilder.com that puts numbers to something that nearly anyone in recruitment and staffing has observed or themselves instituted: the practice of using the social networking aspects of the Web to evaluate potential hires.

What that means for those firms, for staffing consultants and for jobseekers is that there may very well be reasons not to hire an individual, reasons that have nothing to do with his or her resume or stated experience – and everything to do with what they post or reveal via the Internet.

Here are some of the reasons cited in the survey for not making a hire, based on what surveyed employers discovered by checking prospects’ profiles and posts on social media sites:

• Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 53 percent
• Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 44 percent
• Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 35 percent
• Candidate showed poor communication skills – 29 percent
• Candidate made discriminatory comments – 26 percent
• Candidate lied about qualifications – 24 percent
• Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 20 percent

What a prospect posts on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or other sites is perfectly fair game for any staffing consultant or HR person who wants to make a comprehensive investigation of an applicant.

There’s also good advice here for jobseekers: the barrier between our “public” and “private” selves is pretty thin on the Web.  The offhand gripe about your last boss that you post today may very well come back to haunt you tomorrow.

Are employers and staffing firms properly positioned for an improvement in the job market? It can be a mixed blessing if you’re not prepared.

Just one of the complications is skills scarcity, as the most qualified and valuable prospective hires find their talents are in greater demand and go off the market. Whether you’re a staffing firm or an employer, you might find yourself really scrambling to fill positions with good, qualified people — if you haven’t been laying proper groundwork ahead of time.

There are a few simple questions any smart HR department or staffing firm should ask itself about its preparedness for a job market uptick of lasting duration:

1. Do we have a plan in place? Be certain you — and your team — have a strategy in hand to guide you in sourcing and recruiting the right prospects when the need arises. Remember, waiting until only the actual moment you need them most means you’ll have to make last-second choices – not advisable in any business situation.
2. Are we willing to scale up our staffing team? If there’s a sudden influx of job requisitions, possibly even a new slew of clients to handle if you’re a staffing firm, do you have the personnel on board it’ll take to maintain solid due diligence?
3. Are we willing to invest in staffing skills? You should always be looking to strengthen your hand; whether you’re an employer or a consultant, you should stay on top of the latest training and work resources available that can help your staffing team succeed.
4. Are we keeping the prospect file full? Even if you’re not in hiring mode, always be sure to stay abreast of what roles you might have to fill if the situation changes – and try to maintain outside staffing resources or a database of prospects that can give you a quick head start when you do need to put hires in place.
5. Are we jumping the gun in hiring full-timers? Temp and temp-to-hire personnel are probably still a wise option to keep in mind, unless you’re absolutely positive about your business prospects in the upcoming year.

One thing we may sometimes not give enough importance to when we’re bringing on new staff is, how engaged are they likely to be with the job they’re doing?

This story from the Gallup Management Journal® defines “engagement” as…

…the psychological and emotional attachment people feel for their workplaces. It’s based on the fulfillment of basic human needs in the workplace, and the more people feel those needs are met, the more engaged they are.

Why does engagement matter? Because there’s also a clear link between engagement and profitability, which makes engagement a more urgent issue now than it has been in prosperous times.

You might think this feeling of engagement has suffered over the recession, but Gallup finds it’s remained reasonably stable – at 28% in the most recent survey.  But at the team level, there are signs that managers need to heed.  We won’t go into them here, because the article gives an excellent summary.

But as clients and recruiters are evaluating job openings and the prospects that might fill them, it’s important to keep engagement in mind.  Does the role, and the firm, offer the kind of opportunities for long-term attachment that will make it fulfilling for a qualified hire?   And what are the cues you can elicit from prospects that indicate whether or not they’ll be truly engaged with the job, and the company around it?

Being able to demonstrate a potential for engagement to the right person for the job can make all the difference.  When times are tough, when bonuses or raises may be in limbo, that sense of attachment means a lot, and can keep employees loyal and hard-working.  As the Gallup story concludes:

In a healthy economy, engagement makes good companies better. During challenging times, engagement might be what helps keep companies solvent. As the economy begins to improve — and it will — organizations with strong engagement will be poised to grow, and engagement may well play a role in that recovery.

It goes back to midyear 2009, but it’s still relevant, so here’s a provocative post from a blog by Lisa Amorao, a Silicon Valley professional in the staffing industry, in which see makes a good analogy between – of all things – taking care of children (hers) with flu, and good client service by staffing firms. There’s one key commentary that jumps out for us:

Now, just as no mother will admit to or feel good about not taking care of a sick child, no staffing firm will admit to abandoning their clients in a downturn. But take a look at the survey results conducted by the Staffing Industry Analysts: 30% of staffing companies feel that providing excellent customer service was a key to their success to 2008. In 2009, only 22% of staffing companies feel that providing excellent customer service is a key factor to their success. Seriously? Thirty percent was already an embarrassing number, 22% is simply horrible. The same survey also revealed that 56% of staffing companies feel that “increasing revenue” was their top priority.

Hear, hear, Lisa. We can’t account for it, either; it’s almost more important, in tough times, to help your clients figure out solutions to the challenges at hand. After all…isn’t that part of why they come to you as a recruitment professional?

If a staffing firm is devoted to maximizing revenue at the expense of good service, then let us suggest they’re not really in the business of human resources, or of creating opportunities or solutions where those may not have been obvious before. Instead, they’re in the business of selling widgets. And like somebody shilling aluminum siding or used cars, they’ll follow the path of least resistance to make a sale. Constant and in-depth client service doesn’t figure into their equations.

Not to toot our own horn too much, but our success as a Chicago staffing consultant over the last 10 years has largely owed to client service, pure and simple. We know it’s good business to work closely with our clientele. If you’re just trying to sell widgets, then you’re probably not interested in partnership, collaboration and problem-solving…and to us, that simply doesn’t make good sense.