Using temporary agencies to find work used to be the domain of the underskilled and unemployed. Using the services of a temp agency used to mean landing a gig as a receptionist or data entry person or some sort of position involving manual labor. The jobs themselves were usually low-paying jobs that required basic skills and hardly ever led to permanent employment.
Today, temp agencies have evolved into a very different animal. Even the well-heeled and uber-skilled use them to find their next gig in between jobs or simply to test out a gig before committing to it permanently. Temp agencies are now crossing into the world of staffing agencies and headhunters, placing professionals, managers and even executives in interim positions such as attorney, accountant, Director of HR, Vice President of Finance and CFO.
Why the shift? Supply and demand baby. It’s not that businesses no longer need the temps of old; it’s that they need talented professionals, managers and executives more. And, consequently, they’re willing to pay a premium to have primo talent delivered in the knick of time. The words “talent war” and “skills gap” have been catch-phrases in the labor market for last few years, leaving employers with hard-to-fill vacancies. Employers found that they were spending more money on recruiting and more time looking for candidates than ever before, and they still weren’t finding exactly what they needed.
So temp agencies saw a market need that would allow them to charge premium rates of up to 45% above the temp employee’s rate (as opposed to an average of 15% for less skilled workers). They also noted the fact that plenty of highly-skilled workers were looking for help getting into good companies. A genuine market opportunity.
Temp agencies aren’t the only ones taking advantage of a market opportunity.  All those talented, highly-skilled workers trying desperately to get into top employers, but not being well-connected enough, not being experienced enough, or simply not knowing what they want to next to get into great companies on their own, turned to temp agencies. The result is a new genre of temp agencies–professional placement agencies, interim staffing agencies and executive sharing agencies.
Now, companies like Manpower, known for the long lines of day laborers that wrap around the parking lots of their run down inner city locations, now boasts a booming professional staffing business.
And, while Manpower is more of a general agency, there is a large roster of specialized agencies that place only a specific type of professional workers–attorneys, accountants and finance folks, creatives and human resources professionals.
Here’s a small smattering of them:
Accountemps -accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals
MacPeople -designers, production artists, web and interactive designers, animators, copywriters, and other creative experts (SF Bay Area)
CreativesOnCall -design, advertising, marketing, and communications
Robert Half Legal -lawyers, law clerks, paralegals, legal support
Manpower Professional -IT, Engineering, Finance, Scientific, Executive positions
Adecco Medical & Science -nursing, paramedical, pharmacy, technical support staff
Where’s the career opportunity that do(es)n’t suck?
Professional temp agencies can be a real boon if you are trying to change careers, bridge the gap between old and new employment or break in to a great company. You’ll have to deal with the fact that you work for a temp agency, not the employer, you’ll get a good rate, though probably not the rate you’d get on your own.
But, here’s the great part: Temp agencies do the work of finding you a new gig, they offer benefits after you’ve worked through them for a defined period and they have an incentive to keep you working and/or help get you hired permanently by the employer (temp agencies get a markup rate for every hour you work and they charge a conversion fee if the employer wants to hire you).
Temp agencies also help you polish your resume. And, depending on the type of work they get you, they can help you build a deeper resume.
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