This is where staffing agencies come in. A staffing agency can help ease the burden of transitioning from one job to another, and also take on some of the heavy lifting of the hiring process to make the transition a relatively smooth one.
Here are just a few things that a staffing agency can do for job seekers.
A staffing agency will help you make connections.
We’ve referenced this survey in a previous article, but we definitely think it’s worth repeating here: a 2015 LinkedIn survey found that 85% of people who had recently been hired had gotten their job via networking. LinkedIn used an interesting phrase to explain why this is: “Job seekers need to use the backdoor to gain access to the hidden job market.”
Think about that for a second. People who are hiring tend to trust the opinions of their colleagues, and it simply makes more sense to hire someone a coworker can vouch for than someone who is entirely unknown by anyone at the company. A lot of companies end up hiring via networking without ever having to interview someone they don’t already know. This is what LinkedIn is referring to as “the hidden job market.” It’s the job market that exists outside the reach of those who don’t already have connections.
While that may sound disappointing to someone who’s just starting out in a new industry, or someone has just relocated to a new city, it doesn’t need to be. A staffing agency can help you make those connections, meaning they can be your “backdoor to gain access to the hidden job market.”
A staffing agency can connect you with opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be available to you.
To piggyback off the previous point, a staffing agency can help you find jobs that are inaccessible to independent job seekers. This might sound like a reiteration of the prior point, but it actually goes deeper than that. Aside from the fact that hiring managers might be looking for people they’re already connected to, a lot of top-tier companies will only hire via staffing agencies (there are many benefits to employers to using staffing agencies as well). That means that even if you’ve established a connection with someone at a company, you might still need to work through a staffing agency to be considered for a position there.
Why keep your options narrow when an agency can broaden them with just a phone call or two?
A staffing agency can find jobs you might not have even thought of.
There are probably scads of jobs that you are qualified for that you’ve never even thought of. However, when a person who regularly speaks with hiring managers looks over your resume, they can almost certainly make recommendations that you wouldn’t have otherwise considered.
A lot of the time, you’ll need to be creative in your job hunt in order to land your dream career, and a staffing agency can help you broaden your horizons.
A staffing agency can help you build an unstoppable portfolio.
Some people love temp work, while others can’t stand it. Either way, you can’t deny that having a vast skill set that’s backed by real-work experience is a powerful thing when it comes to building the perfect resume.
Maybe you have ten years of experience in your field, yet all that experience was with a single company. While your loyalty and dedication are definitely positives, the lack of variety can actually work against you. It’s unlikely that all of your responsibilities will be exactly the same at any two jobs, so people who can hodgepodge together a list of accomplishments that span a variety of employers will have an advantage over those who can’t.
Remember, years of experience is usually just one bullet point on a resume. A higher number makes for a more impressive bullet point, but a broader variety makes for a more impressive resume overall.
There is a remedy to lack of variety, though: work some temporary contract jobs with a few different companies to start bulking out your work experience. A staffing agency can help you do this by placing you in a series of temporary positions. When you get put into a temporary position by an agency, you can have some measure of confidence that the agency will be ready to work with you again once your contract has been completed. This doesn’t completely remove any of the stress of uncertainty (and temp positions are filled with uncertainty), but it does make that stress more manageable.
Now, we should point out that staffing agencies don’t exclusively deal with temp work. Many positions are temp-to-hire, and some agencies can even place you permanently right off the bat. Sometimes, a six-month contract can get extended for years. There’s a lot of variety in agency work, and we don’t want to spread the misconception that all agency jobs are temporary.
The important takeaway here, though, is that if you’re struggling to beef up your resume, a staffing agency can help you out.
Conclusion
There are several things a staffing agency can do for you, the job seeker. If you’re not sure where to start, contact Staffing Proxy today. We’d love to talk to you about your goals and your experience, and ultimately put your feet on the path that leads to your dream job.
