If you’re running a business and dealing with a rapidly growing list of interested job seekers, or if you’re a prospect looking for a job, you cannot underestimate the importance of dealing with staffing agencies. Both employers and employees can benefit from the services an agency can provide, and in this time of higher unemployment and fewer job openings you need every edge you can get. In the past three years, the United States has gone from having a national unemployment rate of roughly seven percent to one that is now hovering near ten percent. The “experts” say that will eventually come down, but you need to deal with the realities of today, not the hopeful projections for tomorrow. There’s very little hard evidence yet that the economy is going to continue to improve.
The job market in the United States and other developed nations has evolved in recent years as the world has shrunk. Outsourcing manufacturing and production work isn’t a strictly American practice. European nations are doing it, and so are many of the stronger economic powers in the Middle East. Great Britain has gone from a major manufacturing hub to a nation of white collar management jobs and low income, unskilled labor positions. Meanwhile, here at home, job prospects for recent college graduates are few and far between. That’s why the services of a staffing agency are becoming increasingly important. If you don’t have someone doing the footwork for you, your chances of landing a good-paying job in any country are almost non-existent.
Why Should My Company Hire You?
If you think about it, that hour-long first interview boils down to one simple question. Why exactly should any prospective employer hire you? For that matter, why would anyone even grant you an interview? There are hundreds of candidates for that position you’re applying for. Why should you be any different from any of the others? Your job as the person looking to secure a position is to make yourself look as interesting as possible from the moment you apply. This isn’t like days gone by when every applicant would be interviewed. There’s a screening process now. Do you know how to get through it? A staffing agency does.
Evaluating Your Needs as an Employer
Let’s look at the other side of the employment coin. Imagine you’re the one with the job to give. If you’re running a company that is able to offer new jobs for the first time in a while, you might want to evaluate your needs before you start posting to classified sites and running help wanted ads in the newspapers. It’s not like you have to hire the first available “warm body with a pulse” like you did in the 90′s. There are hundreds of unemployed warm bodies who are qualified for the job you’re offering and dozens more who are overqualified but will take it just to get back to work. How do you bring that number down to a manageable pool? A staffing agency can help you.
Understanding the Job Market and Choosing Your Profession
There are jobs that have been consistently secure for years which are slowly disappearing today. Remember those commercials for the Maytag repairman who had to take side work because there was nothing to do? His job didn’t disappear because the appliances were so reliable they didn’t need fixing. Maytag got absorbed by Whirlpool and Whirlpool outsourced all their manufacturing to Southeast Asia. It’s now much cheaper to buy a new washer or dryer than pay a repairman to fix the old one. If your training and job experience is in the appliance field, you need to find another line of work. Understand what’s available before searching for a job that’s not there.
Staffing agencies generally have training programs, and they definitely have a better grasp of what professions are in demand and which to stay away from. “Automotive jobs are considered a dead end right now, but health care is booming.” That’s a general statement you’ll hear from those who don’t have a clue what’s really going on. The UAW factory jobs of yesteryear may never come back, but there are openings for those trained in alternative energy. Learn to build electric cars and you’ll be able to land a good job. On the other hand, health care might be booming, but will there be funding to pay everyone’s salary? You might want to think twice about entering that field right now, unless you want to be a primary care doctor. We need plenty of those.
Do you really have to be unemployed?
Apply to any staffing agency in the country and you’ll find that they have dozens of jobs available. You can walk away and claim you’re not qualified for any of them or you can seek out some training and go into a different line of work. The old job you had, no matter how long you had it, may not be coming back. In some cases, entire industries are disappearing. If you’re a chemist who’s worked in plastics for ten years, it’s time to go back to school for something else. If you’re a factory worker who’s been laid off for two years, it’s time to re-train and go into shipping and receiving or clerical work. Even if it pays less, at least you’ll be back to work. Those extensions won’t last forever, you know.
As the world changes and old opportunities disappear, new ones are popping up every day. A good staffing agency can put you on the right track to a new career. If you’re not sure what field you want to work in, do some temping. More companies are leaning in that direction anyway as the battle over mandatory health care rages on. Temps don’t get benefits, but they do bring home a paycheck. A surprisingly high percentage of the folks who are out of work now are unemployed by choice. There are jobs available, but they choose to be selective and wait for something else to come along. If you’re one of those folks, you might have noticed that “something else” isn’t coming. Work with what’s out there. You might actually find a new job you love as much as the old one.
Copyright (c) 2010 Trey Markel
