Preferred Staffing Agency and Staffing Agency reputation/review?

Today I received a call from a guy from www.sigconsult.com for an interview for a couple different positions earlier today, Guy over the phone said he checked out my resume from dice.com or indeed.com (I forgot). Talked to him for like 10 minutes and told him about my work experience/certifications and got an interview Thursday morning...wtf...and he said looking to start on Tuesday next week? Is this some legit or what? Thought it'd take about a week for drug testing background check etc? I've read online from here that some staffing agency are I guess I would say undesirable and that it's more beneficial to find the job on your own than go through a staffing agency?

I am kind of nervous going through with this but we will see I suppose.

I would also like to ask fellow Techexams.net members:

what are your preferred staffing agencies + review on desired staffing agency to work through/for vs undesired; It seems Robert Half is more undesirable than anything from my readings on here.

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Comments

A+Staffing

After reading your note above I thought I might be able to help you be a little less nervous about using a staffing service. I've had a career in the staffing industry and in human resources for nearly two decades.

Your question about drug testing and background checks: Many basic drug tests, such as a 5, 10 or 12 panel urine test, if done on-location at the staffing agency's office, can be completed and will show results in only a matter of minutes. Many background checks, if completed on-line will register recorded 'hits' within a given database as well. There are many city, county, state as well as federal judicial systems that maintain on-line accessible criminal conviction records.

Of course, some drug and background checks may take longer depending on what type of check and test is being completed. So, it's not out of the question that your results were or will be readily available.

As for working with a staffing agency keep a few of these tips in mind:
A true Staffing Agency is an employer. They pay you. If you're paying them, you're most likely working with a 'recruiting/recruiter agency'. That's sort of like being an actor or sports figure and having an 'agent' find you work.

A true staffing agency should NOT charge you a fee for any portion of the application process.

Remember that a staffing agency is an employer. You're applying to work for the agency, not the company to which you'll be assigned.

Remain active in your job search with the agency with which you work. Follow up with your contact at the staffing agency and remind them you're available, ready and willing to work. Watch their job/position postings and respond with interest even if you've already been through their initial application process. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease"

A true staffing agency (one that pays you as an employee) has two customers, you and the company(s) they serve. The agency's 'job' is to find the best candidate for the position their 'client company' needs to fill.

Ask the agency for reference quotes from other applicants they've placed.

The agency should have complete information on the entire interview and application process available for your review either on-line or at least via hard copy. If you have questions or concerns, ask them why you should apply with them over one of their local competitors.

And again - remember - that when applying for work through a true staffing company, you're applying for work just as you would anywhere else. You should NEVER be paying a fee for the application process. In fact, in Illinois (where we're located) it's illegal for a staffing (temp or temp-2-hire) agency, or any direct employer, to charge an application fee. I noticed in your profile that you're in Arizona. You might want to check into AZ law about that.

I don't have any experience with or knowledge of how sigconsult.com or Robert Half (the two you mentioned) work. However, within my career experience, a staffing agency is an employer and should conduct itself as such.

Hope this helps.

qwertyiop

I work for a staffing company and I can tell you that even though in my opinion its rare to get contacted and asked to start next week but last Friday my company contacted/placed a person on Friday and started on Monday. The only reason this happened was due to special circumstances that the employer placed on this contract allowing a qualified person to start eventhough his background check hadnt been processed yet.

pikachuuu

Thanks for all your inputs, I'm kind of nervous now..it's Wednesday and have not received an email back - might of just been a fluke..my job hunt continues and now i'm unsure of anything and what positions to apply for seeing every opening requires a good couple years of experience

Forsaken_GA

qwertyiop wrote: »

I work for a staffing company and I can tell you that even though in my opinion its rare to get contacted and asked to start next week but last Friday my company contacted/placed a person on Friday and started on Monday. The only reason this happened was due to special circumstances that the employer placed on this contract allowing a qualified person to start eventhough his background check hadnt been processed yet.

It really depends on the position as well. When I got my current job, I had to go contractor first through a staffing agency, and the deal went down in under a week. I got the offer on a Friday, and very well could have started the following Monday, but it was pushed out 2 weeks so I could give proper notice to the folks I was currently employed with at the time. My background and drug tests all cleared within a day.

I went through Insight Global, and it was a remarkably easy and pleasurable experience.

Hypntick

I can vouch for Robert Half being legit. When I was looking for employment through them, the background and drug checks took about a week. After that another 2-3 weeks before interview appointments started coming in from prospects. Now, your experience may vary, depending on who you're working with. Robert half in my last go around was a pleasure to work with, however before that they sucked and teksystems was the better choice. Just depends on the rep you get, and you can request a new rep if you don't feel you're being treated fairly.

CodeBlox

I'm with a staffing agency called "Abbtech" currently. Pretty reputable.

pikachuuu

Been about two weeks now and I haven't heard anything back from the "resource manager" at the staffing agency that contacted me; in the mean time I've been applying for a few openings that would be "fit" for me. Only been actively searching for a job for 1.5 week now and i'm kind of feeling hopeless or too anxious to find a noob friendly yet decent paying job, and I'm also thinking about working on getting 70-640A Windows Server 2008 Active Directory but I'm not sure...since it is a 2 part certification like how the A+ certification was =/

N2IT

Best ones I had experience with was Judge and S3.

Hypntick is correct a lot is contigent on your representative and account manager.

lantech

pikachuuu wrote: »

Only been actively searching for a job for 1.5 week now and i'm kind of feeling hopeless or too anxious to find a noob friendly yet decent paying job

Am I reading this right? You've only been searching for about 1.5 weeks and you're already feeling hopeless and anxious. That's not very long to be looking at all. You're just in the starting phase really. A long time ago the norm was 3 months to find a job if you weren't really targeting a specialized job. If you were looking for something specialized it was more like 6 months.

When working with contract agencies, they might very well just stop contacting you if you didn't get the job or an interview. Recently had that happen to me. No big deal, you forget about it and move on either to another job prospect, recruiter or agency. No one says you have to deal with just one.

Now the IT industry is full of people with both certifications and experience. It could take a while to find a new job. Especially for those just starting out. What exactly do you think is good pay? To you it might be $12.00 an hour but to someone else it could be a lot more than that.

It might take a while but you will find something. It's just way to early to be feeling that hopeless and depressed feeling yet.

greenerek

pikachuuu wrote: »

Been about two weeks now and I haven't heard anything back from the "resource manager" at the staffing agency that contacted me; in the mean time I've been applying for a few openings that would be "fit" for me. Only been actively searching for a job for 1.5 week now and i'm kind of feeling hopeless or too anxious to find a noob friendly yet decent paying job, and I'm also thinking about working on getting 70-640A Windows Server 2008 Active Directory but I'm not sure...since it is a 2 part certification like how the A+ certification was =/

pikachuuu, do not feel hopeless , if you really have been looking for 1,5 week, it means nothing...like other said, be prepare looking for job for three or even 6 month. If I can give one advice, do not relay only for agency or advertised job...start sending a CV to every company you can find...most companies even not advertise new jobs, because always have someone CV

lantech

After the contract ended on my first data center job I was out of work for 10 months before I found a new job. And even then it was a contract position working for a call center doing Apple Ipod support. 2 months after I started that job I landed another job in the largest data center for one of the largest companies in its field.

You just have to hang in there. Sometimes just having any job will help you get a job. I've had quite a few opportunities in the last year and I haven't even been looking for a new job.

pikachuuu

Thank you for all of your inputs, they are very appreciated - a little update I guess, I haven't heard back from that staffing agency and I don't plan on going back to them anytime soon..I mean even an email saying they are looking for more experienced individuals for the job would of been nice or that they would let me know when they find an opening that might suit me better etc. Nope. Nothing.

But out of the 50+ applications I've put in, I had a couple interviews and the first interview pretty much failed hard for me. I knew right off the bat that the IT manager didn't want to hire me; and my 2nd interview I got passed the phone interview to the "3 vs 1" interview but didn't get the job =/

neilperry

Now you know to take that recruiter's word with a grain of salt. Bummer about the interviews but make sure you learn something from each one

bdub

I've had good experiences with Robert Half. The thing I learned with working with them though is that you need to be persistent, if you don't hear anything from your recruiter for a week, give them a call, leave a vm or send and email until you speak with them. Be sure to keep yourself on their radar, they have many people to work with and if you don't keep yourself towards the top of the stack of resumes they will just give the interview to someone else.

It took me about 6-9 months to find a job working with them, though I was being picky because I already had a job (though it was not a straight IT gig, was a mixture of duties) so don't get discouraged, you just have to keep on trying until you find something.

noobsrevenge

Maybe try getting the CCNA ? I know it carries more weight with companies. I had awful 'luck' when I was sending out my resume with just a Jr. Systems Admin position while at my university and Sec.+ on it, I was a confident college grad from a large university, had Jr. Systems Admin experience, thought it would be suuuper easy for me to get my foot in the door somewhere, and I was floored that I had absolutely 0 interest, no one wanted me =(

I went and got my CCNA and CCNA: Sec, redid my Resume and cover letter, and now I get called back on ~ 80-90% of the resumes I send out and actually landed a data center job and will be starting in a few days.

As far as time searching, 1.5 weeks is nothing, don't let that get you down, I sent out my crappy resume for 2 months that generated zero-responses before I decided to suck it up, get more education/certifications and try again. And it took me almost 3 months to get CCNA, 1 month to get CCNA:Sec for a total of ~ 6 or 7 months from my complete fail resume to finally getting hired. Good luck to ya, keep on training and learning !