A temp agency is in the business of providing staff required by companies on short or long term contracts to carry out a specific job role. An agency will normally maintain a pool of candidates with the skills and experience which are important in the sector or industry they supply staff to. Any of these agencies needs to be able to respond quickly to request for temporary staff so the individuals on their books can be considered as soon as a temporary vacancy becomes available.

Smaller agencies tend to specialize in just one or two specific employment roles or industry sectors. While the larger agencies may cover several separate industries or have teams that deal with a much wider spread of employment roles.

In the majority of cases, the temporary staff member remains contracted and paid by the agency while undertaking work on behalf of the agency. The buyer is then invoiced by the seller on the basis of the hours worked by the temp, plus their commission fees on top.

The HR service will normally be the link and point of contact between the hiring company and the agency consultant. They will be responsible for liaising with the agencies to obtain staff for a specified period of time. Depending on the nature of their contract, the company HR can choose to interview a short list of candidates provided by the agency. Or depending on the nature of the job and the skills and experience level, they may request that the agency just sends someone along.

Using short term temporary staff may be for as little as one day and is often used to fill a stop gap, to assist with a specific workload issue. Longer term contracts can be used to cover sickness absence, maternity or career breaks or to cover holiday periods.

Many job seekers sign up with agencies offering short term work as a stop gap, while they are seeking a long term or permanent appointment. To a certain extent this allows them a degree of flexibility to pick and choose when they are available to take on work and for how long. However, continually turning down offers of work could result in the individual being removed from the agencies books. While temps who build up a reputation as being willing and reliable are likely to be offered more work opportunities.

Many individuals, who require a degree of flexibility in their working and life balance for whatever reason, find that temporary working best meets their needs and can be content working on this basis. They have no need or inclination to seek a full time or part time permanent position.

A temp agency can also be referred to as an employment agency or a placement agency. But in general the latter two are perceived by job seekers as the providers of permanent vacancies. Whereas the temporary agency does what is says and places temporary staff in part time and full time posts for a limited time period only.

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Category: Jobs
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