why does a temp agency need 3 references from former employers

PLUS 3 references from persons who played a "mentor/guru" role in my past, and 3 references from coworkers?


i asked them this, and wanted to know what this would accomplish in relation to the level of TEMPORARY employment i was seeking. i told them that i would ATTEMPT to provide all that information if they would consider directly hiring me as a salesman, oops, i mean consultant or associate or whatever the fuck they are with their temp firm. not like that sector isn't high turnover anyway.



dude, i just want to be an under the radar office bottom feeder, i don't want to become CEO of the fucking place.

sort of thing to happen in the work place.

it would be impossible for most older women i know, who have been out of the workplace, to fulfill this requirement

you are saying they should never be able to work again because one time, one place, one bad guy was arrested at your workplace?

i'm not seeing it, nobody "real" has three mentors anyway, most people would not even have one mentor! so it's all a pack of lies to begin with

nobody has contact w. three co-workers years out of the workplace, that's just crazy, hell, the places i worked for back in the day don't exist at all

it just seems this rule is a way to encode age discrimination against women, once they are traded in for two twenties, they can't get a job either i guess

i hate this society, it stinks

I consider it a test that sees if you can successfully jump through hoops. They're looking for compliance, not competence.

for me

i don't want a fucking marketing strategy, i want an hourly job that gives me a check every week. THAT IS ALL. any employment with a company for me is simply to generate paltry income. there is no big "careerist" angle in it for me.

they are making every effort to ensure that you truly are a worker drone, and not just someone whose ambition is to be a worker drone.

to prevent hunger and homelessness.

in a sense, i have reconciled myself to my position in life, i can put up with the worker drone shit, i just hate it when they rub my face in it too.

You are applying to be a worker drone, but you complain when you are asked to perform meaningless tasks. A real drone would never do that.

You need to read up on your Dilbert

thanks for playing.

for being humourous about it, but there is a truth there.

If you want a job that merely requires you to perform some well-defined task and be paid an hourly wage for it, be prepared to be considered an idiot by those who employ you. When they want you to do something, they don't want to have to explain WHY they want you to do this. They don't want someone who they think of as an idiot doing any sort of thinking for themselves. They want someone who will do what they are told.

And asking you to find 3 mentors is a perfect way to find out if you are willing to do what you're told without asking questions.

you know the business, there aren't very many low prestige workers who are groomed for professional development in many organizations.

put it like this: if you aren't a stakeholder or upper level management or someone who generates significant revenue for the organization, you are considered an idiot. that includes mid-level management.

Mid level mgmt are expected to be independent thinkers. Drones are not.

the plantation mentality very ably and succintly expressed.


not to be rude, but i will discontinue discussing this with you further.

we are coming from two very different sets of assumptions.

nothing against you personally, but there isn't enough time in life to belabor terminologies without understanding your basis for why you think as you do.

using terms like "drones," characterizing low prestige workers as "idiots" are both rather mean-spirited and i thank you for not personally attacking me up to this point.

And yes, it is a plantation mentality and we are coming at this from different directions. But please don't think I approve of the way things are. I am merely pointing out that that is how they are.

using terms like "drones," characterizing low presige workers as "idiots" are both rather mean-spirited and i thank you for not personally attacking me up to this point.

I can't tell if you feel insulted and that is sarcasm, or if you recognize that when I spoke of drones and idiots, I was referring to how mgmt viewed their subordinates.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

but i imagine the average crop of people looking for work aren't federal criminals and fugitives.


i think that many people, like me, are just looking for a job.


and seeing cops come into a place wouldn't faze me much, might make me feel safer.

I'm 41 and I've never had a fucking mentor. I've also worked for myself for the past 10 years. I guess I'm totally screwed if I go look for a job in the real world -- Which I already knew because I've been sending out tons of applications for entry level office jobs and I haven't gotten a single call for an interview. Never mind the fact that I've actually RUN a home office for 10 years. Damn, it's depressing.

had some interviews with agencies (which, back during the 90s, were sure fire places to get employed at a decent wage for many people) but it seems lately everywhere you go, they want SO MUCH information. and i'm not one to discriminate against ex offenders, so that gambit doesn't carry much weight with me, and i certainly have no fear of terrorists.

i expected the one place to ask for a stool sample.

notoriously unreliable. They don't show up, they don't do the work, they don't dress the part.

Not saying that this applies to you, but in general, that is the attitude about temporary employees.

When I was teaching high school, in the summers I worked as a temp. and went to graduate school. I always found work because I needed the money so badly I would always show up. At one point in 1986-87, I was making $18 an hour as a secretary. Apparently, I was one of their star employees. :eyes:

but i understand what you are saying.

i still understand that the average way of thinking/reponding for most corporate types is very mean-spirited and petty too. i take everything with a grain of salt.

the good thing (from the agency side) is the pool of "candidates". candidate X flakes out, there are 20 other people jockeying for the chance to step feet first into a puddle of shit.

but that doesn't necessarily bother me. i am adept at making the best of bad situations.

i've intermittently worked as a temp and what i always tried to was to keep quiet, work hard, and not make a nuisance or spectacle out myself.

When I was looking last summer/fall the temp agencies wanted 3 references just like companies do if you get an interview directly instead of through an agency. But I had a 4 year degree and 9 years in related work, and by 'office bottom feeder' it sounds like you're looking for something that doesn't have that kind of education requirement. So for them to want even more references is pretty strange. I don't know anyone with a "mentor/guru."

i say it lightly. i find no shame in it. most agencies staff support roles and regardless of the spin HR types put on it, an "Administrative Professional" is still just a secretary. and many places actually have an educational requirement for that level of employment, usually a bachelors degree.

that being said, i'm way out of the mainstream, and have no career-oriented dreams, ideation, or goals. i just want to trade my labor for pay.

I don't think there's any shame in what you're looking for. Look for what you want, not what you're 'supposed' to want or what other people think you should want.

I also love how HR makes up better sounding names for jobs. Associate Scientist was my first title out of school, or Ass. Scientist as we used to joke due to the abbreviation. Fancy name for a tech who does mostly the same thing every day.

they have 100s of "executive vice presidents"

the title doesn't mean anything. i know, i had one similar to it in another life.

References are silly. People will lie, either because they like you or because they don't. Weak recruiters are just looking for more paperwork to cover their tales in case they hire a loser. "Well, we had references, look at all this pretty paperwork!"

Other hiring practices that are dumb: Hiring someone with experience equal to what they are looking for (means the applicant has burned out or run off from the same type of job in the past--hire someone to train into the job, not someone who has already burned out on it), psychological profiles (measures nothing except how familiar an applicant is at taking employment psyche profile tests), asking where an applicant sees themselves in five years (or any other cliche question that is on every interview advice board on the Internet)...

Back when I had a job where I had to interview applicants, I just chatted with them. I could tell quickly if I could train them. I could look at job history and see whether they were basically responsible or honest (with a few questions about why they left previous jobs). I preferred to hire someone who I thought would be good at their job, not good at applying for new jobs. I was usually right, too. :)

neither asked for as much info as you are being asked - I don't think either of them called my references and I had no mentor.

Have you tried more than one temp agency? Maybe look for a local temp agency instead of a name agency - I had bad luck with a national company but good luck with a local.

Good luck to you!

they put me to work about two years ago. unloading a truck at a mcdonalds construction site.

it was kinda fun. me, some old dude, a j-bar and some dollies.

we were moving french fry frying machines, front counters, all sorts of heavy equipment.

net pay for about 9 hours of work: 38 bucks.

And here is why the need for the info:

Sales Leads...pure and simple.

Think about the info being asked for:

3 Former employers = 3 Hiring managers to call on

3 Mentors = 3 more people to call on or recruit for other positions

3 Co-Workers = 3 recruits...

Pretty simple and cut throat but it works...Doe eat Dog industry all around...

sounds like a bunch of pimps.

as an aside, do your people generate leads for each other in different markets? what if someone comes from billings, montana looking for work in savannah, georgia and their references aren't leads in your market?

i don't really see it as being cutthroat. haphazard, but not cutthroat.

i think it works better when have a sales force with the requisite skill and BALLS (instead of a crop of recent college grads) to go after corporate contracts to be the sole provider of temporary employees to a company.

kinda hit or miss going after people's references to shill new accounts. it kind of appears unseemly too. if candidate X comes in looking for temp work and has 6 to 10 references (which candidate X uses for the purpose of employment references not as potential sales contacts for someone else) what justification does the agency have for using that information as a pool of prospects?

is the peddling done in such a way that candidate X's name is not drawn into the pitch?

how does it work?

I once got a 2 million dollar bit of business by checking a reference.

After I got the reference info (positive) I asked the contact if she'd ever heard from a staffing company for a reference check and of course, she hadn't. Voila! Instant credibility. Scheduled an appointment and went from there...

having been VP of a small local but top-tier in its marketplace staffing company I can add that references are useful, when they're actually checked (LOL -- if ever.) They can somewhat cover the agencies behind if you act nutty on assignment. They can also help the agency determine the types of environments you work well in. The agency does have stake in your success, you know!

Also try to look on the bright side of temping: I've had many, many temps convert to permanent status with my clients. These temps often had work histories/resumes that would have denied them interviews with these clients altogether. Hell, I had a laid-off 55 year old autoworker hired on at a top tier law firm in Document Production -- he's now in management. Being a gentleman of a certain era, he always wore a nice suit to his assignment and LOVED being mistaken for an attorney in the elevator. Great guy, great client, great match!

and MENTEE

i shit you not.

Guru.

Mentee?!

:eyes:

Main Entry: cor·po·rat·ism
Pronunciation: 'kor-p(&-)r&-"ti-z&m
Function: noun
: the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction
- cor·po·rat·ist /-p(&-)r&-tist/ adjective