Why rejecting a temp CV could be the wrong decision

 
By Rob Muddiman, Manager at TPP Not for Profit

With one in three people having worked in a temporary position and with nearly half the workforce, 41% considering temporary employment according to REC’s latest research, then organisations could be missing out on potentially skilled candidates by dismissing a CV where the applicant has done a lot of temping.

Temporary workers are crucial for most businesses, but when temporary workers start looking for permanent roles, they often aren’t shortlisted. This month we look at reasons why hiring someone that has temped for most of their career could be a good move.

Valuable Skills

Some people believe that temporary workers work in unskilled jobs, but this is not always the case. Some agencies specialise in recruiting for temporary workers with specific skills set, such as accounting/bookkeeping temps. Often they need experience in using particular software, such as Sage and require staff with a very niche skill set and qualifications.

Commitment

Some organisations feel that temporary workers can’t commit to long term roles and are unreliable; however REC’s research shows that there are many reasons why people proactively look for temporary roles.  Reasons include, not requiring the stability of long term work, commitments such as further study and childcare.

Gaps on a CV

Temporary work can result in ‘empty spaces’ in their CV, with periods of unemployment/ gaps where they didn’t have work. Unfortunately even if they are a good skilled temporary worker, they are not guaranteed constant work and it can be difficult looking for the next opportunity until your current contract comes to an end.

Instead of looking at the gaps, look at what experience they gained in their roles. As a result of working at lots of organisations they will have gained valuable experience, working with different people and often working with little training. They will have had experience of working with various systems/ software packages and may also have good ideas about helping your organisation streamline processes as a result.

References and notice periods

You have the opportunity to take up more references than someone that has been in a role for a long time, this can help make a decision as to whether to hire one candidate over another. Most temporary workers will have little notice periods, if any, where you could wait up to 3 months for some candidates  in a permanent role.

Temporary workers are generally proactive people that go out and get results and will be used to tackling tasks and getting on with work with little supervision, which could have huge rewards for your organisation and bring a wealth of valuable skills to your organisation.

If you require advice on shortlisting applicants then please contact TPP on 020 7198 6000 or visit our recruitment advice on our website.


Useful Links
Money crashers - Working for temp agencies
MSN - 6 reasons temp jobs can be awesome

Top 8 Creative Recruitment Adverts

 By Hayley Robinson, Manager at TPP Not for Profit

Finding the right person for your organisation is essential, but it can be difficult to find those candidates that tick all the boxes on your job description and person specification. It can pay to sometimes try more creative ways of finding those candidates, especially passive candidates who are not actively looking for a new role.

This month we look at 8 types of creative recruitment adverts, using examples from the web that caught our eye (although not always for the right reasons!)









1.    Before even applying these organisations tested their skills.

2.    These certainly weren’t proof read!

3.    These are enough to make you feel claustrophobic

4.    Being honest about pay and responsibilities

5.    Adverts for the end of the day or week

6.    We have no clue, any guesses?

7.    A little scary

8.    Finally ones to make you laugh

 


 

  

Are you guilty of hiring clone employees?

By Rob Hayter, Director at TPP Not for Profit.

Imagine if one of your key employees left.  You need to find a replacement, and in a hurry.  It can be tempting to look at your best, more productive employees and think “we need someone just like them”.  After all, they are your top employees, so more of them will be more of a good thing, right?

Well, not necessarily.  We’ve previously written about how important it is for charities to embrace diversity, and this is a classic mistake employers can make.  Recruiting a workforce made up entirely of people like you can ultimately lead to sterility and an end to progress.

Why is it a bad idea?

Having a team who all have a similar background and similar points of view can easily lead to a lack of new ideas.  A little bit of creative tension is great for inspiring people – you need people who can contribute different perspectives, can bounce ideas off of one another and disagree with each other.

Even more than in most organisations, it’s important for charities to maintain a diverse staff.  Although charities now generally have a more diverse workforce than in private sector companies, the third sector as a whole still struggles with the perception that charity employees are all white and middle class.  The sector also has a moral duty to uphold equality and diversity, and a diverse workforce is important to reflect the background of service users.

Why does it happen?

We are all genetically predisposed to like people like us, as we naturally feel that we ‘get’ them and that we can trust them.  Candidates who share interests with their interviewer can chat and make small talk more easily, which makes an interview feel much more comfortable and successful.

This is particularly true with referrals, often a key source for internal recruitment.  Employees tend to know people like them, and the added weight of recommendations means that those candidates have a greater chance of being hired.

What can you do about it?

It is important to note at this point that you don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Avoiding hiring clones doesn’t mean you do not want to replicate previous successes within your team.  The key is separating out a candidate’s motivations and ability to handle a role from their personality, background and interests.

The best way to remain objective is to agree the criteria necessary for the role, score candidates against that and make your decision based on those scores.  Behavioural interviewing will help you to stay neutral and focussed on the candidate’s ability to do the job, rather than their personality.  Avoid relying on your gut feeling and consider using psychometric testing to remove even more bias from the interview process.

It’s always a good idea to invite a couple of wild cards to interview.  Even if they don’t work out, it can be rewarding just meeting with them and give you access to new ideas and points of view.

How TPP can help

If you’re struggling to find someone to fit a role, it’s always worth talking to a specialist recruiter like TPP.  We are experts at refining job descriptions and person specifications to make sure only key attributes are included.  We are also a professional third party, so less susceptible to the natural bias that employers feel towards the personality types of their current employees.

Do you encourage your staff to volunteer?

By Jayne Morris, Chief Executive at TPP Not for Profit.

Charities are very good at encouraging private sector companies to give their staff time off to volunteer, but how many have their own policies in place to support their own employees in volunteering?  In this article, we look at the benefits of promoting volunteering to your organisation’s staff and the different ways in which you can support them.


Why encourage your staff to volunteer?

Charities may think that encouraging their own employees to volunteer may simply be taking them away from their desk for no real benefit, but this is far from the truth.

Your employees have chosen to work in the charity sector and obviously want to support good causes.   It is likely that many of them are already involved in some sort of voluntary activity.  By allowing them time to help other organisations, you are both supporting the sector as a whole and showing your employees that you value them and recognise the value of their volunteer work.

Giving a workforce opportunities for volunteering has been proven to improve productivity, morale, and retention.  This is as true for third sector organisations as for those in the private sector.  An occasional change of scene and a bit of variety in a role can make a huge difference in improving someone’s happiness, as well as giving them a new perspective and the opportunity to look at their current role in a new way.

Volunteering is an excellent and extremely cost-effective way for staff to develop new skills and learn from other organisations.  Charities are very good at sharing best practice, but there’s no substitute for being on the ‘shop floor’ of an organisation to learn how they really do things.  Some organisations even include volunteering done in performance reviews and promotion decisions.

Having your own staff volunteering policy in place could help support your argument when going to the private sector to ask for time or funding.  It’s a great way to demonstrate to companies that you truly believe volunteering is valuable.


How can you encourage volunteering?

There are various different ways in which you can approach volunteering in your organisation, depending on the size and make up of its workforce.  When choosing what to put in your volunteering policy, you need to balance the potential benefits of volunteering against any impact of staff being away from their desks.

As a first step, you could take a proportion of your staff out of the office for a short period of time to work on a specific volunteering project.  Many private sector companies approach these opportunities as team-building exercises.  However, these short-term projects can be difficult to organise and don’t always benefit the recipients in the long term.

You could find another organisation to partner with – perhaps a local charity or one with overlapping aims.  You could then ‘swap’ volunteer employees on a regular basis in a mutually beneficial arrangement; both parties learning from one another’s experience.

Probably the most flexible option is to allocate a certain amount of paid leave each year for volunteering.  Each staff member can then choose where, how and when they use their own volunteering leave, and an employee’s support for a charity can be sustained over the long term.

Rather than give paid leave for all volunteering, some organisations choose instead to match employees’ volunteering time.  So for every hour a member of staff volunteers in their own time, they receive a matched hour of paid leave, up to a specified limit.  This requires a bit more commitment on the part of your employees, but can be a less frightening prospect for smaller organisations.

So what next?

Once you have decided which option best suits your organisation, make sure you have a policy in place which is circulated to all employees (you can find an example policy template here).  Whichever option you choose, your employees will certainly be appreciative.  And remember, volunteering must always be optional and must be done for another organisation, not the employee’s own charity, or it is simply extra unpaid work.

TPP give all of our own employees 5 days volunteering leave a year, and many of our staff are trustees or regular volunteers for various charities.  You can find out more about the volunteering that our staff do on our website.


Find your nearest volunteer centre here:
http://www.volunteering.org.uk/where-do-i-start