Temp to Kick-start Your Career

Are you at a standstill with your job search or struggling to get relevant experience for your long term goals? It may be time to start temping! Temporary employment can allow you to get a wide range of experience, learn new skills or refresh old ones. These skills can really help you to open yourself up to new opportunities and could even help you land your dream job.

Think about why you are interested in temping, if you want to temp to gain more experience, first consider what type of experience you are looking for. Are you looking for more general office experience or are you looking to gain experience working in a particular role, or for a particular type of company? If you are looking to kick-start your career with help from a temp role, you could find work in the industry or sector you are looking to go in to.

Often an individual will temp to fill gaps in their employment history and these temp roles usually won’t be career related. But, you can use temporary employment to your advantage if you have an idea of what type of company or industry you would like to work for. If you mention your plans for the future to your Consultant you could be put forward for a role within this industry. This is a great way to make the most of your temp role, whilst also working on your career goals. A lot of temp work will be entry level and this is a great way to get into a company that you may not have thought you would be able to work for before. This may result in you being put forward to a role which is unrelated to what you actually want to do but use this opportunity to network and make an impression on the people inside the company. This may develop into a permanent role and in the future, you may find yourself on a secondment to a more appropriate area.

You may also find that you are put forward for roles that you didn’t think you were qualified for or that you would have never applied for yourself. For someone going through a career change or a school leaver or graduate, this is a great opportunity to understand what you want from your career and what you don’t want. As long as you feed this back to your Consultant you will be able to gain more experience doing the right type of work.

If you are really looking to kick-start your career, working hard on your temp assignments will get you noticed. Often it is easy to slack in a role if you know it isn’t long term, but the company you are temping for may offer you permanent opportunities or your agency will be more likely to offer you more temporary assignments. After you have temped you will find it easier to go forward for permanent positions, and your agency will know more about you and will be able to proactively help you reach your career goals by giving you more suited, relevant roles.