10 terms to help you get the most from your staffing agency

Congratulations! You’ve decided to use a staffing agency.

It’s a good decision, but in your first meeting – whether you’re the hiring manager or the job seeker – you realize the team supporting your search is speaking a foreign language!

While acronyms like EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) are part of the everyday language used by staffing agencies, they are simply alphabet soup to anyone not in the employment business.

To help you better succeed in your staffing agency engagement, The Lee Group has compiled 10 common search and staffing terms and their definitions. The next time your support team starts talking about “temp-to-hire,” you can nod your head and smile because you’re speaking their language.

Contractor — Someone hired to deliver a specific service. Also referred to as a “temporary employee,” this individual’s work is typically time-bound.

Direct Hire — An arrangement where a staffing agency is helping an employer find an employee to join the business on their payroll vs. a temporary position where the job seeker is on the staffing agency’s payroll.

Home-Based Worker — This is self-explanatory and is an opportunity sought by job seekers who want more flexibility.

Informational Interview — These interviews won’t necessarily lead to a job, but are designed to provide information to the job seeker that will help him or her to choose or modify a career path and find out what it takes to succeed.

Planned Staffing — Employers hire temporary workers to handle regular, known seasonal peaks or periodic projects. It typically involves adding temp workers to an employer’s direct workforce.

Professional Staffing or Specialist Staffing— The temporary staffing of job seekers with expertise in areas such as information technology, engineering, law, sales and marketing, accounting and managerial functions.

Supplemental Staffing — Temporary workers are added to the current workforce at an employer for planned and unplanned worker absences, peak loads or special projects.

Temporary Staffing — Providing temporary help and related staffing services to businesses. The temporary staff are recruited, screened and employed by the staffing agency and then matched to opportunities at employer sites.

Temporary-to-Permanent or Temp-to-Hire or Temp-to-Direct — The transition of a temporary employee to a direct hire by the employer after a period of temporary engagement.

Virtual Employee — An employee – temporary or a direct hire – that works for the company, but isn’t physically located in an office. He or she works remotely away from the office site.