We ve used a couple of firms over the years, responds Goodman, CEO of Jackson Marketing, a special events marketing firm. Some, he cites, are better than others. In selecting temp agencies, Goodman assesses which has the quickest response time and the greatest pool of applicants. One great advantage of using a temp firm is that they can often have an employee at your door within hours of making the call. Often, Goodman says, agencies have a tendency to oversell candidates.
Exaggeration is another common occurrence.
There are definitely agencies out there which report higher than actual test results. We do our own typing test when the employee arrives only to discover they don t come close to the reported score. When those things happen, we simply drop that agency down to the bottom of the list. Goodman believes these discrepancies may stem from agency profitability goals. Some agencies reward internal managers based on profitability and the number of placements made.