Laid off people in America should be aware that there are people who stand to benefit from their unfortunate circumstances.
Professional job services are different than temporary job placement or “temp services”. Professional job placement services are supposed to provide some means of coaching through the interviewing process, expand the scope of your personal skills, and match employers with potential employees. Unfortunately, the need for job assistant services have become a great and growing market. Partially, because they provide a service which increase the chances for someone to find a job.
Why is this a problem?
Some of us that have used the service have discovered that the relationship between the employers and the Job service are a bit too cozy. The employer is a client of the job service as well. Many have found that after the long interviews by the job service and the company’s that are interested in your skills, and after you have excepted the position, the ink on the contract began to fade and just like a used car dealer’s “bate and switch” tactic; baiting drive buy customers with one car, then switching it at purchase. The salary that you have agreed upon have been altered some. Though the contract specifically calls for a standard salary, once you sign it, the human resource department notifies you that they aren’t able to fulfill the total agreement because of the affects of the economy. This becomes disheartening to find this after you have gone through the lengthy preemployment process.
Another alarming discovery is when the company has misrepresented the position that you applied for. The new employer performs their own “bait and switch”, finding out that the position you sign up for is more like an intermediate one, or one that doesn’t quite hold the description that you once believed it had.
The contracts are typically for one year so any issues that bother you, you will have to grin and bear it. Compiling the disappointment is a little paragraph on the contract that says “For this service Company X was compensated with X$”. The experience have reminded you of what it felt like when you first applied for credit and purchased your first automobile.
Before signing on with any job service, here are some good advice:
1. Interview the Job Services.
a. ask them how long they have been in business
b. ask to see the company profile or partner companies.
c. Ask what commission they will receive.
2. Find out all the information about the potential employer you can find.
3. Ask them to provide language in the contract that provides “a way out” for breach of contract.
It is quite possible by exercising theses precautions it may cause the job service to run from you. But that’s okay, they’re going to run afterwords, anyway.
