13 Dec 08 Secretarial Work- How to Choose a Recruitment Agency

If you are a secretary looking to enlist with a recruitment agency then either you go online and pick the first name that appears after your search results come up, or you just walk along the High Street and go into the first agency you see, don’t you? Well you could, but really you shouldn’t. If you are a secretary then you should perhaps try to find out which agencies pay the best rates, which will allow you the greatest amount of flexibility, which seem quite professional and which seem like they may just be more interested in making some money and aren’t too bothered about the standard of service.

Sure you can just sign up with the first one, but isn’t that selling yourself a bit short? After all, a good agency can help you to secure really interesting work, great rates of pay and some fantastic job opportunities.

You may wish to consider asking an agency about the number of clients they have, how many people they have signed up with them looking for work. How many positions they tend to fill and also you can ask about how long they have been trading, what they can offer you in terms of assistance.

Don’t sign up with any agency that doesn’t return your phone calls or emails. Although many agencies are online, often they will have premises as well. If you can, then try to take a trip to one of their offices, so that you can assess what the staff are like and if they seem competent and aware of what they are doing. If you are choosing an online agency, then look at their emails and communications. Are they professional, or is the website and their emails littered with spelling mistakes?

A good agency will appear polite, professional and realistically choosing an agency is as much about you interviewing them and deciding if you can work with them, than it is about them choosing you. So don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions and to check just how reliable and professional they are, so that when you sign up with them, you really can land that dream job.

 

Tags: Afraid To Ask, Flexibility, How Many People, Job, Job Opportunities, Money, Phone Calls, Premises, Recruitment Agency, secretarial, Secretarial Work, secretary, Spelling Mistakes, temping, temporary work, work

03 Dec 08 Midlife Career Change

Is it possible to wake up some day at 40 and think that you want to do something completely different? Is that just a day dream, to be thought about on the drive home from work, but nothing more than a dream?

Well it can be a pipe dream, or it can become reality. The choice really is yours. Many people find that once they have hit mid life, they know what they want from life and they aren’t going to compromise. Instead they want to make sure that they fulfil all their dreams and if that means suddenly throwing everything in to become something very different, then so be it.

But (and here is the cautionary note) make sure that your dream is all that you want it to be! If, for example, you dream of being a gardener or landscape architect then instead of jacking in your job, re-training and then finding out that you actually hate it, try to get some work experience first. You can either do this on a voluntary basis, working with a company just to see if you like it, or sign up with a recruitment agency, so that you can test it out and get paid for it at the same time!

Remember that life is short and one thing that we all have in common is that we all have only one shot at life, so you need to make sure that you don’t regret things you haven’t tried. Even if you try things and they don’t work out, you chased your dream and that counts for a lot. But chasing your dream usually means that it does work out, since you have so much vested interest in creating success. So mid life career changes can be the best thing that happened to many people: go for it!

Tags: 40, 40's, career, Career Change, Career Changes, Cautionary Note, change, Day Dream, Dreams, Gardener, Job, Job Training, Landscape Architect, life, Life Career, Mid Life, midlife, One Thing, Pipe Dream, Recruitment Agency, Success, Vested Interest, Voluntary Basis, work, Work Experience