Isn’t always obvious how temping can help your career. It tends to be seen as something for people who lack commitment, are in between careers, or don’t know what they want to be in life. That couldn’t be more wrong. Temping offers access to top-tier employers to showcase your skills.
Here are five reasons why temping can become a smart career move.
Try Out a New Career Without Feeling Committed Yet
Maybe you’d like to try working in a different sector of the economy, but you have no current experience there? If getting your foot in the door seems a bit daunting, one way around this is to temp and cover for another employee. This isn’t as daunting, and it gives you a chance to learn the subtle (and not so subtle) differences between the sectors you have previous work experience in and the new one. You can then see whether you’re a good fit without going through an extensive recruitment process to get the job with first and second job interviews, tests to complete, and more.
Moving on When in a Dead-end Job
It’s not necessarily your fault. Sometimes you end up in a dead-end job that’s not getting you anywhere. This might be fine for someone winding their career down and who just wishes to stay employed a few more years to add to their pension pot, but if you’re in the early stage of your career, standing still isn’t advisable. Not only does it hold you back, but it leads to many open-ended questions in future job interviews where employers try to understand your stagnant career path.
Finding some interesting temping opportunities to see that there’s life beyond a dead-end job is something that Staff Heroes does – you can check some jobs out here staffheroes.co.uk/employee/temp-jobs/.
Revitalising Yourself When You’re Feeling Unmotivated
Perhaps you’ve lost the pep in your step? If you’re not motivated to get out of bed and go into work in the morning and you’ve tried everything to get the feeling back, then it may be time to try temping for a few weeks or months. The change of pace, lack of integration into the existing team and a different environment can do wonders for turning your working life around when it’s become stale as week-old bread.
Seeing What the Company Culture is Like Before Joining Full-time
Not every company culture is a comfortable fit for your way of working or personality type. Some cultures have people working closely together, regularly going on nights out or trips to interesting places. These kinds of team building exercises aren’t for everyone but in some companies, you have no choice but to go if you’re a full-time member of staff.
Other times, the culture can seem stifling to creativity or feeling comfortable at the company. Sometimes it’s difficult to exactly put your finger on what it is, but you know it when you feel it. When temping, you get to dip your big toe into the waters on a new company culture and take its temperature without considering a longer-term position. This is a good idea when an existing culture is rubbing you up the wrong way and holding your career back as a result.
Moving to a Large Company with Greater Career Prospects
The power move is to take on a temping position and use it as a springboard to get into a larger company that has numerous career opportunities. Let’s face it, smaller companies sometimes lack the scope to allow an employee to move up when they’re ready. This can seriously hold back your career prospects and arrest your personal development too. Temping at a larger company intentionally starts the ball rolling and when they see what you can do, they may make it permanent.
Getting a boost to your career is relatively easy when you’re open to temping. It opens doors that otherwise would take much longer to gain access to through a formal interview and successful job application. This is invaluable when you care about your long-term viability in a sector and your career growth over time.
