Why temping is tempting for students
View(s):An agency finds placements for you – and you get to experience a range of workplaces, from the weird to the wonderful Office temp work could improve a student’s employability after university. Photograph: Victorio Castellani/Alamy
If you can’t afford to do an unpaid internship and don’t fancy pulling pints all summer, temping can be a great way to earn money and gain varied work experience – and you get to keep your weekends.
Registering with an agency that places you in temporary positions gives you a taste of different workplaces. I don’t want to be a solicitor, a car salesperson, or a plastic surgeon. I don’t really want to work for a tights company, or one that makes burglar alarms either. Yet they have all paid me to answer phones, make tea and draft e-mails in my university holidays.
Many students don’t consider temp work until after university, but more than a third of graduate jobs go to those who have already worked for the same employer during their studies. Approaching an agency in the holidays is one way to make these contacts, or at least to gain an insight into the kind of work you might be considering.
Temping funded my gap year and has helped cover my costs during the summer. It has also thrown up some surprises: I was once placed on a week’s reception cover in a fancy office where everyone spoke Mandarin. It took me three days to realise that the English company name was a facade for an outpost of an important Chinese government department – not exactly your typical summer job experience.
University courses may encourage political discussion, but nothing showed up the differences between right and left better than working for a trade union one summer – and venture capitalists the next.
At the former, I was paid well above the usual hourly rate, cakes were shared freely throughout the office and the boss would wander around singing old Soviet work songs. This was a world away from the private traders for whom I had to regularly process expense receipts for lavish business trips and impulse designer buys, or practise my French by booking restaurants in overseas tax havens.
Having to work in such contrasting environments develops confidence and adaptability that may help students thrive in their first graduate job. In some placements, temps are rushed off their feet within minutes of arriving – when there are three calls on hold and the phone is ringing with another question you cannot answer, there is no solution but improvisation.
However, temping can sometimes prove more snooze-worthy than stress-heavy. When there is literally nothing to do bar a few calls a day, desperately bored student temps may resort to desk poetry, or you could use the time to get a head start on reading for the upcoming academic year.
If you are interested in temp work, sign up to a few agencies in your local area. It doesn’t always matter if you don’t have much office experience – just dress smartly, register early and keep an open mind. It’s worth mentioning to the agency if you have any specific skills though, such as a driving license, languages, shorthand, design knowledge or a recent Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check; these skills could make you even more employable.
A job that doesn’t sound interesting at first may end up developing communication and interview skills that could help in the long run. Once you have been accepted by an agency, stay in touch with them so they remember you when you next ring up in the holidays.
Temping provided me with experience that I hope will help me in my graduate job search. And if I ever do decide to try my chances as a face-lift tycoon with special expertise in highway law and extra-secure hosiery, I know I’ll be well prepared.
-theguardian.com