Employment agencies help employers seeking to fill positions without going through the trouble or expense of advertising, searching, recruiting, qualifying, testing, interviewing, payrolling, etc. @Work takes care of these functions at no cost to either the applicant or the employer. Employment agencies get paid when they successfully place an applicant at a job. There are a few variations on how this happens, and even variations within each category, but these are the three main types of placements:

Temporary Placement: Temps are generally placed for short or medium-term assignments. Temps could be substituting for an employee who is out but returning, or adding capacity due to a temporary or seasonal need. Temps officially work for @Work Personnel as the employer of record. @Work Personnel takes care of temps’ paychecks and applicable employment tax withholdings.

Temp-to-Perm Placement: In this scenario, you get to try out an employer and they get to try you out without a major commitment on either part. Temp-to-perm employees work for @Work Personnel until the employer is ready to bring them into their own payroll. If the employment relationship works out well, you are typically made an offer of employment by the employer after a certain amount of hours worked.

Direct Hire: Direct hires will go through a recruitment and screening process by @Work as well as a separate interview process by the employer. @Work will find and recruit 3-5 candidates that best match employer requirements and coordinate an interview with the client. Direct hires are not employees of @Work. The employer pays a fee to @Work and @Work guarantees the placement for up to 7 years. 

For Temp and Temp-to-Hire employees, we mark up your hourly wage by a small percentage. The markup is used to pay for your employment taxes, workers compensation insurance and recruiting expenses. For Direct Hire placements, we charge the employer a one-time fee based on a percentage of your annual salary and provide a 7 year guarantee to the employer in case things don’t work out. There is never a charge to the applicant from @Work Personnel.

Our mission is to find the best-suited employees for our client companies. You can expect we will treat you with the respect and dignity deserved by anyone seeking gainful employment. If you are a potentially-qualified candidate for an open position, you can expect @Work SoCal recruiters to provide accurate job description information, employer culture and performance expectations. Honesty and respect are our policy. Diligence and follow up are our practice.

We expect honest communication, timeliness and reliability. When we send you on an assignment, we are putting our professional reputation on the line. Absolutely never be a no-call/no-show. Be punctual. Dress and groom appropriately. Going to be late or miss a day? Let your recruiter know as far in advance as possible. Not sure of something? Ask. There are no dumb questions.

Employers contract with @Work and submit job orders that include information about the positions they need filled. We then search our pre-screened applicant database searching for a match in skills and experience, then make contact with qualified applicants to set up interviews. To increase the odds of @Work calling you about an available job, it’s always better if we already have your information on file and you have been pre-screened. Why? Because we are not the only agency in town, you are not the only applicant, and employers tend to send job orders to multiple agencies. Speed is everything at this point. If the interview process is delayed, we may both lose the placement to a competitor...

Most of the time, simply because the specific position has been filled (we’ve done our job!). However, keep in mind certain positions are perennial. What that means is there is a steady stream of employer job orders for the same position type and openings occur without notice at any given time. Customer Service Representative is a good example of a perennial position. Skill sets in customer service tend to transfer across companies and industries. For example, if you applied for a Customer Service position at a manufacturing company, and that specific job order has already been filled, hang in there! Another position will open up in short order, maybe at the same company, maybe elsewhere. Since you registered with us when you applied, you are ahead of the crowd because we already have your information on file. When we seek to fill a position, especially a perennial type of job, we first search our database of pre-screened talent, then seek additional applicants through advertising.

Because the clients want @Work to do the job of recruiting and qualifying. It’s what they pay us for. They do not want a stream of unvetted applicants to call them directly.

No! That's the beauty of employment agencies. When we have a job that matches your resume qualifications, and we feel you are a good fit, we will give you an opportunity to move forward. If you choose not to take a particular assignment, that’s perfectly OK. We will call you as other opportunities come up that suit your needs better.

Having no experience presents a challenge when clients require a certain level of experience. However, we are often able to place applicants with little experience on a temporary or part-time basis, which results in the opportunity to gain the experience needed to move up the job ladder. Don't let a lack of experience deter you from applying. Everyone starts somewhere!