In today’s job market employers are playing it safe by on-boarding employees on a temporary basis (“temping”) with the hope of keeping a flexible workforce. This accordion model of employee workforce gives them the flexibility and saves the added burden of having to pay the benefits owed a full-time (there are no permanent jobs anymore!) counterpart. Employees in such cases have to suffer the added uncertainty, carry the burden of paying their own medical and other costs, and often subject themselves to being treated as second-class citizens (rare invitations to office parties). Over time, this can be demoralizing.
You can protect yourself with some strategic actions so that your chances of moving from a temporary to full-time position are promising. The following suggestions are worth some thought and effort:
- Before applying for a position or as early in the process as possible find out if the offered position is project-based or is an ongoing functional task. Avoid getting too excited about a short-term, project-based assignment. Keep looking.
- Find out during the interview process if the position was eliminated or is a newly identified position that the company wants to test out. If it is the latter then your chances of moving yourself to a permanent position are brighter. If it’s the former, you just have to try harder to get yourself that full-time offer later on when you establish your credentials.
- During the interview ask the hiring manager if they intend to make the position a full-time job and under what circumstances. Carefully make a mental note of the conditions for that conversion.
- Upon on-boarding assess the full scope of the job first-hand. Job descriptions are often based on perceptions and stale job postings from the bygone era. You can pretty much fashion the job (upwards) based on your drive, skills, and interest.
- Once ensconced in the job, meet with your manager and identify what needs to happen to make your manager look better to their boss. Hammer out a plan so that you can go above and beyond what was originally expected from your performance. Also remember the discussion during #3 above.
- As you uncover opportunities that you can exploit and that can improve things at work, write a letter to the manager spelling out what you see and how you intend to make things better. This is over and above your daily assignments and what your manager expects from you. Make it all look easy and do not burn the midnight oil doing all this. Do not complain, do not explain.
- As you get settled in your “temp” job continue looking for other opportunities and do not slack off on your campaign that got you this job. Carefully select those employers that may offer you a comparable or better position. This is your leverage. Now that you have a paying job you can be more selective even in applying for such jobs.
- In about 90 days after you come on board review with the manager your progress and suggest that you are very interested in a full-time position and that you enjoy working for them. If your ongoing pursuits have resulted in another job, especially a full-time job (even if it is just a “C” job, they don’t have to know that), you can leverage that advantage into getting yourself a full-time job offer (hopefully you are already in an “A” job, except for your status).
- If the manager does not entertain the idea, politely suggest that you already have another offer (even though it may be yet another temp job) with better prospects for a full-time job (they do not have to know all the details).
- Continue doing a great job and keep the manager in the loop with all your achievements.
If you do this right you should be able to become a full-time employee in about six months.
Be honest, be authentic, and be forthright. Don’t play any games.
Good luck!