• The official blog of Abacus Group — a place to share our knowledge and thoughts on trends in recruiting •

As offices begin to reopen and many industries are seeing an increase in business, hiring temporary employees can provide a much-needed extra set of hands for your organization.

It’s very hard to find quality temp employees given the time constraints during the hiring process. Bearing this in mind, it’s even more difficult to find the right candidate you wish to keep on as a permanent member of the team. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to find a worthy temp candidate you wish to keep on. However, key characteristics need to be identified before transitioning the employee from temp to perm.

Summer certainly isn’t the easiest time to find a job but it’s best to look at the season as an opportunity to kick your search into gear, perhaps even take a different approach.

Despite certain disadvantages, temping is an excellent way to remain productive, current, and compensated during periods of unemployment. Moreover, temp assignments open doors to new professional connections and skills. Unfortunately, in our ever-competitive job market, some employers are wary to hire candidates who lack recent permanent experience.

Kendacy, an accounting professional, was unemployed when she first engaged with Kara Killgallen of our Temporary Accounting & Finance Staffing Division. She had been laid off due to downsizing with her previous employer, a law firm. Hesitant to consider temporary roles so soon, Kara assured Kendacy that any form of work, income, and networking opportunities are better than none at all.

Have you been grappling with the idea of hiring temporary staff? Take a look at why the summer makes sense for bringing contingent employees aboard.

In the spirit of the American Staffing Association’s upcoming National Staffing Employee Week (September 15-21), we’re taking a closer look at the employer-employee relationship in the contingent workforce. Since we’ve already presented our advice for upgrading your temporary job to a permanent one, we’re sharing some guidance for those who supervise these types of positions.

The concept of the “stay interview” has received a lot of attention in Recruiting & Staffing and Human Resources in the past year.  With retention challenges expected to prevail per intensified competition among employers, the stay interview will certainly remain highly chattered about in 2014. If you’re unacquainted, stay interviewing refers to the practice of holding periodic one-on-one employer-supervisor meetings to discuss performance, address concerns and provide an overall sense of direction.

Monday, September 16 launched National Staffing Employee Week, a campaign promoting awareness of America’s millions of temporary and contract workers and the agencies that employ them. As a trusted partner to job seekers and hiring managers for contingent roles, Abacus Group is proud to be a part of the temporary staffing sector, and extends sincere commendation to the nation’s entire contingent workforce.

The right people are the foundation of a successful business. A distinct blend of personalities, skills and perspectives synchronize to drive productivity and innovation. Of course, the wrong people are sometimes brought into an organization, disrupting its core. Earlier this year, leading job search website CareerBuilder found that two-thirds of U.S. businesses have been negatively affected by bad hiring, defined as the employment of “individuals who turned out to be either poor cultural fits or poor performers.”  This high percentage suggests that many executives remain unaware of the full implications of such mistakes and the recommended practices for prevention.