Summer Office Work / Temping?

[Jackass]

Hi,

So I'm a full-time student and will be free and available for work between May - August and was wondering if anybody knows a good way / place to find summer work? Preferably in an office.

I'm not pushed on any kind of industry, but I will be working in the financial sector and I've applied for pretty much all internships around Dublin, but they're very competetive, so if I don't get one, what other options are available?

Are there any temping agencies in Dublin? I have looked at recruitment agencies, but can't find any that have short term work, i.e. week to week or one or two month contracts...

Any ideas?

nibtrix

Most of the recruitment agencies do temp work. At work we've had temps in from Adecco and Reed, they might be a good place to start. We've had different people in for anything from half a day up to 6 months.

Mrs OBumble

Do you have any reelvant skills that would be useful in short-term indoor work? Tell us what they are, and we might be able to advise you about specific temping agencies.

[Jackass]

Yeah I've got plenty of work experience in financial services, I'm a mature student, so I have 5 / 6 years office work under my belt as well as 2 diplomas and going into the last year of my degree, I've got supervisor experience too.

The main difficulty I have is finding work specifically for short term, like I might get an interview for regular jobs, but I don't want to lie and then leave after 3 months or something, I'd much prefer to just get a solid 3 month contract or week to week work over the summer or something.

Mrs OBumble

[Jackass] wrote: »

... I'm a mature student, so I have 5 / 6 years office work under my belt

"office work" is a pretty broad range: reception? accounts? call centre? Can you touch type? Use Excel? Etc?

I've you've worked for 5-6 years, then think about where your old employers got their temps from - sign up with those agencies. Perhaps even contact old colleagues and see if they (or their friends) need a temp over summer.

[Jackass]

Well, my "office work" was involved in things like Mortgage administration, Leasing and Hire purchase Admin and financial project work, correcting bank error on accounts and recalculating interest repayments etc. Generic sort of financial services stuff. We did use temps in the offices I worked in on very very rare occasion, but even then, I've no idea where they came from. So even summer work in any sort of industry / office is kind of what I'm interested in, from experience there isn't much temp work in financial industry to begin with. I'm more interested in the money than the experience to be honest - unless it was an intern at a Financial Services company, which I would love, but as mentioned in my OP, they are extremely difficult to get in to and as I'm 30 now, I'm not "young" enough to be considered for those kind of positions any more I suspect (FML) as they generally only pick people that they will want to bring on to the graduate programme the following year and invest massive amounts in giving them specialist training and grooming them for senior management, and I'm a good 10 years too late to be worth that kind of time and effort and lower wage expectations etc.

Unfortunately, being the world we live in these days, that industry isn't really looking for lower end of skills range, such as summer temps, if anything, they're letting people go as they don't have enough work to go around, so that's kind of why I boiled it down to "office experience" as I'd be more than happy just doing data entry or filing for 3 months or answering phones, whatever really, it doesn't bother me.

Preferably not call centre, but if that was what came up, beggars can't be choosers.

I suppose what I'm curious about is if there are agencies that specialise in this sort of thing? Is there a such thing as a "temp agency" in Ireland? I can'tfind any online, and recruitment companies don't seem to advertise anything short term.

There are some slim pickings on FAS, but most of that is now gone thanks to slave labour Jobbridge...

tatli_lokma

all the recruitment agencies run a temp service. You need to sign up with as many of them as possible and hope that they put you on their 'go to' list. Best way to ensure a regular stream of work is to be flexible, available at short notice and your own transport. Don't be too quick to turn your nose up at something - often they will 'test' you with an awkward or very short term role to see how willing you are to be flexible. The more flexible you are, the more chance you have of work.

starlit

La creme, morgan mckinley and public jobs are good places to spot temp work in an office. Recruitment agencies are good for those type of jobs too.

There be a new campaign for new temp staff in the public service so maybe watch out for that on publicjobs.ie. Usually on a once a year bases and short term for a few weeks if you get a job.