Advice on Agency/Temping work???

tawnyowls

missk_ensington wrote:

LOL When I did my spelling test I got 89% and I was furious ecause I knew I hadn't got any wrong..........it turned out I'd changed all the american spellings to English ones! (I thought they had been put in there to catch me out! Ooops!)

Microsoft test, no doubt! The typing test is annoying as well - if you don't do something in exactly the order M$ dictates, you'll be marked wrong, even if you got the right answer! For instance, if you use the ASCII code to get a symbol, instead of using the 'Insert Symbol' function (or possibly the other way round - one of them anyway) it'll say you're wrong.

tawnyowls

seven-day-weekend wrote:

I live in Spain at the moment, but when I return to the UK in a couple of years I'll be about 58. I've had office jobs for most of my working life and have all the office skills. However, most of my work has been in customer services. I can (and do) type letters, but my typing would not be good enough to do reports, minutes , inserting graphs, things like that (if I had anything of this nature to do I sent it to the typing pool).

TBH, it probably would be - I scored 45 wpm on one test, which, once upon a time, wouldn't even get you a pass mark in a typing exam, but was considered by the agency to be 'excellent'. In any case, if you can touch type, a couple of weeks work will raise your speed enormously. In fact, while you're waiting to return, why not just put in the time practising if you can get hold of a PC? In any case, computer skills are more important than typing. The European Computer Driver's Licence (stupid, stupid name!) is now the EC qualification, so it's offered in most, if not all countries in the EC, and most courses leading to it are free - maybe you should consider doing that so you'll have a qualification to bring with you?

I agree with happyformonths - it's already started; NatWest are now proudly boasting that their customer service depts are based in the UK.

klondyke

urban_spirit wrote:

Klondyke - How do you find a matching specialist agency? Are there particular companies or areas of business that use one agency???

I Would love to work in a library initially or somewhere similar. Amongst other things I have a programming qualification and have worked around I.T. (before anyone knew what I.T. was!), i've been a corporate trainer and a executive manager.

Will I have any problems cos i'm in my early 40's?? It just occured to me the other day when reading someone else's experiences of jobhunting at 40+. I'm strongly of the belief that age does not matter one jot.

Many thanks

Have a look at http://www.clig.org/lists/list_recruitment.htm agencies in London but some list jobs elsewhere. I mainly worked for Aslib and TFPL, sometimes being put up for the same job by both - which was a good recommendation to the employer!

40 plus can be a problem, but not because of the agencies themselves but specifcations of potential employer. (There are ways of getting round 'discrimnation'.) I know that Aslib would take issue with employers if they mentioned age, but ultimately, employer will choose who they want.

Good luck