Temp agencies in L.A.--know a good one?

November 30, 2015 11:48 AM

For colored girls who have considered temp work when the tech world is enuf: I'm looking for temp placement agencies in Los Angeles while I ride out this mid-career career change.

I'm a mid-thirties, visible minority, digital media analyst/client relationship manager who has been laid off due to company elimination two years in a row. And now I'm struggling in a non-media tech job that is a terrible fit, culture- and skills-wise (ever had the feeling you were hired by mistake)?

I want to exit the tech world, but am not sure what I want to do next (maybe go to school, maybe I'll figure out a new career path) and have decided to quit my job and temp for a month or so while I decide. I have a lot of admin/exec assistant experience in my history and am not above doing that again for a bit, although I would prefer something on the data-entry or analyst side of things.

Can you recommend any L.A. temp agencies that a) would be a good fit for my skills and/or b) wouldn't balk at my age or brown skin?

I've seen these questions, but they're a couple of years old and I thought there might be newer information:
https://ask.metafilter.com/207346/Temping-in-LA
Best-temp-agencies-in-LA

posted by tyrantkitty to Work & Money (5 answers total)

I had reasonably good experiences with Kelly and also with Robert Half (which has several different subdivisions for different fields.)
posted by SMPA at 11:52 AM on November 30, 2015

Best answer: If you have Excel skills, hit up the Accountemps division of Robert Half in particular. I have lots of accounting department customers who get temps from them for data scrubbing or misc reporting/order management during busy sales periods (which started last week).
posted by Lyn Never at 12:00 PM on November 30, 2015

Best answer: Oh, one other thing you might look into - I have heard (informally) that a lot of the universities in town direct-hire temporary/short term employees (particularly for admin) rather than go through an outside agency. No idea if that's true but you might hit the websites and see.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:03 PM on November 30, 2015

I have worked on the employer end with Robert Half, and they seemed great.
posted by 4ster at 2:31 PM on November 30, 2015

 I have heard (informally) that a lot of the universities in town direct-hire temporary/short term employees (particularly for admin) rather than go through an outside agency.

Don't know LA specifically but, yeah, a lot of big universities have their own temp-staffing office now, where they coordinate requests for temp workers across campus. Worth checking if you think you might enjoy an academic environment.
posted by mediareport at 2:31 AM on December 1, 2015