MsRobyn;
I’ve heard that there can be a penalty (or fee) payable to the agency if a temp is hired on by the contracting company as a regular employee. Ever heard of such a thing?
Good luck. Sounds like you have a good chance. You just have to be more valuable to the company as a regular that as a temp.
Peace,
mangeorge
There is, actually. This is called “liquidated damages” in some states, and it arises because the temp is no longer able to generate income for the agency, having been hired permanently.
What a lot of agencies do is work this fee on a scale such that it’s higher at the start of the job and at some specified point (say 90 or 120 days, either is common), the fee is zero.
In my field, which is medical billing and reimbursement, working with a temp service makes the most sense because it offers contacts and connections that would be almost impossible for me to get otherwise. Additionally, it gives me access to better jobs than I could find if I were working solely from classified ads or Internet search boards.
Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Robin
Everyone’s pretty much covered the waterfront here – the answer is “it depends.” Too many unknowns to be sure why the new hire got more pay. I take issue with december – I’m in a human resources division of a local government agency and we’re not morons; we have the power that upper management grants us via the agency’s policies. In our case, we have a lot of power. The situation in the o.p. would not occur in our agency. The salary has to be approved by the recruitment office, and if it’s over a certain percentage, it comes to my office (Classification and Compensation) for review. That means we compare the applicant’s experience and qualifications with other employees with the same job title – we have the power to deny the requested salary based on this analysis. Sometimes we survey other local government agencies to get a feel for the market. We also do noncompetitive promotions – if an employee’s job has changed – higher level duties – the employee can request what we call a reclassification; we review the request and can grant or deny it. We’ve even overruled department heads. So, december, don’t be so quick to brand all HR people as morons. We have to work within the system…and some systems are better than others. 
Sorry Sycorax, I’ve had some experience in this area as well - worked with HR Departments on big, medium and small companies - and more often than not they were as december described them.
I’ll include only the ones I’ve worked with in that statement; but boy, it’s an overwhelming percentage even if it is a small sample. For some reason these folks really don’t want to be bothered with the business of the company -instead they want only to enfornce their policies. Policies are nice when they are well thought out, but not as something to cling to so you don’t have to bother to think too much.
I’ve seen companies lose plenty of good people because HR took too long, asked for too much paperwork, did not allow flexibility in negotiations, and just plain spit in the face of common sence. There are occasionally dedicated folks in HR willing to hustle and help out, but it is the exception in my experience.
regarding temps vs staff doing the same job I think the amount of money each ends up with at the end of the year is pretty much the same, give or take a few thou.
My experience is that the only real benefit to being a temp was that vacation time was much more liberal.
Being a temp I had no job security outside of the quality of my work (sometimes not even that counts when a company is shedding workers), no pension (although agencies might offer 401k, I haven’t come across one that offers a pension), no paid time off, no stock options, no decent health insurance, no “career ladder”, no corporate goodies like travel and outings and gym use, and so on. These things may not matter so much when you’re younger, but they become sweeter with age.
To make a high rate really pay off as a temp you have to put in many more hours than staff would, and some companies have a cap on that.
Just to add a little more info to what goes on with temps, I have been a temp for 5 1/2 years, and I’m still getting pimped-I mean hired out at the same rate now as when I started. This isn’t the place for this, I realize, but there needs to be a serious revolution in the temporary worker industry. We’re human beings, dammit, not disposable employees.
Not too many years ago there was an attempt to organize (unionize) temps in my area. It wasn’t very successful. Too many workers got scared.
Peace,
mangeorge