not necessarily/ many temp positions are indeed exactly that, a temporary need, not 'I’ll check out this person and if they work out, I’ll hire them"
Not necessarily. I worked temp for several years, was consistently told that I had impressive skills and attitude*, and still never got an offer to work permanently for my temp client until I had taken the civil service exam (the client at that time was a county agency) and had already accepted a state job.
*If people falling all over me for my skills and my experiences with my fellow temps are any indication, it’s not all that hard to impress in a temp position. Basically, all you really need to do is show up on time, actually work, and not sneak off every 15 minutes for smoke breaks.
I take a lot of pride in my work! That hardly makes me an egotist. You’re hyporbolizing what I said.
And yeah, it’s true, not all temp jobs are going to hire you, no matter how good you are. A lot of temp agencies misrepresent this, I think, in order to entice talented people to temp with the expectation that they’ll pick up a permanent job, sooner or later.
No harm no foul-- hope you don’t get banned 
The issue isn’t you taking pride in your work, it’s bashing everyone you’ve ever worked for–they are all stupid, take advantage of you, etc. It’s not that you think you are good, it’s that you are coming across as someone who thinks you are better.
I mean, I think I’m an amazing teacher, but I think I am surrounded by impressive people, as well.
Exactly - thank you Manda JO. Hey, maybe you are a super star, what do I know, I don’t even know you. But it’s also possible that there’s more going on and you could think about what you are doing or what attitude you might be bringing in that is causing you trouble.
Are people who were born in the 80s considered to be Gen-X? Since Gen-X is supposedly the children of the Baby Boomers, many of who would’ve been in their 20s from 1966 to about 1976, there are Gen-Xers old enough to have a kid NightRabbit’s age.
</hijack>
The thing with a temp to perm higher is generally it requires paying the temp agency some ridiculous amount of money. For relatively low-skilled positions that are easy to fill, it might well be a lot cheaper to hire and train someone brand new off the street than keep a temp to perm.
I stopped in here to say what catsix just said.
I run a couple carwashes in Cincinnatti and I definetely get a red flag when I see a “job hopping” application. But these are usually people that have skipped out on a handful of fast-food type jobs within a couple years, and usually list the “reason for leaving” as “personal” or “will discuss in the interview”.
Generally, I don’t hire these people because they have a track record of being unreliable, but I take other things into consideration as well, and if someone has “job hopped” and I give them an interview, I ask them about it and give them a chance to explain.
Yeah, I think that NightRabbit is more of what they call “Gen Y,” which means she’s even more of a slacker than us Gen Xers! (Just kidding! 
)
I hope you find something soon, NightRabbit…but my advice to you, based on my own experience, is to hang onto a job like the one you said you had right out of college. Mid-twenties isn’t THAT bad for a 22-year-old, and starting jobs aren’t meant to pay the big bucks…part of the “compensation” that you get is experience, and the opportunity to show future employers that you can stick to a job even if it isn’t the most exciting or the most well-paid job in the world. I have always worked for small, privately-owned companies, so I know very well what it’s like for the boss to be living the high life while economizing on employee salary & other expenditures. It sucks, but it doesn’t stay like that, especially if you are smart and you work hard. You are still only 25 years old, and the economy isn’t that great right now…I would grab any job I could, even if it pays like crap, and stick to it for AT LEAST 2 years, no matter how much it sucks. In the meantime, definitely rework your resume to show that you’ve been temping, as others have advised.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but it seems like you’re doing a lot of low-end administrative work. If this is the case, you’re not even on management’s radar, especially if you’re a temp worker. Companies typically don’t look at temps as human, and it seems that you’re expecting something different. Don’t. Companies that are hiring temporary workers usually do not intend to offer those workers permanent positions since the temp is usually filling for someone who’s out for a bit or they have a bunch of work that no one has time/wants to do.
I think what would help you is to get away from working temp jobs and ask an agency to place you permanently. That way you might be doing shit work for a year or so, but you’ll get to know your co-workers (a big thing you lack when working temp jobs) and your accomplishments are more likely to be noticed by management.
I don’t have my copy of “Generations” with me, but I believe they have Gen X running from 1963-1981.
What is the turnover rate at your carwashes, if I may ask? I would not have thought that would be a long term career path, but I may be wrong.
Which ones? My car is getting a bit salty and I’d love to support a fellow Doper.
It’s high. Almost all my (good) employees are high-school kids destined for college, and we’ve experimented with older retired folks (never worked out…you have to work outside in ALL weather, we never close, winter is our busiest time), girls (eh…let’s just say they don’t typically work out well either…don’t like the cleanup at night)…
The biggest issue is finding a day person that’s willing to work for approx $10/hr that essentially HAS no educational ambition and is also reliable.
We are an express exterior carwash, so we don’t do any interior work or wiping of any sort.
My high-schoolers love it, they make equal or better pay than fast-food jobs and I am a fairly laid back guy to work for provided the work gets done as I ask.
I am actually up against a wall with one store…we have had 4-5 really great employees that are all seniors and all going to college…and I have to replace them all with sophomores and juniors.
It’s a constant process of delaying inevitability, IMO.
WashPro Carwash…one in Western Hills on Glenway Ave (where I am based), and the other that I help run by proxy is in Westchester at the intersection of 747 and Union Centre Blvd.
We are actively fighting against the well-established Mike’s Carwash, they are infiltrating Cincinnatti, but are based in Indiana. They have like 38 locations, it’s crazy. They are one of the biggest operators in the country.
If you ever notice, there aren’t any national carwash chains. The biggest ones are all regionally-based.
Actually P&G is test-marketing in Cincy to determine if they want to throw their hat in the ring. They are using the “Mr Clean” logo as their face for the business.
Oh, and if you come, I’m the guy wearing the bowtie…it’s our schtick.
You had a permanent position (and apparently quite a responsible one) and left it because your salary didn’t exceed “mid-20’s.” Actually, that’s not quite correct: your OP makes it clear that your problem was that you deserved a bonus and a raise more than the owner of the company deserved to spend money on herself, which is strange when you seem to understand that the money wasn’t coming from the business in the first place. I can’t quite reconcile the mental picture of an owner who takes “long pleasure-trips to Europe every month” with one who’s engaged enough to personally discuss salary with still-wet-behind-the-mortarboard junior employees, but that’s my problem. Yours is that no matter how justified their complaint may be, new hires who take the trouble to resent the owner’s compensation package evoke more comedy than tragedy. You worked hard and were underpaid in your first year of employment out of college? That really doesn’t place you ahead of many of your competitors. Those who stuck with it while conducting their job searches had to muffle their moans some, but in return they gained an aura of stability and toughness and maturity, which are valuable qualities.
It’s not always just a matter of job-hopping: someone who moves frequently for the sake of financial gain or broader or deeper experience or even geographical advantage can often still match their resume to a coherent narrative of progress that an outsider can understand. You traded in that first job to become a temp, which does not show evidence of progress toward any kind of goal. Excellent as your work in those jobs may have been, the shine is dulled because no matter how well you do it, it will always be seen as “work that a temp could do.”
Another problem is that you’re so smart and hard-working and self-sacrificing while your employers and co-workers have been so uniformly venal, self-indulgent, stupid and sleazy. People who are as gifted and industrious as you can make it; but only if they are lucky enough to have been afforded planetary cohabitants who qualify as human beings: people for whose qualities the shining stars of the world can honestly manage to articulate some small appreciation: for some reason, people who make hiring decisions like that.
While we’re on the topic of silly employment prejudices, it may be advisable to put away for a time your discovery that hard work is never rewarded: if they find out you know that, it reduces your chances somewhat.
One last thought:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but
You did have a sense of being entitled to more than you agreed to, that sense did trump your loyalty to the company, and you didn’t stick around. You may want to concentrate on explaining how the experiences of the last few years have changed your ideas about work and yourself, rather than relying on a sarcastic tone.
Good luck, and please realize that at your age, a few good years in any job, with near-perfect attendance and glowing annual performance reviews of which you keep copies and regular, if not munificent, raises, are actually worth far more than an employer’s recommendation or lack thereof when you bid on a fulfilling career.
4 jobs from the time you left college until age 25 sounds like quite a bit to me. (Assuming the temp jobs were through different agencies, otherwise they should count as only 1).
When I was 25 I was only on my 3rd job, including my high school job at Wendy’s.
Oh, and whatever else a dislike for frequent job changes may be, it’s probably not a prejudice against youth: such a habit almost certainly works against older people more than young folks. On the other hand, older workers tend to have an aptitude for counting things, including various types of ads, for example, so you have to admit they’re legitimately one up on you there.
More seriously, “no job hoppers” in an ad means that would-be employees who have tended to stay in jobs longer will be preferred over others, perhaps even the talented and brilliant and attractive and young. An employer who measures and values applicants this way may not always get what s/he wants, but it’s certainly a defensible criteria for screening prospective workers.