warehouse worker

forklift operator

assembler

production associate

packer

Randstad

Working for Randstad seemed great at first, but i soon realized it was very unstable work and the lack of communication was horrible. I would try to find out when my assignment [where i was working] was complete, but even my manager at my place of assignment didn't seem to know when i was leaving. Which makes planning vacations or life in general more difficult. I did not enjoy the instability of being a temp worker.

Randstad had me work for a Law Firm called Provest. The manager who was placed in charge of training me was extremely busy, did not have time to train me, called her family on her cell phone a minimum of three times a day just to ask how they were doing and would gossip with multiple employees for a minimum of around 15 minutes each person, everyday. There were literally whole days where i would sit at my desk, unsure of how to proceed with my work, waiting for my training manager to assist me. I tried to mail things out and close and open files but i did not feel comfortable doing such things without my managers approval after looking over the entire file. Apparently it came off that i was not picking up on the knowledge of the work fast enough to the head manager of the law firm. When my training manager had gone away on vacation for a week, i suddenly became responsible for placing everyones mail in their inbox's, which i had never done before. I was placed in charge of doing so because for whatever reason the secretary, normally responsible for doing so, wasn't capable of doing it some days and wasn't doing it correctly all of a sudden when she was. I personally was given 5 different peoples mail that wasn't part of the department i worked in, which had never happened before. An affidavit went missing, i was ultimately held responsible and i was not hired into the law firm.

Provest did not find me another job for four weeks. I had called multiple times and applied to positions on their website, i was ignored and told the person i was trying to contact was on lunch break multiple times that i would recieve a phone call back.

When i did finally get another job at Stony Brook University i scanned documents into a computer to make sure there was a back up file of each file on record in cause of an audit. I checked maintenance receipts to make sure they were all itemized correctly. I was not told when my assignment was complete, the head director at the SBU office i worked in did not know when my assignment was complete. One friday at five p.m. when i had just gotten off of work i was told my assignment was complete. Upon asking if i had done something wrong or why i was done so soon i was told if i was never late then the assignment was just complete, human resources just told them my assignment was complete. I no longer wanted to work for Randstad.

My co workers at both Provest and SBU would not say good morning back to me. Someone had actually called me a name in the lunch room, a woman i had never even talked to, at SBU. It was like being in high school and being the new kid that no one liked in both office settings and i was being picked on for no reason. I tried to make small talk but only a couple of ladies at SBU appreciated that and no one at Provest besides my training manager had time for small talk.

Overall management at both work places seemed out of the loop and too busy.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I had a decent recruiter that kept me informed.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
I was kept on for 15 months but I wasn't given a new contract after the original 3 month one ended. 
My recruiter did not push the company to give me a new contract, so. In reality. Even though I had an exceptional on time record and worked all of my shifts I had no way of knowing when I might be let go. 
The manager they brought in overlooked the tardiness and lack of dedication of the other workers. The new manager looked impaired and was quick to anger when I would suggest that there needs to be better support for us. Eventually, I believe, 
I was being harassed by the younger staff and not being allowed to train on new procedures by the manager because of my age. My recruiter did not help me retain this job or help place me. I am sure she was intimidated by the manager who overtly and falsly judged me.
The fact that the company kept me on for a year after my contract of 90 that I was contributing significantly.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Almost every day the supervisors would be late or not show up at all. When they were there they would often take naps and go out for or order food. For them food would be the most important issue of the day after napping.
Training was being given a few sheets of paper that you would be required to know without having any input for m the supervisors.
The manager did not understand what we did and because he seemed impaired he had a hard time making sense of it.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
We worked scheduled 12 hour shifts 9:30pm to 9:30am. We alternated weeks of 3 days on and 4 day on shifts with another crew that worked overnights. 2 more crews ran the 9:30am to 9:30pm Sunday to Tuesday or Sunday to Wednesday and Wednesday to Saturday or Thursday to Saturday start times. It was either really high pressure to restore systems that had failed or numbingly slow checking or updating data from the data center and all of the local or remote equipment and systems utilizing our client desk monitors and computers or the large projected monitor we viewed on the wall ahead of us. We also walked the data center and verified the status of all of the equipment and occasionally manually booting servers or restarting crashed systems.

So a typical day at work involved coming in at 8:30 AM and checking voicemail via the phone at your desk. Once that was complete you then log into your PC (Not the greatest of systems.) and then log into  Sametime (A Lotus Notes Application) and Microsoft Lync. Once you are in there you go ahead and go into your email and prepare yourself for the numerous task you must complete throughout the day which is anywhere from employees asking you how many occurrences they have (You have to keep up with them and at 6 they get the boot.) Or their pay check is wrong or they're going into training or someone has a Dress Code Violation or someone is missing and the TM needs to know where they are... From there once you have your handy stack of write ups for whatever ridiculous action one of the contractors has done now, you respond to these emails and address each one personally which can take a couple hours. On Monday, you would come in and start right on Payroll as it is due by 3:00 PM that day unless it's a holiday sometime that week and then it would be due at Noon... So from there you go do your walk around and deliver your write ups and by that time you are ready to take your one hour lunch (Yea!) Once you return from your one hour lunch you unlock your PC and check all Sametimes and Emails again throughout the day where you again get your write ups ready and this process usually takes until about 5:30 PM and at time you pack up and head out for the day only to get up and come back and do the same thing the next day. - A Day in the life of an Employee Relations Supervisor.

The Hardest part of the job is having to let people go for something that is totally in their control and after you've given them A verbal, written and a final warning for these acts and they do it again they then want to cry and ask you what they are supposed to do now? That was always the most difficult part of the job for me. It's hard but at the same time the person did it to themselves, sounds bad but it's the truth.

The most enjoyable part, even though I didn't get to actually experience it, is seeing one of your people go permanent at the position they are in. The conversion sheet might seem like a lot of work but it's not and it's actually one of the best parts of the job... Oh yeah and the One hour lunch, how could I forget about that?

I was hired to work a holiday job at the JC Pennys logistic center in Lenexa KS.  I started the beginning of December and I was very excited to find work and be able to provide Christmas for my children.  I was hired to wrap Christmas presents.  An easy task if we had proper equipment.  No decent scissors to cut paper or ribbon with.  I ended up buying my own.  Half the time we didn't have enough supplies or ribbon, tape etc and rarely did anyone check on us from Ranstad.  We had people stealing right and left and the ones they hired were felons. You could not trust anyone you worked with.  You had to be there early to even find a spot which you stood at for 10 hour shifts.  The mats were worn out so your feet hurt and your ankles swelled.  On the plus side they had a clinic you could visit.  Caferteria food was awful.  But the place was clean with good: security. We were never given any dates as to when our assignment would be over. I showed up the day after Christmas and there was hardly any work. I asked if we were done and not one person knew that answer.  I live a ways away so it was costing me too much in gas to stay 3-4 hours. Instead of 50 -70 hour weeks we at 20.  I was told so many different things about the end date.  Very frustrating.  I was never given an actual schedule until 3 weeks in.  By then 16 days worked in a row.  My car broke down the 26th after my shift.  I called and was told work was pretty much over anyways and to call back when I needed to return to work.  My car Sat in the shop a week and I couldn't afford to fix it.  I ended up buying a new car by this time I'd been gone two weeks but I'd remained in constant contact with Ranstad. They said I could return to the warehouse and they would call me back. 3 times they never called me.  I asked why and I was told I had attendance issues.  Which until my car broke down I had none.  I understand they didn't want to keep me after my car failed but not once did anyone say the truth they strung me along and lead me to believe I had work to return to. Once hired Ranstad basically ignored us.  My pay was messed up on several occasions but there was rarely anyone on site to fix it. I wasn't impressed by the lack of assistance given after hire they seemed to be unorganized.

Randstad placed me with the Aon Corporation.  A typical day would be working in an inbound call center receiving calls from employees of major companies, mostly Fortune 500 companies.  I worked with employees from companies such as:  Honeywell, Pepsico,  AT&T, Allstate, Kimberly Clark, Continental Airlines. 
Although my job title was Customer Service Representative, I feel the job title should have been Human Resource Benefit Specialist because that is what I did.  Aon was an outsourcing agencies for the major companies, which my section was their benefits packages for employees.  I answered the telephone according to what company I was working with.  The employees were given the telephone number as their Human Resource Department. 
A typical day consist of inbound calls from employees to answer questions about their benefit packages, enroll them in their benefit packages or walk them through the steps to enroll and select the desired benefit or adding a newborn, adding a spouse, changing their medical, dental or vision plan.

The most enjoyable of my job was working in a high tech establishment.  Every aspect of the job was paperless.  The employees were easy to assist.  I did not receive any angry employees.  Their were restaurants on the building and parking was excellent.

The hardest part of my job was the lack of assistant and the rudeness of my management staff.  They did not want to take any escalated calls.  When we were unable to assist the customer, we had to tell them that and let them talk to their physical personnel office.  Management refused to assist us even though they told us to contact them in a chat box if we were unable to assist the customer.

What I learned from working for Randstad is it was only a temporary position, but once the assignment was over which was after the enrollment period was completed no one was called back again.  The way I was let go was not a simple admission of the enrollment, but my work performance was challenged even though employees call back constantly to let management know what an excellent job I did in assisting the employees.

I enjoyed working for Randstad, because the job assignment they provided me with was a great fit for me, I worked with the Corporate Call Center, on the Humana Part D Prescription Drug Plan Open Enrollment Season in 2011.

I was an inbound customer service representative, a position in which I was happy to accept, because it was the field of work that I always wanted to enter, working for Corporate Call Center was an excellent opportunity , the staff was very accomodating to all.

The managers in the corporate call center were awesome they offered assistance and feedback on your performance often, they provided through training and made it easy to understand , offered many different incentitives on a daily basis, gift cards, pizza, dinners etc.

A typical day would be to arrive at work 15 minutes early have my coffee, and then log in at my scheduled time, from that point It was time to work, I answered 100 to 300 calls per day, explained Humana's Part D plans and options to seniors,

navigated through the system for information requested or needed to complete enrollments, or assist seniors in finding the right plan to meet their needs, I researched the different prescription drugs covered under the various plans, multi-tasked with washboard to retain data to prevent repeating questions or data already provided to ensure the accuracy of data processed,

quickly erased data after each call to prevent exposing sensitive information,and to discard of it completely, because customer information should be confidential and used only to process the enrollment, transferred calls to Medicare Advantage Plans, and completed enrollments,

I learned a lot about Humana's plans, medicare, medicaid, AHIP, supplemental insurance, selling and marketing insurance along with the rules and regulations and procedures., I would welcome an opportunity to work with them again definitely, I wish the assignment had been longer. Randstad this was a great opportunity keep up the good work .

• Accountable for managing the installation of cabling and hardware of the Enterprise Unified Communications Platform in 18,000 agent offices including routers, phones, cabling, and related digital VOIP hardware 
• Perform site audits, ensuring a less problematic visit two and identifying accountability for failures, essentially reducing revisit cost  bringing the project in under budget and ahead of schedule
• Work with various local exchange carriers to proactively identify potential configuration issues such as T1 PRI, SIP configurations, VOIP hardware and Adtran systems
• Responsible for identifying potential phone service incompatibilities and current phone system type to ensure proper provisioning of UC phone system 
• Assisted installation technicians in identifying issues which would result in a failed install, ensuring that affected offices are returned to service in reasonable time frame
.• Responsible for managing the installation of cabling and hardware of the Enterprise Unified Communications Platform in 18,000 agent offices including routers, phones, cabling, and related digital VOIP hardware
• Established trunk stock requirements for vendors to reduce cost of visit one installations by preventing revisits and assigning accountability for failures associated with back office vendors
• Implemented site audit procedures, ensuring a less problematic visit two and identifying accountability for failures, essentially reducing revisit cost helping to bring the project in under budget and ahead of schedule
• Work with various local exchange carriers to proactively identify potential configuration issues such as T1 PRI and SIP configurations, VOIP hardware and Adtran systems 
• Responsible for identifying potential phone service incompatibilities and current phone system type to ensure proper provisioning of UC phone system
• As a SME our team increased ticket production from 5-10 a week to 15-20 a day
• As Cisco Unified Communication Cabling SME team member our team was responsible for decreasing the installation error rate from 78% failure to a less than 2% failure rate

As an entry-level role, this position gives you all the hands-on experience you can ask for in dealing with rack-and-stack and cabling of enterprise hardware, hardware troubleshooting, and incident management. The tasks given are well-defined with a structured workflow. If you understand the documented processes thoroughly and participate fully in on-the-job training during your first few weeks, you'll be valuable quickly and gain a sense of confidence in what many may find as daunting work.

You'll be working in a mission-critical atmosphere, so you must be keen on detail and work cautiously. An ideal candidate asks a lot of questions; is capable of handling moderately difficult physical tasks; has a sense of neatness and is organized; can operate computer applications quickly and efficiently; has good technical writing skills; has good dexterity; works well under pressure; has good people skills, and pays attention. These are the intrinsic traits of an Engineer that will do very well. Many of the technologies and skills will be learned on the job, but it's nice to have some IT/PC experience (e.g., held previous IT role or has A+ certification). 

You'll work with vendors on a daily basis, but after a while, you'll simply think of them as part-time co-workers and will build an ongoing relationship. I enjoyed my management and co-workers greatly. Everyone is very respectful, down-to-earth, and knowledgeable. We shared a lot of laughs!

I worked 12-hour night shifts on a rotating schedule and lived an hour away. I'm not a night person, but even then, I was able to maintain. The best way to work nights is to stay occupied and engulf yourself fully into getting things accomplished. If you do, you will be recognized and rewarded.

If you're looking to go into a network administration, a system administration, or a project management career path, this is a great opportunity to start with. There is ample opportunity for advancement if you show your worth.

Randstad is a staffing company that sets up a front of trying to help you establish a carrier. They try to bend somewhat grey areas of business law to achieve more revenue through your employment with Randstad. They expect their employee base to be too stupid or desperate to do anything about it. An example I can give is while working for them I was given payed time off as part of my benefits. However, Randstad would not make the amount of pto I had available to me. Instead I had to ask my manager who had to email their manager, who then had to email another person, and the response I would get would not be a representation of my actual pto. Instead I would be told I had "two days off I could take" not the amount of hours I actually had of accrued pto, and often times the pto I was told I had available was far less than I should have had. I could not dispute this because I was not allowed access to my actual accrued pto.

They are also extremely against the idea of you achieving a permanent position with your assigned company as they no longer generate revenue off of your employment with you. In my case, I worked for a company for three years with my lowest performance review over that period of time being a 4.86/5. Even when the company wanted to make me a permanent employee, Randstad would not allow it as it would incur them a loss to their headcount and a loss of revenue.

Because I was working very hard to build a carrier, I became extremely skilled at my job, and began working with the engineers at my company in order to solve more complex problems, simply because I was the only person with the knowledge to help solve them. Randstad was completely unaware of this and simply didn't care, and thus, the work I began actually doing outpaced what I was getting payed to do.

I would not recommend working for this company if you are seeking to establish a carrier for yourself or if you are a talented individual, you will be taken advantage of for the duration of your employment.

Although Randstad projects themselves as a superior staffing service, and dedicated to finding permanent positions for their "talents," they seem to always be understaffed or overworked - and the work that they are securing or organizing for their talents is mostly minimum to slightly-above-minimum wage work; temporary, manual labor, and uncertain projections as to the talent's future at the assignment.

I'm not certain if this is the case with all other staffing agencies, but it seems that so much of their time is used in securing minimum wage and temporary positions, this leaves them no time to search for truly worthwhile, permanent, and well-paying positions for their talents with substantial education and experience.

I have often felt "forgotten" after leaving voice messages and countless e-mails, only to be contacted after weeks or over a month, just to answer one question: "No, we don't have anything right now."

My final nitpick about Randstad is that they often will receive a simple request for a type of talent by a client, then over-complicate it by adding their own criteria before selecting a talent. This leaves many jobseekers out there who are stationed at Randstad in a sort of "limbo" position, waiting to get "lucky."

The job market is never as bad as an employment agency will tell you that it is - they make it seem much worse "out there," out from under their protection and assistance. They make you think that the only way anyone will get a job anymore is through them.

Furthermore, plan to be told that "you will never make that kind of money again in this economy." Because Randstad and other staffing agencies exist to make money FIRST (their main goal), they do not want to permanently lose their "farmhands" who are keeping the "farm" running and bringing in the commission. Why would you want to lose the means to make money by sending your talents "out there" to possibly find a permanent, direct-hire position?

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