There's a burgeoning new trend in hiring that has employers and prospective employees sizing each other up, like never before.

A view from one side of the desk...
The classical approach to acquiring and filling the myriad of semi-professional and professional positions available in today's workplace, no longer works. For employers it's time consuming, it's costly and, in many instances, it's inaccurate and fraught with enough legal pitfalls to make Clarence Darrow cringe.

The hiring process has traditionally been an interlinking series of multi-level, inter-departmental functions including:

• classified advertising
• resume cataloging and review
• resume response both positive and negative
• initial candidate contact and screening
• initial interview
• candidate testing
• reference checking
• verification of credentials
• supplemental interviews
• job offers, negotiations and counter offers

If your first-choice candidate accepts the job, your search may have been successful, economic and efficient. If not, you will likely find yourself somewhere back near the top of the list.

Once the offer is made and accepted, a different set of interlinking, multi-level, inter-departmental functions are set into motion. These may include:

• physical examinations and drug testing
• on-the-job training
• mandatory probationary periods with functional performance reviews
• the 35% to 40% additional benefit-to-salary ratio for which you are now responsible

And there are still no guarantees. After all the machinations of the new hire process a candidate could still be hired who is barely adequate or is something less than whoever was in place before the entire process was begun.

The traditional employment process has evolved into an intellectual test of wills. For as many tests and interviews that a candidate endures, for as many different interviewers formulating opinions, and for the final decision maker who ultimately hires the individual to fill the position with the qualities, experience and knowledge to make a particular department shine; the entire process is illusionary.

The companies and organizations that, through advertising and networking, search for and fill the thousands of positions that open on a daily basis have very competent, professional and highly-trained human resources executives conducting the recruiting. But, the candidates have resources of their own, as well.

What with the self-help books, resume writing experts, interview coaches, job pooling networks, even information sharing on the Internet, it's much like the adversarial relationship that exists in our judicial system. While the company is looking for the perfect candidate, they're searching for shortcomings too. The applicant, on the other hand, is striving to put only his or her best foot forward. No one will really know the outcome of the process until the new employee is in the position, and the company has committed certain resources to that new employee's well-being and job satisfaction.

And what happens when you hire the wrong employee? The nine categories of discrimination mandated by the federal government are expanded in most states to varying degrees of severity. The opportunities for litigation, well founded or otherwise, increase exponentially with each interview. Then there are the fair labor standards imposed by Washington once a hire has taken place, and a myriad of rules and regulations that are a living nightmare for the most well informed human resources department, even with a well-written Employment-At-Will policy.

The time and effort expended have become a drain of corporate resources not to mention a loss of productivity. And you are left sitting and saying, "There's got to be a better way."

The other side of the coin...
Looking for and acquiring a new position is no less difficult for prospective employees. It's time consuming, it can be de-humanizing and disheartening and it can create a severe case of nerves.

Why so stressful? First, there are the uncounted numbers of resumes sent without so much as a thank you, the rejection letters received with names spelled incorrectly, and then there's the waiting...it destroys self-confidence.

If candidates are really conscientious, they'll know as much about the company with whom they're speaking as the interviewers. Their resumes are newly printed and tailored just for the specific job opportunity. Their hair is styled perfectly, their clothes match, they've shined their shoes to brilliance - all the bases are covered. They are ready for this interview. Unfortunately, so are the millions of monarch butterflies that now reside in their stomachs. Then there's the sweaty palms, the frog in the throat, the imagined tongue swelling; all part of the dreaded job-hunting and interview process.

Of course, what follows the traditional hiring process, for many employees, is as much a purgatory as the interviews were a trial by fire. The probationary period for new employees, in which their performance is graded and people skills are assessed; their physical condition can be monitored; organizational skills tested, and so on and so on...talk about stress. They know that everything they do or say is being judged and, while they may be confident in their ability to perform the job functions advertised, the rest of the working environment and managerial idiosyncrasy are uncharted waters. Supposedly, all this information and interaction is covered during the interview process. In honesty, though, many employers take certain environmental aspects for granted and surprise (and in some cases, horrify) new employees who, for example, are totally unaware that their office was actually a converted storage room, next to the boiler.

"Is this job what I signed on for?" "Are these the kind of people I really want to work with?" The questions are real. They may never be vocalized, and may not even be well founded, but the trepidation is genuine, just the same.

The audition...
The current downsizing and outsourcing management philosophy in practice today has put a different and major emphasis on departmental efficiency and flexible staffing. This lean and mean office mentality has given the temporary help industry an opportunity to grow and mature. The industry as a whole has responded admirably and some of the best and brightest young talent, and many of the most experienced workers, can now be found in the temporary help agency's rosters. As a result, the concept of "auditioning" employees was born.

Hypothesize for a moment that as an employer you could install temporary candidates who are generally prequalified into any new position or reopening position in your company, without having to commit any additional benefit-oriented resources other than wage. Imagine having the ability to test candidates against your organization's particulars in a normal day-to-day environment without a long-term commitment.

Employers can concentrate observations on critical job functions and responsibilities, as well as evaluate employees' interpersonal skills with senior and junior staff, and their peers. Invest training time rather than force-feed new employee procedural information in a tight deadline manner, taking time to correct missteps or perceived inadequacies. Or, employers can terminate the situation without involving state, federal, local and internal corporate regulations. What's more, this usually happens at a pay rate that saves the 35% to 40% in benefits a new hire would cost. In other words your search process has become a purely hiring procedure.

The auditionee...
As for prospective employees, there is another way to approach the hiring process, as well. A situation in which candidates can evaluate positions before having to commit to them "forever." Temporary work is an opportunity where "employees" can test the corporate waters at a new position without having to commit their entire life, swear undying fealty and offer their first born children as evidence of interest. They can have the opportunity to take positions and assess them against their expectations, instead of having to swallow hard and take jobs because they're the best thing available in the market, right now. By working as temporary employees, job seekers have the opportunity to objectively survey the working environment in which they are placed. Temporary workers can interact with co-workers to see if there is a personal fit. They can judge for themselves whether or not the current position is one that they would like to make permanent.

Temporary employees can view the corporate hierarchy objectively as well as the manner in which job responsibilities are delegated. They can judge for themselves whether or not the job specifics are suited to their personal requirements. Temporary employees, have the opportunity to try out assignments and get the feel of positions. They can assess whether or not this situation is what they would pursue as a career or is this job the change in career direction for which they've been looking. As employers assess the abilities temporaries bring to the table, The temporary workers, themselves can interact with fellow workers and find a niche with less critical oversight by management than if they'd been permanently hired. While management measures the expertise with which they accomplish their assigned responsibilities and the way they "fit in" with the other employees, temporaries can simultaneously judge the workplace environment. And, both can decide on the acceptability of each other. In other words, temporary workers have the opportunity to look at a company and project a future, or remove themselves before an employment mistakes are made.

A two way street to satisfaction.
The idea of hiring temporary employees to fill permanent positions on an "audition" basis isn't new. In fact, it's been around for more than a quarter of a century. Today, 40% of the over two million temporary employees in the nation's workforce are eventually offered full-time employment. And this trend is growing for some very good reasons. For employers, most attractive is that all the prehiring processes have already been accomplished, without wasting your time. Effort and money are saved and your liability is minimized. In many cases, even if the temporary help service is merely adequate their testing procedures may far exceed that which you will perform. More references are checked in greater depth and the candidate that you are assigned has already been prescreened and matched to the requirements you've established.

In many situations employers of temporary help find that the people who fill short term assignments are well suited for the position on a permanent basis. By monitoring these temporary workers, employers are given the ability to assess, evaluate, judge and grade the individual on all levels of ability and interpersonal skills, at their leisure, and choose to proceed with the hiring process, continue the "temporary" status of the employee or replace the individual if some attribute is found to be wanting.

The "employee audition" can be simple. It doesn't include the time wasted on all the searching, interviewing, testing, negotiating and hoping that your next candidate will be the one you hire instead of the eleventh or fifteenth. What it involves is being able to decide what you as an employer want your next employee to be able to do. It incorporates the opportunity to judge that employee "on the job" without putting the company and all its resources on the line. Ultimately, it lets you do the things for which you are paid, lets your employees do the things for which they are remunerated and makes someone else do all the worrying.

Today, with economic conditions as they are, with corporate re-engineering and productivity paramount in the minds of many managers, it's not surprising why an increasing number of employers are letting temporary help firms fill vacancies, either short-term or long. In almost any field or specialty, the help they need can be found on the rosters of temporary help firms.

Prospective employees should also consider "the Audition" as a valuable job search strategy, when you consider the number of those who work as temporary employees who are offered permanent positions, the chances of finding the type of employment that suits an individual certainly increases as compared to resume sending and finger-biting. Then, there's the flexibility of working where and when a job hunter wants, as well as the opportunity to audition a company before they choose to make their business life there. They can widen their horizons before settling down to a permanent career choice. They can remain visible in the workplace and build networking opportunities. All this, and the comfort of knowing that their hands don't have to sweat, nor does their tongue have to swell when they're looking for that perfect job. Now, that's a positive change after all.

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