Tim Whitney - The Fast Track 50: The Get-Ahead Guide for Temporary Employees

The Fast Track 50 is a simple system designed to improve your chances of achieving a full-time position.

The 50 tips are designed to help anyone get quickly up to speed on the basic team-building requirements for any company. These 50 steps are considered minimum requirements by many of todays employers.

Lets face it, as temporary or even permanent employees, we all have the same basic needs, wants, and desires:

In seeking to be successful, productive, and profitable, companies also have basic needs, wants, and desires. These apply first to their overworked front-line managers, then carry over to their hourly employees, and finally to their temps, which they hope to use to form effective, high-performance teams and, when growth becomes stable, potentially hire as full-time employees.

Unfortunately, if you look at a companys priority list, temps are often at the bottom. With managers tied up in managing change and resolving conflict, and focusing on the bottom line, they have little time to orient, train, or evaluate. In fact, the most they can do is apply the basic job expectations to most temps on a consistent basis. As a result, companies quickly cut loose temps who dont have basic team-building skills to fit their needs.

In short, if temps dont walk in the door as reliable, high-performing team members, they are quickly replaced, and their job prospects grow dimmer and dimmer. It is what I call the temp hire-fire cycle. That is the harsh reality of life as a temporary employee.

Fast Track 50 is a valuable insider look at how you can break that cycle, and become part of the temp-to-permanent employee cycle.

1970s Motto

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

Fast Track 50 Motto

The SMARTER I work, the luckier I get.

In todays tough economy, more than 2 million Americans are forced to use temporary agencies every day to seek employment. Some even have college degrees and years of respected work experience.

If you are reading this book, chances are your ultimate goal is to quickly obtain permanent employment.

There is one main difference between temps who are retained or hired permanently and temps who are replaced: the ability to immediately step in, know the companys team-building rules, and adapt. The quicker you can demonstrate your knowledge and acceptance of these rules, the greater your chance of transitioning into a permanent position.

To do that, you must do one thing: work smarter to quickly become a team player. Temps who quickly show themselves to be team players in their new environment reduce the amount of stress and work for a manager; reduce company conflict; and save companies time, aggravation, and money.

• What if I can tell you how to leap past the majority of temps youre competing against just by following 50 simple tips?
• What if I can assure you that these 50 basic team-building tips are exactly what the managers who want to hire you are looking for?
• What if I can give you tips from the very people who hire you, but are so overworked they dont have time to train you?
• What if I can tell you that by focusing on these tips, you can increase your chances of actually growing and advancing with the company that hires you, dramatically increasing your chances of having not just a job, but also a career?

When you work on your car, you need the right set of tools. By the same token, to find permanent employment, you need to have all the right tools for todays competitive work environment. Ive developed The Fast Track 50 as the essential set of tools needed to speed your job search and transition you from temporary to permanent employee. Its an insiders list of basic attitudes, behaviors, and actions that will improve your chances of quickly morphing into an existing team (I call this teaming) and into an established work environment, thus reducing the workload for managers. If you can quickly perform as part of a team, you save the employer a lot of money and increase the chances they will hire you permanently.

Temps Ive seen move rapidly through the ranks and become permanent employees have a whatever it takes mentality. I call this mindset Yahafta wanna, meaning you have to want to change, work smarter, and quickly adapt in order to survive and obtain employment.

When you follow the tips in The Fast Track 50, you will not only fit the requirements of most employers, you will outshine the majority of competing temps. If you dont follow the tips, you will be replaced.

Remember one important thing: In the world of temporary employment, PERCEPTION IS REALITY. Only the best of the best stand a chance of getting hired. If the moment you walk in the door, you cant meet the basic requirements, you dont stand a chance of gaining permanent employment.

• If you dont you have the time to read this book cover to cover, you simply arent willing to invest in yourself.
• If you arent willing to follow 50 simple tips, you arent really motivated enough to find a full-time job.

All of my working life has been spent building a career, continuing my education on team-building, and compiling hands-on research for this book. During my 22+ years in manufacturing, I have been continually promoted, flourishing as a Production Supervisor, Superintendent, Manufacturing Manager, Plant Manager, Quality Manager and, most recently, VP of Operations for three different companies, all while running my own international manufacturing consulting company.

I have hired, fired, coached, and worked side-by-side with thousands of temps looking for a permanent job. Ive also worked hand-in-hand with more than two dozen temp services.

I know first-hand what temps are going through and how challenging and stressful it is to transition from temporary to permanent employment. I started out as a temp with my first employer and, within three months, became a full-time employee. Less than nine years later, Id advanced with the same company through seven positions and was successfully running a multi-million dollar, 200,000 square foot manufacturing facility by the age of 34.