For Doris Finch, hiring a permanent worker based on a standard interview is like buying a car on a salesman's pitch.
Consequently, the human resources manager of Columbia-based Martek Biosciences Corp. no longer offers permanent jobs to most new laboratory technicians or scientists without a test drive.
She "rents" new employees from a temporary services agency for several months before deciding whether to take them on permanently.
If a potential hire doesn't work out, she doesn't have to fire him or her, then worry about a lawsuit. She tells the person the temporary job is over, and gets another applicant from the temporary agency. "It is the thing to do," she said.
A growing number of managers apparently agree.
At the Baltimore offices of Snelling & Snelling Inc., for example, only one in 12 temporary openings offered the prospect of permanent employment in 1991. Today, nearly half the jobs listed at the local offices hold out that promise, according to Linda Kaestner, managing director for the Baltimore area's Snelling offices.
While there are indications some employers are using temp-to-perm arrangements in an effort to get around anti-discrimination laws, many employers say they're simply reducing the hassle of hiring.
Many small companies are using the temporary try-outs so that they don't have to hire their own recruiters and personnel managers. Others feel burned by applicants who dazzled them during interviews but fizzled on the job, Ms. Kaestner said.
"Employers don't have time to waste" with hiring mistakes, she said.
Even the hiring experts are turning to "rent-to-own."
Susan Meisinger, vice president of the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM), said the Virginia-based trade association of personnel managers filled about 20 percent of its own openings this year through temp-to-perm arrangements.
The reason: The growing complexity of regulations preventing discrimination on the basis of race, age, gender, disability or the like has made it very confusing for those who are supposed to interview job applicants.
SHRM sends out warnings to its members that, for example, interviewers may open themselves to lawsuits if they ask seemingly innocuous questions such as "How old are you?" or "Do you have any children?"
And it is hard to verify an applicant's claims because most large employers won't provide references any more for fear of slander suits.
Interview process
"The interview process is a land mine" field, she said.
"It's a lot easier" to let a temporary agency screen out the hundreds of resumes and send an applicant in for a probationary period, she said.
For many job seekers, the boom in temp-to-perm jobs is just fine.
Craig Creamer, controller of Partners Management, a Baltimore-based real estate company, got his permanent job after a stint as a temporary accountant.
"I was working for a bank and my job was eliminated. I didn't know what was going to happen, so I temped just to keep my hands in the business and get some money coming in," he recalled.
He didn't mind having to prove himself all over again, he said.
Not everyone is confident that the trend is a good one though.
Dora McCray, laid off by Citibank this summer, signed up with temporary agencies even though she fears that employers may let factors other than job performance decide who gets coveted permanent jobs.
She said she knows of fellow temporaries who have done good jobs, but were denied permanent positions.
'Sense of bias'
"There can be a sense of bias," she said.
But she's going for temporary jobs, because that's all she can find.
"I've sent out 60 or 70 resumes and had six interviews in the last six months," she said. "I just don't seem to be getting connections. . . . [Temping] might help me get inside" a company.
"It's a crazy job market right now. Four years after graduating from college I've been laid off twice."
Having to settle for temporary work only adds to her anxiety, she said.
"Here I am, 30 years old, and things should be looking up for me. I should be taking the world by storm. But now I'm worried: Am I going to find a job?"
Some experts worry her fears may be well-founded.
Lynn Jenkins, counsel and policy analyst for the Washington-based National Commission on Employment Policy, said some employers may be using temporary work arrangements "to get around regulations" protecting workplace fairness for permanent employees.
Courts have allowed, for example, employers to fire temporaries for trying to unionize a workplace -- even though permanent workers may not be fired for similar organizing activities, she said.
And other courts have indicated that some kinds of temporary workers may not be protected by laws banning sexual harassment.
'Two-tier work force'
"You are creating a two-tier work force, a core work force with rights and privileges, and then a second tier" of workers who can be mistreated or even fired unfairly, she said.
At Martek, though, Ms. Finch insists that the trend is simply a way for managers to cut down on hiring hassles and costs, as well as ensure that all new hires are hard workers.
When she hired on her own, Ms. Finch would place a help JTC wanted ad, then would get swamped with 300 resumes and would ask all the top scientists at the company to help sift through them and interview the finalists.
Now, she just phones an agency, "and they send somebody over who already knows chromatography," for example, she said.
Working hard
Martek, which has seen its staff more than double to 73 since 1991, has offered permanent jobs to almost all the temps it has tried out because they have worked hard.
The temp managers have told the applicant: " 'You do not have this job, you are going to have to earn it,' " and they tend to keep working hard even after they get the permanent job, Ms. Finch said.
"Once they've worked hard for three months, the ethic is there."