OUR STORY

Why he nearly quit after 5 days…

In 1966, about five days after we opened, Sandy Poritzky, owner and founder of THE SKILL BUREAU, was lucky, charming and persistent enough to set up a meeting with the Supervisor of Employment at Harvard University. Sandy began the meeting by explaining the many benefits that such a fine school would reap from its association with a higher quality staffing service. After about 10 minutes, inexplicably the prospect raised her index and middle finger (to form what looked like the letter v). Sandy did not know what to make of this sudden gesture (except entertaining thoughts of victory in his mind), and so he stopped mid sentence.

She began, "You won't last more than two months."

Slightly dazed, Sandy asked, "Why?"

She replied, "Well, its like this. My parents owned a very successful temporary help service and I grew up in the business. Because of that, I can say that you won't be able to live up to the standards you've set; and even if you do, you'll never make any money, particularly because of your two-day, unconditional guarantee."

Her parting shot? "and besides, you're too personnel oriented" (the term "Human Resources" had not become popular back then).

The meeting proved to be auspicious, as THE SKILL BUREAU became one of Harvard's major staffing resources.

In retrospect, when the Supervisor of Employment at Harvard said we were "too personnel oriented," she probably thought that we were too applicant driven rather than client driven. She was probably right because we have always felt that it's our superior associates who make our reputation rather than vice versa.

Speaking of superior associates…

The late 60's and early 70's were exciting times for us. While our competitors very hesitantly hired the "social activists" (you know, the bearded and tie-dyed ones who were participating in and leading all of the protest movements of the time), we embraced them. After all, many of them were the best and the brightest of that generation, and they made fantastic temps! Why? Because in order to participate, they still had to eat, buy clothes, travel to Washington, etc. The flexibility of temp work was perfect for them! Of course, it also meant that periodically we were visited by the FBI wanting to know if we knew where so and so was. It sort of quieted down in the 80's. We haven't had an FBI visit in 20 years.

Probably the greatest lesson we learned during that period was that the Ivy League, 7 Sisters, Duke and Stanford weren't the only schools providing top-notch graduates -- other (alternative) schools such as Goddard, Carleton College, Oberlin, Bates, Cornell (of Iowa), etc., also produced incredibly well educated, motivated, and competent graduates.

As a result of our hiring during that time and the extremely positive feedback we were getting from our clients, we took what was an industry-leading Two-Day Unconditional Guarantee and increased it to three days. To this day, none of our competitors have enough confidence in their "temps" to match us. We're rather proud of that.

Did you know we have an in-house transcription business?

It's really an interesting story. In an effort to attract a niche market of organizations that preferred to outsource their transcription work, we set up a group of workstations with transcribing machines (for analog tapes) and IBM typewriters (Yes Virginia, IBM not only made typewriters but they controlled 85% of the market). For many years, the business served the Boston market, but was a very small adjunct to the staffing business. But in the beginning of the 21st century and the very quick transition to digital recording and the use of the internet to transmit audio, our business quadrupled in size with our market expanding worldwide (or at least the English speaking world). With over 85% of our business digital, we are coming very close to changing our name to leave out the "Tape" in Tape Transcription because less than 15% of our business is generated from tape. By the way, our specialties are academic content, oral histories and market research focus groups and interviews.

But, you may ask, what have you done lately? We thought you'd never ask.

Are you ready? Here's the kicker…

In 2003, we made a quantum leap in office support hiring by offering a select group of our clients and associates our Video Interview Service. Essentially, after a client selects candidates they're interested in from resumes and our evaluations, we make available a short 5 minute, non-rehearsed video interview. These video clips enable our clients to evaluate what realistically comprises 80% of the hiring decision -- the matching of personality, communication skills, professional demeanor, etc.

Incredibly enough, Sandy tried the same concept over 25 years ago (obviously before Al Gore invented the Internet) with a Super 8 camera resulting in complete and total failure, but realized then that he would have to wait for the Internet and streaming video to be invented. By the way, this state of the art use of the Internet was conceptualized by someone who probably ranks in the bottom 5th percentile of the technologically challenged population (Sandy, of course).

By the way, one of the interesting tidbits of Sandy's market research had to do with hundreds of short conversations with HR pros he conducted prior to investing in the video concept. He found that, if candid about recruiting, most HR professionals admitted that even after selecting qualified résumés based on experience, 3 out of 4 candidates are rejected within the 1st five minutes of a face-to-face interview. Why? Elementary, my dear Watson. 80% of hiring is based on matching personal attributes to a company's culture...not just experience.

For our associates, it's a great opportunity to experience what HR people call "first screening interviews" with a variety of firms and organizations without having to take a lot of time (or losing pay if they're working). Our clients, on the other hand, can experience multiple candidate conversations via our website. But that's enough about "Our Story." If you want to know more, explore our website. Then if you have any questions, let us know.

In order to ensure our objectives and market niche, we remain attentive, independent and personalized for our clients and our associates. As a result, our excellent reputation has continued to grow, primarily based upon our continued ability to consistently provide superior associates to very demanding clients.

For those who continue to be skeptical about staffing firms and to rebut the "they all say that" syndrome, we can only recommend that you try our service. You can be sure that Sandy will still take particular delight in telling you, "Told you so." Yes, you guessed right. After 41 years, he still comes into the office at 7am and leaves late. As his granddaughter Sophia might phrase it, he still is a pain in the butt about maintaining his cherished quality snobbery.

To learn more about THE SKILL BUREAU play around with the rest of our website. It won't hurt. Please feel free to Google Search our company's information.

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