True Terms Glossary: Your Go-To Guide to Working with a Marketing, Digital and Creative Recruiting Agency

Becoming familiar with terms in the recruiting industry can be much simpler if you have a tool helping you navigate the landscape. So, at True Talent Group we’ve created one! Use this glossary to help learn terms so you can look for talent (if you’re a hiring manager) or job hunt with confidence and clarity.

Be sure to check out our FAQs for clients (businesses) and FAQs for talent (job seekers) to learn even more. True Talent Group is your advocate!

Common Terms:

Client: A client is a business or hiring manager seeking talent (workers) to fill a job or multiple jobs. Clients get access to our database of more than 16,000 top Twin Cities marketing, creative and digital talent.

Talent: The individual looking for a job – whether it’s a short-term position or permanent placement. We work with top talent across the Twin Cities!

Recruiter: A recruiter works with talent in order to find a short or long-term job that fits perfectly for the person seeking work. Someone looking for work can seek help from a recruiter that’s experienced in their industry. The True Talent Group difference is that we look for BOTH culture and skill fit!

Headhunter: This is an “old school” term that refers to someone hunting for the right talent.  It’s not really used anymore by recruiters, but it definitely is a term that gets traction and is often confused with the term “recruiter”. If you want a good relationship with your recruiter, be sure to call them a recruiter and not a headhunter!

Staffing agency: Staffing agencies typically fill short-term roles and are hired by a client (a company) to fill temporary roles at an organization. Staffing agencies work with both clients and talent for short-term/temporary roles. The day-to-day role of a staffing agency is much more transactional than consultative.

Recruiting firm: Recruiting firms work with clients and talent. Likewise, recruiters work with talent seeking jobs and those who are not seeking jobs. A recruiter will find the right talent for any type of job placement – ranging from contract jobs to direct hire jobs. If you’re looking for a job, a recruiter will work with you from the job search all the way through placement. If you’re looking for talent, a recruiter will review their existing talent pool and work with you until the job is filled. Recruiting firms (or agencies) take a consultative approach to working with both clients and talent!

Temporary jobs/temp job: Temporary work could be anywhere from a few hours, to several months or even years! It depends on the need of the business, but temporary (or temp) work is often classified as short-term work that’s focused on a specific project or contract.

Freelance work: Freelance work is much like temporary/temp work. An individual can get hired to do freelance for a project, short or long-term freelance work.

Contract work: Contract work can be found in nearly any type of industry – including marketing, digital and creative. It’s typically longer in duration than temp work and can sometimes turn into direct hires (meaning the talent gets hired full-time at the company) depending on the company and type of contract work. As a contractor, you’re paid by the agency that hired you.

Direct hire: A direct hire job means that a recruiter looks for a person to take on the permanent role. Direct hire roles can be part-time or full-time positions. This means you start directly as an employee of the company hiring you – not the recruiting agency.

What’s the difference between these?

Recruiting agency v. recruiting firm: The words agency and firm are interchangeable when it comes to describing a business that does recruiting. At True Talent Group, we typically go with agency!

Recruiting v. staffing: While these two terms are similar, they have different meanings. Recruiting typically refers to the process of finding candidates for contract and permanent placement jobs. Recruiting agencies stick with job seekers until they are placed and fill both hourly and salary pay jobs. Staffing is often tied to short-term project placement or temp work, and staffing companies use job postings to get job seekers to come to them. Most staffing jobs are hourly positions in industries like production, manufacturing and other hourly-pay industries. True Talent Group is a top-quality recruiting agency!

Employee v. contractor: An employee is paid by the business they work for. If you’re a contractor, you’re paid through the agency (or firm) that hired you. When you work with True Talent Group, you can be an employee of True Talent Group even if you’re working on multiple contracts or you keep getting new contracts as soon as one ends. Did you know that we offer benefits for our employees? Check them out on our Find Work page!

Contractor v. employee pay: There are a few different ways to get paid when doing contract work, and that typically includes W2 and 1099 pay. One takes taxes out before the employee is paid and one requires the individual to pay the taxes on their own. If you have questions about the differences in ways you get paid for projects, just let us know!