How do you start temping in London these days?

[BalloonSlayer]

DD has just graduated and wants to work while she decides on next steps/saves money to go travelling. She has retail experience but not office so I thought temping would be a good start.

Back in my day what you did was dress up smartly, print off ten copies of your CV, catch the train to Charing Cross or Victoria or wherever and go into the first five agencies you saw. They'd get to clap eyes on you, suss you out, talk to you, make you do a typing test. Then you'd go home and wait for the phone to ring, which it always did.

Are there any physical agencies any more? I have tried to Google them but just get redirected to their Web pages which only have loads of the same, presumably impossible to fill, jobs. I haven't even seen a "join our team of temps" section. From experience, most jobs get filled without having to be put online. But how?

Can anyone in the know advise please?

Try secsinthecity site and filter by Administrator and Temporary, and it will give you some agencies looking for temps.

I last temped 7 years ago so not up to date at all, but even then it had changed a lot from 20-30 years ago (the days of walking in with CV etc). There was a lot less work (I'm a PA) as there are less admin staff in general, and getting cover in for leave seems pretty rare. I didn't get any short bookings, but there were some longer term 3+ month contracts. For the short bookings as well there were ludicrous requirements like getting interviewed by the company itself (not the agency) just for a 2 week holiday cover. No travel fees covered so you were already out of pocket for that.

For the agencies, they tended to do phone or video interviews, and the typing tests etc were done at home, they sent a link to do it online.

Just to add, on secsonthecity you can also filter by companies recruiting direct, not through agencies. That might be an idea, to see if there are any short term contracts, to bypass the hassle of agencies (who advertise jobs that may or may not exist).

Thank you so much @Saverage for your advice, I have had a look and it looks great.