The Talent Market

More than any other agency of its kind, MacTemps has sensed a shift in the rules of the workplace, and in response to that shift, it has oriented its business to the needs of its talent. At all times, the company orbits around a sun that it calls "the independent professional." "Our whole point in life is to help independent professionals build their careers," says John Chuang, the 33-year-old founder and president of MacTemps. "We put our talent completely at the center of our company."

The terms and conditions of employment are changing, Chuang argues. In a world of free agency, contracts are shorter. Feedback comes not in a yearly performance review but in a continuous cycle of bids and asks. So your price can vary widely, depending on market conditions and on your own performance. "It could go up, it could go down," says Chuang. "But it's a real market."

Chuang's mission is to help independent professionals play this new market to their advantage. He offers them what they need to manage their careers: the ability to find work, to get benefits, and to connect with others. What is MacTemps's distinctive marketplace advantage? "I think we price human capital much better than anyone else," he says, pausing for a moment. "Maybe we are an investment bank: We help bring people public."

Call it an IPO - an "independent professional offering."

II. The Security of Being a Security

Last year, an average of about 11 American companies went public every week - and by year's end, these 559 newly listed companies had raised a total of nearly $33 billion. In November, Curtis Garrison went public - and by midyear, he had raised his earnings by roughly 30%.

Back in 1996, when Garrison was a project manager at Nortel in Richardson, Texas, he got a plum assignment: to develop a Web site for the Dallas Cowboys. He couldn't do it alone. And he couldn't find the people he needed inside his company. So he turned to MacTemps, brought in a handful of designers and developers, and created a home in cyberspace for "America's Team."

But the experience left Garrison, now 29, feeling less at home at Nortel. "I was frustrated," he says. "I had to get approval for every little step. Then I looked at the people I had brought on from MacTemps, and I thought, 'They're not stuck. They're not frustrated.' " Being a buyer in the new talent market convinced Garrison that he ought to engineer his own IPO. So last November, he says, "I took my parachute and jumped out."

When he landed, he went straight to MacTemps. And he got the same reception that any other free agent would get: He had to vie for a spot on the roster. Garrison spent an entire morning being questioned about his experience and work philosophy by a half-dozen MacTemps talent agents. Then he spent an afternoon being run through his paces in the MacTemps computer lab. Then MacTemps talked to his former employers, customers, and colleagues. Just 10% of all applicants who go through the process end up meeting the agency standard; the rest lack either the know-how, the track record, or the personality to make it as a MacTemps free agent. Garrison made the cut.

Less than a year later, with eight assignments and two dozen Web-design and electronic-commerce projects under his belt, Garrison says that his market price is much closer to his real worth. Bureaucratic payroll policies no longer conceal his value. Instead, the market constantly reveals it. "At Nortel, to get a big salary increase, I would have had to leave the company and then be hired back on a different level," he says. "As a free agent, you just get on a new project, and the next week, you're making twice as much." Potential buyers, he says, "look at your stock report, your 52-week high. They say, 'This guy has performed well. He's a good investment.' "

Of course, if the economy tanks or the World Wide Web becomes the World Wide Waste, Garrison may not feel so bullish. Yet for Garrison, at least for the moment, there is security in being a security. His agent, Kent Mahan, provides much of that security. Mahan, 45, is a fourth-generation Californian with prematurely white hair. Earlier this year, he helped launch the WebStaff unit, and he now plays Jerry Maguire to about 30 Web designers and HTML coders. He says that he wants his people to understand that in a world of short-term contracts, relationships matter more than ever before. But he wants their most enduring relationship to be with him - rather than with the client they're working for at any given moment.

And Mahan works hard to make that point. He begins and ends every week by chatting up each member of his talent pool on the phone. He wants to know how things are going for them, what they're working on, what makes them tick. His office contains an emblem of his commitment to the talent's needs: One wall is covered with computer innards - circuit boards, motherboards, hard drives - all given to him by current and prospective talent. Just as he wants to be inside the talent's life, so he has stationed himself inside the talent's machine.