It has been my experience in the past few months to find that many placement agencies that hire, do not tell people that there is a long wait before getting that first pay check.
Meanwhile, if you don't have anything to fall back on, you are in trouble. Say, you finally found a good job, and you are happy and excited about it, you must also be conscious of the fact that there can be delays in receiving your first check.
Large corporations hiring people as contractors, which is the trend nowadays, work through agencies.
These agencies pay people sometimes once a month, and if you fall between pay periods, you can wait up to two months.
Employment agencies that start you and are happy that you were able to get into a good company through them, do not always make you aware that there may be a long wait until you receive that first check. Sometimes it can be one or two months resulting in a long dragged out time waiting for that check, especially if you have been out of work for any length of time.
Another thing is that some agencies will hold back on two weeks salary and never let you know their policy at the time you are hired. Therefore, when you get that first check, it isn't what you expected because you are missing some weeks and even the taxes seem very, very high. It use to a standard one week that was held back, but times have changed. You will get the two weeks at the end of the assignment, which I am sure works out well in the end, but not at the beginning where there is most need.
At every turn, there are obstacles to wait out that time for the first paycheck.
The delayed payment is the most frustrating, difficult thing to bear when you have been sending out thousands of resumes and hoping for that job to come through, struggling day by day to keep your head above water, and then counting on the pay check.
You can take that one sigh of relief when you finally get hired, and then get hit with this annoyance that can make your life more troublesome. To even have that new job it takes money for every day expenses, which can run very high: Not to mention necessities, such as, eye glasses, clothing, car expenses, lunches, etc. Be prepared to wait it out.