To gamble. Leaving unfulfilling, full-time job for temping?

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Is temping the new future to finding gainful employment? That is the question I asked myself as I've come across a dilemma and that is I've graduated college, I have a full-time job, but that job has absolutely nothing to do with my field of study and I'm miserable there. The job pays well but it won't give me any marketable skills (by the way I'm a merchandiser for a soda company) and it's a dead-end path. I've made a decision to cut my hours to part time so I can find a new full-time a job though a staffing agency.

My main question is has anyone used temp agencies and if so, have they had much success with them? I've used one before when I was in college to do seasonal work in warehouses but this time I am using temp agencies to actually try to find a career, not just a simple, low skilled job to help me make extra cash. I've read a lot of articles about how people starting out in the job market can benefit greatly from temp agencies because they will give them a lot of work experience that other jobs often ask for and they will have a much better chance getting the jobs they couldn't' get before when they were college grads without experience.

Of course I have my doubts and worries about this gamble. I'm afraid that either I'll be placed in bad assignments, the agencies won't be helpful at all, or they will barely call me and I won't get a lot of assignments at all which means I'll be making a lot less money than I am right now. My full-time job offers a guaranteed pay check every week. Temping does not. I also ideally would like an assignment to go permanent but I understand the percentage of getting hired on permanently is less than 50%.

The way I see it though, I will be better in the long run working more relevant jobs for less money now instead of working a permanent full-time job that pays better right now but is dead-end and won't give me much career growth potential or marketable skills in the future. I think perhaps many of us in that situation right now and are afraid of change. I think having to work in many jobs could be quite daunting for people with aspergers but it's a future we may have to accept. Working for the same company for many years is not beneficial at all anymore Especially if that job is low-skilled.

I have never used a temp agency, but I know several people who have used them to successfully land a job they liked.

My experience has been awful.

1. The temp agencies serve as a pool of cheap labor for places that want to burn through people until they find the "perfect" match. That's like being on a 8-hour long interview every day you work there. Temp agencies are supposed to provide temporary staffing for short-term needs, not a way to screen out the right person to offer a permanent job to.

2. Temp agencies claim to have lots of jobs, but unless you stay on top of them daily asking for work, you won't get assignments, and if they detect an "attitude" they won't ever give you an assignment.

3. If you get an assignment, and ANYTHING comes up that could be a complication, the site can ask for you to be replaced. Forget about needing to go to a doctor's appointment or most anything else an ordinary employer would make allowance for.

I despise them and would have them all either seriously regulated to restrict their use or banned entirely.

When you are given work by a temp agency it is always the work no-one else wants to do. Also the employees have their little cliques so you have to introduce yourself to everyone or they will never talk to you.

i have worked trough temp agencies a lot (90% of my working experience really).
the jobs are indeed not really fulfilling, but they are varied, so you still dont get really bored. also, they typically give you all the time you need to search and apply for other, better jobs.
it's not perfect, but it's better then a nnon-fullfilling fulltime one

Around here, my experience has been temp agencies give crap jobs to desperate people.

I actually just began an assignment two weeks ago. The job is not half bad. Would I have rather gotten a job myself? Of course but the job expectations are so ridiculously high for non-temp jobs that most jobs I applied for I didn't even get an interview for even with 9 years of working experience in a variety of fields and a college degree. They want 5 to 10 years experience doing that particular job title and a college degree means squat without working in the field. With temping you can at least get full-time assignments rather quickly, the job requirements aren't ridiculously high, and some of them pay okay. Also you get the work experience that ultimately will give you the experience you need to find a batter full-time job down the road. More and more companies are using temp agencies so it's something many of us are going to have to get use to, like it or not.