Contingent talent, sometimes referred to as interim contractors, consultants, freelancers, gig workers or temporary workers are playing an increasingly important role in the recruitment industry. There are benefits to both recruiting organisations and talent for this growing sector.
The use of contingent talent has always played a key part in the digital tech sector because of the need to find talent with specific technical skills at short notice. It can take at least 3 months to find and recruit a new permanent team member with no guarantee if they will fulfil the requirements of the role. The move towards contingent talent is driven by the need to deliver technical projects rapidly for commercial reasons.
According to data from Gartner, 32% of companies replaced salaried employees with contingent workers to cut down on costs, and many others did so as a means to fill important skills gaps.
Advantages of Using Contingent Talent.
Digital tech organisations, particularly in a start-up environment, can gain a competitive advantage by delivering technical solutions at speed but this relies on having the appropriately skilled talent available in-house. Sourcing technically adept contingent talent provides a solution for this by bringing on board talent with the right skills at short notice. If they are already operating as a contractor with a good reputation then any recruitment and selection process can be vastly reduced as the long-term employment considerations maybe less important. Contingent talent usually gets paid a day rate for the duration of any project and the usual employment costs and risks are negated because the recruiting company does not need to invest in onboarding and training or staff benefits for example. The daily rate charges can be quite high but this needs to be balanced against the need to complete a project and the investment in time and money to recruit a new permanent team member.
Advantages of Being a Contingent Talent.
Anyone who chooses to become a contingent worker can enjoy high rates of pay but with the flexibility to dictate their own hours and working conditions that are agreed in any signed contract. Working in this the way is great for talent that enjoys variety in their work because they get to work on different projects in different industries often with exposure to new technology.
Managing Contingent Talent Recruitment.
Recruiting contingent talent uses the same principles as any other type of recruitment with the main differences being the time required to find the right talent and the tax rules that may apply. The UK tax regime was recently changed regarding the payment of tax under the ‘off-payroll working rules’ sometimes referred to as IR35. Understanding the tax rules and implications for recruiters and talent is important and needs to be clearly communicated during the recruitment and selection process. Much of the contingent talent recruitment is now handled by specialist recruitment agencies because they usually have access to large pool of contingent talent. Many recruitment agencies use Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) tech hiring tools to provide rapid access to their contingent talent pool.
One such company who are game changing the face of recruitment by providing a robust process to deliver more efficient recruitment without bias is Hire Digital. A start-up recruitment company with a global presence that has invested heavily in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to manage the digital tech recruitment process. Their Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) software platform gives digital talent recruiters a strict criterion for posting job adverts and descriptions and their AI works in such a way that it generates a much smaller more targeted candidate list by using up to 40,000 attributes. They key to this is efficiency, recruiters spend less time generating job advertisements and trawling through hundreds of CV’s to get their shortlist, Hire Digital tech can rapidly access up to 1bn talent globally.
Hire Digital is an AI technology with a human touch that is completely revolutionising the recruitment and selection process. It’s two times faster, 50 % cheaper and ten times more accurate than traditional hiring tech. To find out more speak to Robin Brohl at Hire Digital he is a real person and would love to engage with you and help you streamline your recruitment processes.
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