General

Remote Work Opportunities Decreasing

The pandemic has left us with no shortage of heartache – from health complications to lost business and more. One of the few gifts of such a dark period, however, has been the normalization of remote work opportunities.

With the days of the COVID lockdown dragging into weeks, followed by months of restrictions aimed at protecting the public and bringing the virus under control, business leaders quickly realized that remote work was a better option than no work at all. Even for companies that were set up with proper ventilation and the space to social distance, liability was a concern. And many employees had already made the decision that they wouldn’t even consider a return to the office until the pandemic had clearly blown over. Just like that, the Golden Age of Remote Work was upon us.

Or is it? Lately, as the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates, companies have begun to tighten their belts and hiring has slowed, the tides are shifting again. The migration of employees from business HQ to the home office has begun to reverse, and remote work’s golden age is starting to resemble a short blip on the radar rather than a lasting movement. This abrupt about-face even has a name already: The Great Mismatch.

What Is the Great Mismatch?

It was only a few short months ago that we were discussing the unprecedented perks of workers’ newfound leverage, including signing bonuses, huge pay increases and flexible work schedules. As a bright macroeconomic climate has turned cloudy, the pendulum has begun to swing back toward employers. Companies that aren’t laying off are often pulling back or freezing hiring, and many are expecting the employees that remain to toss aside their pajama bottoms, close their Zoom window and make their way back to the office.

This has created something of a schism: Workers who have settled into a remote work lifestyle, and possibly even made related arrangements to accommodate the care of young children or elderly family members, are now finding telecommuting job opportunities fewer and farther between. Most employers agree that the needs of project collaborations and certain creative workflows are best met with employees on site, and thus prefer a traditional, pre-pandemic in-office work model.

How PeopleCaddie Can Help

The expectation is that the present economic uncertainty will persist well into 2023, and perhaps beyond, with the overall unemployment rate expected to rise north of 5 percent – still a relatively small figure, but nothing like the current 50-year lows. If this proves to be the case, it’s likely that employers will continue to limit the number of remote opportunities – particularly for new employees.

Yet while the number of remote-based open job orders that are published online has dwindled, it’s still possible to find work-from-home opportunities – particularly contract work – in most industries. One way to connect with top employers, discover the best gigs and be notified of openings right away is by joining PeopleCaddie’s contractor network.

When you build a PeopleCaddie profile, you join a network of over 100,000 contractors and, if you choose, become searchable by our client partners who regularly use our database to find new talent. When you land a contract through PeopleCaddie, you’re quickly onboarded, begin receiving a regular paycheck and access to benefits and, at the conclusion of your contract, receive a review from your employer that can help you build a first-class reputation and draw the attention of other companies in our network that are eager to hire.

Learn how to build your PeopleCaddie profile here, and start connecting with hiring managers and some of the best remote contract roles available.

Does Geography Matter for Independent Contractors?

Over the past few years, the pandemic, a series of huge market swings, and an exodus of employees from the labor pool have forced us to reconsider what we thought we knew about hiring and employment – and specifically contingent labor. Although independent contracting, or gig work, had once been considered an inferior career route, it has become a preferred choice for an increasingly vast number of Americans, as well as global citizens.

The contingent labor market has allowed more people to find lucrative and career-advancing work in their field of expertise, while offering companies the flexibility to access specialized, in-demand talent without having to overcommit to long-term employment relationships. Often, those terms also allowed the contractor to work from almost anywhere, which served to further expand the talent pool for employers and the job market for employees.

It’s worth asking, then, whether the contingent labor market has reached peak globalization – a point at which location is no longer relevant and organizations have no reason to value a contractor in Indonesia any differently than they do another with the same skill set based in Indiana. When it comes to independent contractors, does geography matter anymore?

Location Is No Longer an Afterthought

Even just a year ago, the hiring market was so dry that few organizations – whether in tech, finance, engineering or elsewhere – could afford to let useful talent slip through their fingers based on a triviality like location. With all the remote tools at the disposal of business and the maturity of the global cloud infrastructure, no HR professional worth their salt would turn away a qualified employee that would complete most of her daily work behind a computer on a technicality like geography.

But it seems the tides, yet again, are shifting and employers and contracts alike are asking themselves” does geography matter? At PeopleCaddie, we’re seeing that the majority of our contractor listings are remote-based – but the percentage of on-site gigs is increasing. And even if a job is listed as a remote position, employers typically favor local candidates. This may be, in part, because of a prospect’s knowledge of local bylaws (example: a CPA or auditor). More PeopleCaddie contractors are also being converted to permanent hires in short order, suggesting that companies are using contingent labor as a sort of litmus test for vetting a candidate, taking measure of their work and deciding whether they make for a strong long-term fit.

Contractors: Know the Landscape

The reality is that a majority of employers will always prefer to have all their workers under one roof (or strategically positioned under several). It’s simple: On-site work is more convenient and collaborative, and provides more control to employers. But no two positions, companies or industries are the same. And the most recent shakeup in the remote-versus-office dynamic – and one of the most dramatic in history – was driven not by business forces but a worldwide health emergency and virtually unprecedented employee pushback. This isn’t the end of the geographical debate; it will only change shape over time.

That said, a contractor’s ability to understand and adjust to these contexts, both on a macro and micro level, is a valuable asset. Be sure to research the companies that engage you. Ask questions about their contingent labor strategy (how long is the average gig term? What percentage of contractors are converted to perm employees?) in your interview. Ask yourself: Am I willing to move, or risk losing an offer, if the company expects me to work in the office? There are no “right” answers to the latter question. But asking it should help focus your job search and save you time in the long run.

Looking for more tips on navigating the contractor market? Check out the PeopleCaddie blog.

Tech Layoffs: What Do They Mean for the Gig Economy?

The exponential advance of technological innovation, often stated through Moore’s Law, sometimes gets confused with the growth and financial health of the technology sector itself. As metro areas from Seattle to Austin to Raleigh are pegged as “The Next Silicon Valley” and today’s hoodied tech barons are seemingly all but licensed to print money, it can be easy to assume that rapid expansion and hand-over-fist profits are a simple matter of course in tech. As we’ve witnessed in recent weeks, however, the industry is no different than any other – subject to developments within its space as well as the whims of the economy at large. Huge tech layoffs – either already in the books or in the offing – at Meta (previously Facebook), Amazon, Stripe, Lyft, Shopify and other tech stalwarts demonstrate what should already be well understood: Big Tech may have enjoyed a huge, decade-spanning run, but it is hardly invulnerable.

“The technology sector has a dynamic history of expansion and contraction,” economist Charles S. Gascon wrote for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, citing contractions in the tech space starting in 2001, and again in 2009. So what do the current cuts in the sector – including that of almost the entire contract workforce at Twitter – mean for the future of tech’s job market, and specifically the gig economy?

Manage Costs and React Faster

Although recent tech layoffs among pure technology companies have been undeniably severe, given what we know now, they shouldn’t come as a surprise. Driven by an eagerness to capitalize on a COVID-driven boom in demand, tech was as bold as – and frequently bolder than – any industry in its hiring. The current sector-wide downsizing is, in large part, a correction to that response.

But, additionally, tech organizations are beginning to recognize an opportunity. By trimming staff employees, these companies are making temporary sacrifices to become more flexible and efficient over time. Because salaried employees translate to greater costs (insurance benefits, paid vacation and unemployment taxes, etc.) and slower hiring and onboarding, more companies are turning to contingent labor in an effort to manage costs more efficiently and position themselves to react faster to changing economic conditions.

In its 2022 technology industry outlook, Deloitte presciently noted that tech leaders, following the patch-and-plug approach of the pandemic, now have an opportunity to “lay solid foundations for future innovation and growth.” That opportunity still exists – by leaning into a more robust contract workforce. “With more experience utilizing a hybrid workforce under their collective belts,” Deloitte notes, “tech companies will evolve their cultures, accelerate experimentation with collaboration solutions, and develop better approaches to managing tax implications.”

Contingent Labor: A Flexible Workforce

In the world of industry – and particularly within the technology space – what goes down almost unfailingly must come back up again. Even amid the current tech layoffs, most projections forecast healthy growth for the sector and more jobs becoming available over the long haul. But in the short term, the current influx of employee supply will outstrip any growth and demand. That means companies have an opportunity to target tech talent not previously available – at least not at reasonable pay – while focusing on bringing those prospects aboard as contract workers.

Why hire a coder for a full-time position, committing your organization to that employee for the foreseeable future, if the project demands only three months of work? As companies encounter the need to flex their workforce to accommodate new business or project demands, they can rely on an expanded pool of skilled, highly qualified contingent labor to fill their needs through a lower-risk work arrangement.

Whether you’re a tech business striving to grow a more agile workforce or a technology professional seeking opportunities in the industry, PeopleCaddie can help. Our proprietary platform and bustling talent network can help employers connect with contractors, and vice versa, to ensure a fit that benefits both a business and its workers.

Joining the contingent labor pool can be a great way to secure work quickly. See how PeopleCaddie’s talent cloud places knowledge workers in contingent labor positions every day.

Contractor Market Is Immune to Fed Policy

Inflation is the current buzzword and bane of the business world, as the Federal Reserve continues to go to great lengths to stifle spending with borrowing rates we haven’t seen in over a decade. More grimly, those figures are only projected to go up in 2023, with some estimates as high as 5.75 percent – which would represent the highest rates in more than 20 years. The skyrocketing increases – the seventh consecutive rate hike, if you’re counting – would seem to put companies in a difficult position to retain talent and complete existing projects, let alone grow new business. And while wholesale cuts in the technology sector, among other industries, would seem to support that notion, organizations need not forgo staffing key initiatives or freeze hiring based on the Fed’s maneuverings. In fact, now may be the best time for your business to level up – at a time when competitors are skittish and often seeking to downsize. How? By hiring looking at the contractor market.

Inflation, Downturns, and Contract Staffing

The job cuts described in recent headlines have mostly been made up of permanent workers and full-time staff. The hiring boom of early 2022 proved to be a reach for some companies, with many organizations now reacting by deciding to scale back in the face of what many believe to be a looming recession.

But the economy and job market are fickle, and the business climate in different sectors (and even among different companies within a sector) may dictate widely divergent approaches to hiring. The economic pendulum always swings back, and the organizations that remain nimble and ready to scale up or down based on market changes and their own growth plans will be in the best position to take advantage in the moment. This is where contingent labor shines.

Independent contractors allow businesses to access specialized talent as needed, without committing long-term resources to staffing. Companies can turn the talent pipeline on or off, based on immediate and short-term foreseeable needs, by working with a hiring agency or talent cloud (like PeopleCaddie). Avoiding unemployment insurance and other overhead associated with permanent employees, organizations can tap contingent labor to move forward with business initiatives and make ground on competitors, often even during lean economic times.

An Opportunity for Independent Contractors

With more companies thinking creatively and proactively while the market is down, employees who are part of the contractor market may have a better chance of being hired and landing gigs that otherwise might have been out of reach. Consider that some companies might be less willing to commit to a full-timer lacking experience than a contractor with the same background. Independent contracting can be the foot in the door an employee seeks at a certain business, or a path to working on a specific competency that will help build out their skill set.

Employees concerned about job security (especially given the recent layoffs we’ve witnessed) shouldn’t fear independent contracting. These aren’t the old days. The vast majority of employment today is at will, which means even “permanent” employees are no less or more likely to be cut loose than a contractor.

Neither should workers view independent contracting as an all-or-nothing proposition. By remaining open to both full-time work and contract gigs, an employee leaves the door open to every potential job opportunity in what has become a tighter hiring market. Why not cast a wide net – and possibly even consider contracting on the side, or for multiple organizations – to hedge against staffing volatility?

Rising inflation and a slowing economy don’t have to spell gloom and doom for business – or for employees. Independent contracting can be a viable solution for both sides.

Interested in contract work? Download the PeopleCaddie app now to become part of our talent cloud.

taxes on paper with a pencil and calculator

Leveraging Contractors During Tax Season

The looming certified public accountant shortage is no longer materializing somewhere off in the distance. It’s here, and many accounting firms have found themselves looking to nontraditional measures to close the gap. Among small and midsize U.S. firms, an increasingly common strategy has been the recruitment of international talent to support seasonal operations. Although larger firms have tapped the overseas market of CPAs and auditors for years, there are potential complications – for all firms – that can’t be overlooked.

As more organizations employ international contractors for seasonal services, the pool of skilled and qualified prospects has dwindled driving up the hourly rate. Additionally, security matters are a legitimate concern when engaging international talent. Global talent options shouldn’t necessarily be ruled out altogether, but organizations should consider them a failsafe – a last hiring resort – particularly when domestic contractors are still a viable alternative. The key: planning ahead.

Every organization should have a general contingent labor strategy, but accounting and auditing firms also must respond to a regular seasonal cycle that allows for – and, frankly, requires – a certain amount of workforce planning. Here’s a basic blueprint for these firms to follow in order to best prepare for tax season:

Engage a Third-party Hiring Partner

In-house networks can be limiting, while headhunters and traditional staffing agencies tend to be too transactional in nature. A talent cloud, on the other hand, can connect you with proven candidates, onboard them quickly and help you curate and maintain a contractor strategy that makes the most sense for your firm. Reach out today to ask how PeopleCaddie can help.

Identify Your Preferred Tax Season Contractors

Whether you landed on a do-it-all employee who is a hand-in-glove fit for your company culture or a hard-to-find specialist who perfectly fills a key role, targeting your most valued contractors and signing them on early – a year or more in advance – ensures consistency of product and prevents a mad dash for talent at the last moment. Work with your talent cloud point of contact to set up these engagements early.

Anticipate Your Business Needs

No matter the lengths an organization goes to precisely project its hiring needs over time, unexpected circumstances invariably arise. Today’s workforce may require expansion (or contraction) based on tomorrow’s business developments. Sketch out your firm’s current needs and build business projections that anticipate future initiatives. Begin identifying leveraging contractors during tax season can help your firm solve problems or shortfalls by creating a bench of talent that’s ready when you are.

Involve Your HR team

Those involved with hiring typically have a lot of experience anticipating future needs and figuring out how to meet them with staffing solutions. Be sure to include human resources in your business planning and discussions with a talent cloud – they can be some of your best assets in leveraging contractors during tax season.

Rinse and Repeat

Permanent employees take time to hire and onboard, and they require long-term commitments that, if overused, can put the profitability and financial solvency of an organization at risk. Contractors provide firms the flexibility to quickly scale up or down based on immediate business needs, and that freedom allows for the pursuit of more business without stress to your current workforce.

Interested in learning more about how you can leverage contractors? Contact PeopleCaddie to develop a strategy on how your company can use our talent cloud.

person showing someone else an ipad graph

Gen Z Contractors: Evolving the Next Generation

The wild fluctuations of the U.S. job market in the past few years have left many companies grasping for straws in the hiring department. Striving to meet business needs while avoiding exposure to too much risk in the event demand suddenly goes silent has been a constant push and pull for organizations across industry. And although no single solution can address every uncertainty, there are strategies that help companies build a more nimble, resilient workforce, particularly be using Gen Z contractors.

Contractors Provide Flexibility to Accounting Firms

It wouldn’t be hyperbole to describe the situation facing the accounting field right now as a labor crisis. According to Bloomberg Tax, the number of accounting graduates in 2018 dropped nearly 7 percent from a 2012 peak, while the number of employed accountants and auditors in 2021 plummeted 17 percent from its 2019 peak. A number of factors have contributed to the losses, including the current trend of U.S. public accounting firms hiring fewer CPAs and more technology-based graduates.

The point is that the sector is facing a labor shortage, forcing many accounting firms to rethink hiring best practices and the fundamental makeup of their workforce. But accounting wasn’t alone in losing a significant chunk of its numbers to the Great Resignation, many more organizations outside the field have been confronted with the same issue.

Contractors can help. By employing more contingent labor, companies can reduce operational expenses and still match seasonal cycles and necessary project work with appropriate staffing levels. Contractors are an agile expense – 100 percent variable cost – that allows a business to avoid over-committing to full-time staff, in case the economic winds change yet again. PeopleCaddie plugs you into a network of qualified, vetted professional contractors, making hiring quick and easy, and helping you capture more revenue. We even handle payroll and benefits (including assuming the cost of insurance), relieving you of the tasks and making work at your company more attractive to the best contract workers.

Where Gen Z Contractors Fit In

We’ve established that the best way to create greater leeway in your workforce is by leaning into contingent labor. But why is Gen Z significant here? Several reasons, actually. Members of Gen Z in the workforce tend to be:

Less expensive
More pliable
Savvier around tech (remember the trend in accounting hiring?)

Perhaps most importantly, Gen Z contractors can help a company keep costs down for necessary entry-level work while helping to build tomorrow’s experienced workforce – including its future supervisors, managers and C-suite leaders. Rather than separating contractors from the rest of the labor force, an organization would benefit from treating them no differently than W-2 employees.

Let’s return to the accounting space: Whether it’s a public accounting firm, an auditing group or a bank, an organization that employs contractors can benefit from affordable labor in the present while offering professional development opportunities to those workers in anticipation of the future. With a path to promotion or full-time employment (for those who prefer it), contractors will have the incentive to stay with a company and work toward higher skill levels – and the company will have a pipeline to emerging talent with proprietary training.

The future of work is flexible. PeopleCaddie helps companies leverage our vast contingent labor network to optimize their business growth, while also helping contractors map out sure footing and step lively on their upward professional path – no matter their preferred destination.

If you want to know more about designing your contingent labor strategy like top accounting firms, download our latest ebook.

Navigating Quiet Hiring

Inflation is up and the economy is dragging. An ongoing talent shortage has left many companies grasping for straws, with too few quality prospects in the candidate pool and little leeway to cover new payroll commitments. Let’s face it: Employers are up against it. But they’re hardly out of options. One trend experts expect to see flourish in 2023 is the practice of quiet hiring – when companies acquire new skills without hiring permanent full-time employees.

Although this can describe retraining and moving existing employees to new positions, quiet hiring also includes bringing aboard independent contractors to fill short-term, temporary roles. If you aren’t already taking advantage of contingent labor to meet these needs, consider a few reasons why you should.

Advantages of Quiet Hiring Contractors

Corporate skills acquisition doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. If a company isn’t in a position to hire more permanent employees to meet business demand – or simply finds other options more prudent – it doesn’t have to choose exclusively between reassigning current employees or hiring part-time or temporary contractors. Why not both?

In any case, an organization should have a well-considered and consistently reviewed strategy that evaluates labor as a whole, but also develop an action plan for each segment of a workforce to optimize all available assets. Permanent hires and employee reassignment should never be ruled out altogether, but here’s why independent contractors are often a company’s best bet:

Payroll flexibility and overall cost savings. Contractors are intended to be hired on a temporary basis, for a finite (and often short) term of employment. This allows companies to access specialized labor for completing seasonal tasks or ad hoc projects without committing to long-term salary or the typical overhead (unemployment insurance, pensions, etc.) associated with permanent employees. Contingent labor represents an affordable, always-available talent stream that organizations can turn on and off as needed.
Answering an immediate need. Retraining employees takes time that companies often can’t afford to waste. Independent contractors are often hired for tasks specific to their skill set, which makes for out-of-the-box readiness. Even permanent employees tend to be slower to onboard than contractors, who are conditioned over time to hit the ground running at any new gig.
Expanding the talent pool. The labor shortage is only part of the difficulty for companies seeking to acquire new skills. The growing popularity of contracting means more talent may be gravitating away from permanent work. Any organization that doesn’t remain open to hiring independent contractors limits its access to specialized expertise. Leave no stone unturned in your talent search.

Best Practices for Hiring Contractors

When developing your independent contractor strategy, start by identifying any task-specific demands that are beyond the expertise of your current permanent staff. This could be, say, a digital transformation or tax audit for a company that specializes in neither services. Often, staffing for these fixed-term, specialized projects calls for contractor help.

Next, weigh the short- and mid-term needs of your organization or department, and consider what portion of that workflow can and should be fulfilled by your permanent labor force. Are there seasonal or cyclical – but somewhat regular – fluctuations in your company’s production demands? Or perhaps the ebb and flow of business is beyond predictability. An in-house network that can be tapped to access trusted seasonal or on-retainer contingent laborers can help. A hiring manager may even set up recurring annual or periodic terms to lock in the best contractors.

But for unanticipated business demands, many companies greatly benefit from working with a third-party talent cloud. PeopleCaddie can not only connect your organization with high-quality contractors who have the specialized expertise you seek, but also handle the administrative duties tied to those workers and help you build and maintain a viable independent contractor strategy that flexes with your business.

Get started and reach out to a PeopleCaddie representative to discuss your contingent labor needs today.

How to Be Successful as a Contractor in 2023

Far too often, independent contractors take an opportunistic approach to their job choices. Of course contingent workers should be ready to strike when the iron’s hot – including now, while the job economy still favors workers and while companies are increasingly leaning into contract labor. But the tendency to take a short-term, myopic career view can hinder contractor success, now and in the future.

Rather than limiting themselves only to whichever attractive job opportunities happen to arise at any moment along their personal timeline, contractors should be thinking about their career progression and actively plotting out a road map – even if it’s just a rough sketch – to their preferred destination. That may (and likely will) change over time. But without an initial sense of direction to help guide their decisions, contractors allow fate and circumstance to dictate where – and often how far – their career takes them.

Instead of this rutterless approach, as the calendar flips to 2023 and many industries turn to assessing their resources and projected outlays for the coming year, now is the time for independent contractors to take stock of their current path and career goals. The best place to start: with a partner who will have your best interests in mind and the tools to help you fulfill them.

How to Be Successful as a Contractor

Selecting an Agency Partner

Most contractors know that staffing agencies can help them find work. But how do you go about evaluating which agency is the best partner for you and your independent contracting career? A good staffing agency has the ability to connect you with plenty of new opportunities with preferred companies. A great agency partner will help you outline a career path and curate high-quality gigs and employers that help you stay on your track and maintain pace toward your goals.

PeopleCaddie provides independent contractors with a broad selection of excellent opportunities while also working with them to construct a career plan that helps them decide which of those opportunities are most professionally beneficial at any given time. Historically, contractors haven’t had the same career training and advancement opportunities as permanent employees. But for those with the same ambitions and interest in optimizing their career progression, PeopleCaddie can help position you to take the appropriate steps throughout your contractor journey.

Contractor Success Requires A Strategic Process

Contingent labor workers are often stereotyped as mercenaries, guns for hire who are willing to take on whatever work comes their way at the right price. But today’s contractor has a more sophisticated sense of their career, recognizing that a more strategic approach will yield not only the highest quality opportunities but those that allow them to build their skills and take periodic upward steps toward more lucrative and personally-fulfilling work.

By partnering with PeopleCaddie, contractors gain access to hiring and career professionals with the experience, expertise, and network resources to help them plot their next moves and land the gigs that propel them forward on their preferred career arc. Independent contractors can save their time and energy, avoiding the traditional laborious job search process and leaving PeopleCaddie to target opportunities that fit with their long-term goals.

Download the PeopleCaddie app now to begin outlining your career path and position yourself to make 2023 your most productive year yet.

Leveraging Laid-Off Tech Talent for Contract Needs in 2023

Even at a time when many technology workers are facing layoffs and others fret whether they’ll be next, the need for tech talent remains high. There are some relatively simple explanations to the apparent supply-and-demand paradox within the technology job economy, but the takeaway for companies across industries is this: Given the current conditions, leveraging laid-off tech talent to fill contract roles could help companies in 2023.

With Amazon, Microsoft and other major employers cutting jobs, many companies that have operated in a climate of tech-talent scarcity over the past few years are finding the market for technology workers beginning to open up. A looming recession makes for heightened business uncertainty, but that burden isn’t exactly distributed evenly. Some sectors have been hit harder than others, which means companies in those industries that are better positioned to ride out lean macroeconomic times now have a chance to tap into available tech talent they previously couldn’t access.

Savvy organizations recognize this moment for what it is: a growth opportunity. The “modest” goal of Warren Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway, as the owner once described it, is to “attempt to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” The idea: zig when other businesses are zagging. Layoffs in the tech sector have opened a window to talent that can allow organizations in other industries to fulfill their contract needs in the months (and perhaps years) ahead.

Where to Start When Tapping Tech Talent

How might a company find leveraging laid-off tech talent advantageous? First, identify where the technology layoffs are coming from. In what areas is talent now available where it previously hadn’t been? Where might talent suddenly materialize as the Fed continues to increase borrowing rates and more tech companies respond by cutting payroll? Again, their loss can be your gain.

Then look inward: What initiatives or goals at your company require specialized tech labor? Might there be hidden growth potential where tech can help, or eventual needs that can only be met by talent that figures to be more scarce and less affordable in the future? Some hiring opportunities may be less apparent than others. Among the areas reportedly targeted for layoffs at Amazon, for instance, is human resources. A company interested in hiring the best tech talent for specific initiatives – zigging when others are zagging – might be very interested in a highly qualified talent acquisition manager with a direct pipeline to some of the most attractive engineers, coders and other tech workers on the market.

How PeopleCaddie Helps You Hire – and Thrive

The reality is that few companies will have the interest or runway to hire full-time HR professionals, with the intention of identifying and bringing aboard a legion of tech talent. Whether it be due to the size or nature of the business, or just a hedge against the current economy, most organizations will instead have relatively modest or targeted needs for specific tech projects. In these cases, PeopleCaddie may be the partner to best serve your organization.

With the PeopleCaddie talent cloud, our clients receive access to a network of high-quality, vetted independent contractors – including those within the tech sector. We can not only help you identify, hire and onboard some of the best available technology workers to quickly plug into specialized project work or help handle temporary workflows, we can connect those organizations with broader needs to that hiring manager on a contract basis – rather than forcing a business to make a long-term commitment to what is essentially a short-term need.

PeopleCaddie even provides insurance for our contractors, taking most administrative duties (payroll, benefits, etc.) out of your hands to allow your business to focus on the task at hand. Resilience is critical in business, and PeopleCaddie can help you build a flexible, first-class workforce to not only survive a recession but also evolve, grow and thrive through the months ahead.

To find our more about how PeopleCaddie’s talent cloud can help your company leverage laid-off tech talent, click here.

person hiring contractors for busy season

Understanding Your Professional Portfolio

Dedicating time to understanding your professional portfolio may not be anyone’s idea of a fun way to spend an evening or a chunk of the weekend. But if you think of it as an investment in your career – hint: it is! – motivating yourself to carve out some time every so often becomes easier. Meanwhile, the process can help you to better understand where you’ve been and where you want to go, and how to appropriately focus your efforts.

At first glance, the resume of an independent contractor may appear pretty similar to that of a permanent employee. But key differences in a professional portfolio can signal to a potential employer that a prospect may (or may not) be the right fit based on the type of role. If an organization needs a contractor for a two-month project, for instance, it’s likely they’re seeking a candidate with a flexible schedule, the ability to onboard quickly and, in many cases, specialized skills for a particular set of duties.

You’ll want to give careful consideration to these factors when updating your own CV, and possibly even maintain two separate resumes – one for contract roles and another for permanent positions. Here’s how to begin framing up those separate professional portfolios:

Ask yourself: What do I want? Don’t make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse on the road to your next gig. Whipping up an all-things-to-all-employers resume and waiting for the offers to come rolling in misses the point of curating a resume to target the positions you want. Are you interested in contract work? Perm positions only? Specific roles within your field? Figure it out and update your resume accordingly. Professional portfolios are not one-size-fits-all.

If you’re open to all roles, that’s fine. Just be ready to tweak (and, in some cases, overhaul) a general resume for every new opportunity you want to pursue. Understanding your professional portfolio and its nuances may seem like a lot of work, but it’s time well spent – and certainly more productive than firing off a basic portfolio that lacks the elements needed to catch the eye of your preferred employers.

Consider your recent roles. If you’re a CPA with experience working with retail clients in an accounting firm as a permanent employee, congratulations: You already have a strong foundation on which an employer can build if they’re looking to hire contingent labor for similar work. But you’ll still want to indicate why and how you’re a fit for contract work. Maybe you’ve always wanted to work with a certain company and this opportunity is your way in. Perhaps you want the flexibility to travel a few months every year. Find ways to spin these as positives for the company in the background section of your resume.

If you’re an entry-level professional or someone with experience looking for a new niche, you may need to be creative in explaining why you’re the right candidate for a specialized gig. But the idea is the same: Think of the job from the perspective of the employer. Why are your abilities or experiences valuable in this gig role? What do you bring to the table that will appeal to the company for this particular position? Employers typically want contractors they can plug and play, who will be instantly productive and who don’t require a great deal of training or hand-holding. Explain why this is you, and try to give examples when you demonstrated these traits in past roles.

Highlight your skills. Experience often is viewed as a proxy for skills, but increasingly employers want to know exactly what you can do, rather than try to read between the lines based on prior job titles or who previously cut your paychecks. And that’s doubly true for contractors.

Because companies often hire contingent labor to fill short-term, task-oriented and project-based roles, they want to know that a prospect will be able to show up, quickly assess the situation and deftly handle the necessary work in a timely fashion. By listing projects you’ve worked on, specialized duties you’ve fulfilled and certifications or training you’ve received, you’re telling an employer exactly what they want to hear from a contractor candidate – I’m ready to walk through your doors and get the job done right away.

For more guidance on understanding your professional portfolio, check out the PeopleCaddie blog.