Contingent workers are expected to make up over 40% of the workforce in large corporations in the coming years, as 80% of large-sized businesses in the U.S. alone plan to use a more flexible workforce.
These include freelancers, consultants, independent contractors, and temporary workers, among other non-permanent positions–all of whom help out with part-time projects or provide specialized skills for the companies that hire them.
But why should contingent workers matter to recruiters and hiring managers, especially if the most common requisitions are for full-time positions?
Any recruiting professional who can help find contingent workers for the companies that need them will likely have the upper hand in the war for talent. And vice versa, those who do not have a strategy for recruiting contingent workers will risk losing out on gaining more clients to serve, or even limit their company’s chances to grow without the help of experienced specialists.
In this article, we will be covering everything you need to know about contingent workers, from who they are, to why companies need them now more than ever, as well as how you can find and hire the best contingent workers in your industry.
Why contingent workers matter in talent acquisition
Contingent workers make up 28% of a company’s workforce on average. These part-time positions are generally suited to highly-specialized tasks, where freelancers and contract workers can benefit their employers with their wealth of experience in their respective fields.
Typically, contingent work opportunities can be found in customer support, content writing, copywriting, programming, designing, and marketing. And depending on the organization, these individuals are allowed a certain level of independence to complete their tasks.
Under this setup, contingent workers help ease the internal workload. In many cases, they also allow the company to access skills that their existing employees do not possess, like website development or coding.
This movement to hire more freelancers and part-time employees–as well as the emergence of more people willing to work in contingent employment–is part of the so-called “Gig Economy.” Originally gaining traction around 2008 (after the Recession), the Gig Economy experienced significant growth of 33% in 2020, given the pandemic and its effects on how people get work done.
And this change in the workforce has been exponential. According to a Manpower report in 2022, there are around 23.9 million independent workers in the U.S. alone. In 2017, it was only 12.9 million, which means the figure has practically doubled in less than half a decade.
This is precisely why any company looking to grow must take contingent workers into consideration, as many of them are skilled enough to stay self-employed and work with several clients at a time. And this comes as no surprise, since several sources have agreed that 50% of the U.S. workforce could be freelancers by 2027.
As recruiters and hiring managers, this means you will need to keep track of these talented individuals, and find ways to recruit them for your clients or organization, as they look to grow with more and better people.
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The benefits of hiring contingent workers
Although hiring contingent workers can sometimes be perceived as a short-term solution because the positions are not permanent, there are several business benefits from working with them. Consider keeping the following benefits in mind when recruiting for the top part-time or freelance talent:
1. Reduces costs for the business
One of the reasons for companies to hire contingent workers is to benefit from high-quality work without additional costs associated with full-time employment. This is especially useful in cases where the company or client is trying something temporarily, or is engaged in project-based work. It does not always make sense to hire full-time workers for such tasks.
Furthermore, the cost to replace freelancers would be less, as there are generally far fewer strings attached compared to losing a full-time employee. In fact, it could cost up to twice an employee’s annual salary to replace them, so part-time jobs sometimes become the more attractive option.
2. Gives businesses access to leading talent
While the full-time workers’ market is large, it has its limitations. If you know how to source contingent workers in addition to your local talent pool, you could be recruiting an incredibly capable person who lives 1,000miles away from the client or company’s headquarters, for example.
A company that opens itself up to contingent workers will be able to experience more opportunities to grow, as there is talent all over the world. Cost-wise this could also help, as, at times, certain jobs can be more cost-effective to outsource outside the country that the business is based.
3. Less risk involved–No long-term commitments
As stated earlier, contingent workers are particularly helpful in short-term or project-based engagements. Employers that consider contingent workers will be assured of output and quality as and when the needs arise.
Especially with projects or departments that are still in their early stages, the flexibility of being able to change up staff members and the scope of work can be highly beneficial.
When should you consider contingent workers in recruitment?
Most of the drawbacks of not involving any sort of outsourcing in a company are ultimately going to be felt by the company itself, or that of your client. However, if you do not consider having contingent workers in your talent pool at all, you will also risk losing value as an innovative recruiter or hiring manager.
So before getting into how to attract high-quality contingent workers, let us explore cases where they can be most beneficial to businesses:
1. When the business is in the middle of innovating heavily
Imagine a fast-growing team where everybody is busy focusing on internal work. Naturally, there would not be enough time left over for innovating or staying on the cutting edge. This is where contingent workers can step in, either as the innovators themselves, or as support to take over tasks that can be delegated, while the company innovates internally.
In some cases where companies lack experience, part-time consultants can come in to set foundations for new departments, as they have likely worked with other businesses in their position before.
For recruiters, it is a valuable opportunity to have this at hand when businesses decide to hire freelancers. For hiring managers, this could involve a consultation with executives to bring in freelancers instead of full-time employees, in some instances.
2. When the business is struggling to fill certain roles, or has an available role that does not require daily attention
This second case typically involves either roles with rare skills, such as cryptocurrency consultants, or roles that do not require a full-time contract, such as website developers.
Often, it makes more sense to hire contingent workers for these positions, as it makes little sense to hire permanent employees for temporary tasks. Furthermore, workers with extremely desirable, hard-to-find skills are likely to work independently, as they can maximize their earnings with their capabilities.
3. When the business is falling behind on productivity
By hiring contingent workers as extra help, a company can increase its chances of reaching its revenue goals or productivity objectives.
At times, it is much easier for a business to assign work to freelancers and give them a deadline, instead of piling more work onto the desks of internal employees who are already juggling multiple tasks at once.
If recruiters do not consider this an important factor, they might lose out on opportunities to fulfill more hiring needs for their clients. If the contingent workers that the recruiters find for each role can really help their clients reach their goals, then the recruiters will likely be tasked with finding more similar candidates to those they have found.
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Ways to attract high-quality contingent workers in the talent market
There are quite a few ways to access the global talent pool of contingent workers. To ensure your best bet of finding them, here are two of the most common methods you can use to attract self-employed individuals:
1. Posting job openings across multiple job boards
The first proactive way you can find contingent workers is actually no different from how you normally source talent for full-time positions. However, when posting contingent work opportunities on job boards, always include conditions like “part-time,” “temporary,” “freelance,” or “X-month,” to name a few. You can also add a filter to the job opening that specifies that it is a part-time role, which is a feature that many leading job boards possess.
For example, if you are looking for a website developer, you could title the job opening as “Freelance Website Developer,” or “Website Development - 3-Month Contract.” You could then specify all conditions in the job description section of each job listing.
By making these job listings clear from the start, you will also make the vetting process much easier, as you will be almost exclusively attracting those who are willing to work part-time. The recruitment process could potentially be simpler as well, as you will not be hiring primarily for cultural fit (as they will not be full-time employees); Rather, you will be hiring based on skills and their ability to deliver under tight deadlines.
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2. Sourcing contingent workers on freelancer sites or social networks
This process involves going to online freelance marketplaces, or public and private social media groups on various platforms.
In doing this, you could manually look for contingent workers who fit the description of the task at hand, such as qualified freelance copywriters to help with your blog writing. And on social media, you could create a post with an image advertising the role, and include a job description in the copy text of the post.
On freelance marketplaces, you can also search for freelancers by degree of experience, or by the ratings and rankings they have on the platform. Depending on the needs of the temporary job, you can opt for one of the more premium freelancers, or a mid-level one if the job is routine and relatively simpler.
With social media, the process would be more aligned with the “traditional” ways of headhunting, as you would be talking to the contingent workers directly instead of hiring them via a marketplace.
However, while both of these methods are highly effective in finding great part-time workers or freelancers, it can get tedious at times. This is mainly due to the millions of contingent workers you have to filter and choose from in order to get your ideal candidates.
In fact, there are around 52 million contingent workers in the U.S., representing 35% of all workers in the country. This is precisely why many recruiters and hiring managers use tools to help them find more and better candidates.
And in the final section, we will be covering how these tools should assist you in your search for top contingent workers in your respective industry.
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Next steps: Speeding up the contingent worker search with a recruitment ATS
Recruiters should take hiring contingent workers as seriously as full-time openings, as the data is clear that both the demand and supply for freelancers, contract workers, and consultants are increasing.
Finding the right contingent workers will help grow your or your clients’ businesses. And since the competition is incredibly high, it is recommended to use recruitment tools, such as an applicant tracking system (ATS), to help find these individuals as soon as possible.
An ATS is a recruitment software that helps its users find high-quality candidates in higher volumes, and in less time. And while many may assume that the tool only works in searching for full-time positions, it can also be used to source for contingent work.
The right ATS should provide you with the ability to post jobs across multiple platforms, access AI-driven candidate recommendations to maximize your chances of finding the right people, and a candidate dashboard to help you keep track of everyone in your pipeline.
Such features will help recruiters deal with the search for contingent workers, in an increasingly competitive environment.
Manatal is currently offering a free 14-day trial for its ATS, which includes all of those aforementioned features, and more. If you want to know how an ATS can accelerate your recruitment process, feel free to sign up for the free trial with no commitments needed today!
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