General

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.

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

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.

sgruenContractor Market Is Immune to Fed Policy

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.

sgruenLeveraging Contractors During Tax Season

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.

sgruenGen Z Contractors: Evolving the Next Generation

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

sgruenNavigating Quiet Hiring

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.

sgruenHow to Be Successful as a Contractor in 2023

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.

sgruenLeveraging Laid-Off Tech Talent for Contract Needs in 2023

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.

sgruenUnderstanding Your Professional Portfolio

How Talent Clouds Win Over Traditional Staffing

We talk a lot at PeopleCaddie about the value of contingent labor and the importance of building a workforce with the right balance of contractors and full-time staffers. Generally speaking, contingent laborers can be hired faster, at a lower overall cost, while providing a company business flexibility in any market. But what about where to find those contractors?

Some of the largest organizations maintain their own network of contractors – a massive human resources investment that still doesn’t always meet a company’s needs. (If tax auditing is your organization’s business, you probably aren’t ideally equipped to hire a cybersecurity administrator.) This is why companies have often turned to a third-party vendor for hiring help – usually a staffing agency. And while working with an agency may be more effective than building out a well-rounded in-house HR staff with the capacity to fill both your full-time and contract reqs, it isn’t necessarily the most effective option.

Rather than defaulting to a traditional staffing agency, modern organizations are increasingly engaging with talent clouds to land (and stay connected to) their preferred contingent laborers. To answer why, let’s take a closer look:

Quality

For any firm that’s in the business of hiring, success begins with identifying the best talent. But you have to give that talent a reason to join (and stay engaged with) your network, or they’ll gravitate to a competitor who will.

This is where talent clouds shine. Whereas traditional agencies take a scattershot approach to tracking down a contractor after receiving a request from a client, talent clouds already have a network of known contractors at the ready. At PeopleCaddie, we’ll even work directly with you to help curate your search and find the very best candidate for the role you need to fill. We’re searching for the perfect fit for every party involved, which is why the best contractors like working through us.

Differentiated Supply

Any company seeking outside hiring help should prioritize firms that already have strong ties to the population of contractors needed for the job. For example, at PeopleCaddie we’ve cultivated a network of over fifty thousand contractors in the public accounting space. While that sector isn’t our only area of focus, any organization looking to hire a razor-sharp CPA can feel confident that we’ll understand their needs and be able to help them find the right resource for their role.

Again, relationships and network-building are the name of the game here. The more we are able to identify the best candidates and place them with choice companies in high-quality roles, the more likely we are to attract even more top talent – which allows more of our clients to access deep wells of talent and quickly hire for hard-to-fill roles. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Faster Response

Part of the expense – and hassle – of hiring comes down to one thing that may be every company’s most precious resource: time. The longer a position stays unfilled, the greater the drag on production. Moreover, even after a candidate is hired, the onboarding process may be slower for some than others.

When working through an agency, the expectation should be, at minimum, 3-4 days before your company begins seeing viable candidates. Talent clouds, on the other hand, rely on pre-existing pipelines and advanced technology (often connecting clients to prime candidates within a day or two) and are thus better suited to identify the best talent for the job and the contractor most likely to hit the ground running. That saves a company time and, ultimately, money.

Verifiable Credentials

Traditional staffing agencies typically aren’t as connected to, or familiar with, the talent they eventually put in front of their clients. They lack an overarching strategy, often playing the volume game, rather than focusing on effectiveness. The PeopleCaddie platform, by comparison, allows employers to access our network of talent, including verified ratings and performance histories of candidates – all of it provided by previous employers.

The level of specificity within each profile, as well as the ability to verify a candidate’s credentials, aren’t just competitive advantages for companies hiring contractors – they’re game changers. And we can curate the experience for you, offering you varying levels of touch – all the way up to our white glove service, depending on your comfort level and the significance of the hire. In short, PeopleCaddie provides technology when you want it and people when you don’t.

Check out the contingent roles the PeopleCaddie talent cloud can fill for your business.

sgruenHow Talent Clouds Win Over Traditional Staffing

Cannabis Accounting: How Firms Can Staff Projects

What had once been a hotly debated topic is now supported as overwhelmingly as nearly anything can be in today’s climate of divided public opinion: More than 9 of 10 Americans (91 percent) believe marijuana should be legalized in some form. Another poll describes support for legalization to be higher than at any point over the past five decades. Even anecdotally, the average consumer today likely can’t drive more than a few blocks in their city or town without passing a dispensary or smoke shop that sells cannabis or CBD oil. President Joe Biden’s recent pot pardons also suggest that even the longtime federal stance against marijuana is softening. Cannabis production and sales have quickly become legitimate (and big) business – the kind that demands attention and administrative support, including accounting and auditing. And cannabis accounting is a big need for this is the newly-legalized business. 

Plenty of related challenges remain in this space, but those circumstances also create opportunities for those bold enough to step out on the leading edge of a developing market. What are the accounting needs of cannabis companies, and how might hiring firms help those businesses address them?

Accounting Is Still Sticky in the Sector

Let’s address the elephant in the room: For all the support that regulated marijuana has among the public and at the state level, it is still considered illegal by the federal government. That issue alone creates a massive amount of confusion around the business of cannabis. Not only is compliance an open question (the dosing of an edible, for instance, or what to charge per dose), but dispensaries are limited to cash-only businesses due to credit restrictions based on the current federal categorization of cannabis.

Tax season and quarterly audits are difficult enough periods for most businesses to navigate, even with some help. But the legal matters surrounding cannabis sales creates an even more complex maze for accountants and auditors to solve – a puzzle that many simply lack the experience or know-how to handle. This places a premium on accountants and auditors who are able to tackle the job. With the business of marijuana growing seemingly exponentially, how can an individual company ensure that it gets the help it needs to maintain compliance and balance its books at tax season?

Talent Clouds Can Help With Hiring

Staffing up is a constant struggle for most companies, even during the best of times. (Note: These are not the best of times for hiring.) And specifically in the emerging cannabis sector, finding the right support – let alone enough of it – may feel like an impossible task. This is where a talent cloud like PeopleCaddie can prove invaluable.

The nature of accounting and auditing is seasonal and cyclical, meaning contingent labor – rather than a bloated full-time staff – may be the best option for cannabis companies (or public accounting firms with clients in the cannabis industry) in need of support in these areas. And because the cannabis industry is still gaining its footing, yet has significant market potential, many contractors may view contract and project gigs as an opportunity to enter on the ground floor and establish themselves early in a business that seems ready to take off.

Consider PeopleCaddie as your connector to these eager and qualified contractors. Our online platform allows you to view vetted and rated candidates, and provides unparalleled visibility into their performance histories. Can’t find exactly what you’re looking for on your own? We can help – with a level of customer service you won’t find from typical staffing agencies and other talent clouds. Let PeopleCaddie help you build a staff of recurring contract workers that helps grow your business while benefiting your bottom line.

PeopleCaddie’s talent cloud features accountants with an expertise in the cannabis industry. Contact us to hire those contractors for any upcoming projects.

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