The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns were a strange time and didn’t create many positive memories. However, the extended staycation did twist the arms of many employers and drove them to implement virtual work opportunities. Once the lockdowns lifted and vaccines became widespread, many companies narrowed the remote-work window and began return-to-office strategies. Yet, having heard the siren song of working from home, many workers decided to quit rather than return to the commuting grind – a mass exodus dubbed “The Great Resignation.”
The Shift to Remote Work
However, it seems that some employers received the message. According to LinkedIn, paid job postings offering full-time and freelance “remote work” are 357% higher than a year earlier. There are 8 key industries that are leading the way for “remote working.” (See graph)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14.4% of full-time employees and freelance professionals worked from home in June 2021. One job site reported a 360% increase in online job searches for remote positions between June 2019 and June 2021.
The Shift to Freelance Work
With the Great Resignation, some remote workers are going freelance full-time as new entrepreneurs or adding a side-hustle to traditional employment. Many workers are accustomed to – and comfortable with – working from home. However, as new entrepreneurs, they also face the burdens of business ownership, such as finding and maintaining clients; being their own marketing and IT departments; handling admin, billing, and bookkeeping; and paying for medical insurance and retirement planning.
“Today, it’s easier than ever for workers to turn to freelancing with the prevalence of virtual work and because more workers have discovered the robust online job marketplace offered by platforms. This awareness wasn’t as prevalent before COVID,” said Elizabeth Eiss, Founder and CEO of the talent curation and freelance recruiting platform ResultsResourcing. “In the past, the workplace was dominated by career professionals focused on traditional work models – some of whom maybe pursued passion projects on the side. Today, there’s been a real shift to independent work and turning that passion into a business.”
No one can succeed totally on their own. Freelancers, those just entering the market as well as seasoned pros, can always use assistance finding their next gig. Using the myriad of job platforms bringing buyers and sellers together, however, is not an automatic guarantee of success. There is a lot of hard work and uneven results for both sides of the equation.
ResultsResourcing Can Help You Find Quality Freelance Talent
Operating nearly a decade as a talent curation platform focused on freelance work, ResultsResourcing is ideally prepared for the surge of the times. As THE freelance platform that comes with your own recruiter, ResultsResourcing helps employers add skilled contract workers to their teams and helps the best skilled freelancers find good clients and gigs.
“At ResultsResourcing, our expert recruiters are here to help small and mid-sized businesses build solid job profiles and then find a choice of quality freelancers who can meet the job need. For independent contractors, we offer quality jobs and clients. There’s no cost to join, and freelancers can propose on as many jobs as they like for free,” said Eiss.
ResultsResourcing takes its role seriously as an alternative to “do-it-yourself” job platforms, advocating for both the client and the freelancer.
“Our clients hire us to find, vet, and match them with skilled freelancers,” said Eiss. “So, we educate them on how to be a ‘value buyer.’ Often, the client doesn’t think about the value of the work and only searches for talent by rate. We help them understand the ‘value delivered’ versus the cost of an hourly rate. Clients can often pay more per hour and get better work done in less time with best skill-matched freelancers – and still meet budget objectives.
“Once the clients understand this, they become actively invested in our talent curation process. ResultsResourcing merges tried-and-true traditional staffing approaches with everything great about online job board platforms. That means we add human expertise on top of algorithms. Expert recruiters review candidates who propose, curate the best matched for the job requirements, and personally interview them. The top qualifiers from these interviews then meet with the client, who makes the final decision.”
For nearly a decade, ResultsResourcing’s talent curation process has best-matched hundreds of businesses and freelancers. If you’re ready to discover how ResultsResourcing can help you find the flexible resources you need, book a free consult call or get started on the platform today!
