Is it a match? This AI platform is connecting contract workers to new gigs

As flexibility has become non-negotiable to a post-COVID workforce, some workers are ditching the 9-to-5 in favor of contract and freelance work, which can provide more freedom (and often more income). But in a tough talent market, that’s created an additional challenge for employers: How can we find and hire contract workers — and fast?

The startup PeopleCaddie created an app in 2018 that allows highly skilled contractors like software engineers and developers to find temporary work. In the wake of the pandemic, they’ve rolled out a new suite of features to further accommodate the growing industry of contractors, who can now build out their profiles, set availability and control their data in order to share their skills with prospective employers and search for targeted opportunities — without constantly hustling or doing outreach.

The goal, according to the platform’s CTO Tim Rowley, is to disrupt the way industries perceive the traditional methods of staffing, and utilize technology to make hiring more flexible and efficient.

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“Offices all over the country have armies of recruiters constantly reaching out to contractors, primarily via the phone and email,” he says. “And in the contract space, speed is incredibly important — especially when clients are looking for contractors that have highly unique skill sets.”

Organizations are expanding their use of contingent workers to maintain more flexibility in workforce management post-COVID-19, according to data from consulting firm Gartner. Thirty-two percent are replacing full-time employees with gig workers to cut costs.

To fill that influx of short-term roles, employers will need to move fast, and likely won’t have the time to collect or wade through thousands of traditional applications. The same issue goes for the contractors looking for those jobs, and often, traditional hiring platforms’ algorithms don’t cater to their search.

“Traditionally, the firms that can manage to identify the talent quickest and reach out to those people wins that opportunity,” Rowley says. “By leveraging technology, we could do a much better job of not only identifying and matching resources, but also connecting and communicating with those people in a far more efficient way as well.”

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With PeopleCaddie, contractors are matched via AI against a shortlist of vendors that typically need the skills and services they have listed on their profiles. That trims the pursuit-and-hiring timeline down to days and weeks rather than months. PeopleCaddie will also notify a contractor or company when a new opportunity is made available in either direction.

As younger, more tech savvy applicants begin to enter the workforce, Rowley anticipates this new method of hiring to persist.

“When you look at millennials and Gen Z, their primary way of interacting with the world is through their smartphones — that's how they want to find their jobs,” he says. “Providing them with a mobile optimized experience really caters to the way in which they want to find employment.”