Flexible Talent, Fast Results: Hiring Freelancers & Independent Contractors

Erin Schwartz (00:05):

All right. Hey everybody. Thank you so much for being here today. We’re going to go ahead and get started, even though we might still have a few people filtering in. My name is Erin Schwartz and I’m the acquisition marketing director here at iHire. I want to offer you a warm welcome to today’s webinar, Flexible Talent Fast Results: Hiring Freelancers and Independent Contractors. Before we get started, I’d like to point out some features on our webinar platform that put you in the driver’s seat. The widgets allow you to move and resize windows and explore content related to today’s presentation. Find the ask a question widget and submit your questions at any time during the presentation. Only our producers will see the questions and will answer as many as we can after the webinar. Also, keep an eye out on your inbox tomorrow for a recording of today’s webinar.

(00:55):

Lastly, just a quick reminder that you’ll earn credit for SHRM and HRCI recertification. Our presenters today are Brian Clapp and Jesse Gomes. Brian Clapp is the VP of Marketing at iHire. He provides thought leadership and advice to employers utilizing the power of online recruiting. Jesse is a Senior Product Manager at iHire, primarily focused on developing employer focused solutions. With a background in AB testing and marketing optimization, Jesse brings an analytical, data-driven perspective to identify the most impactful solutions to users. He’s always leveraging the latest technology to deliver features that help employers more efficiently and effectively find the right candidates. Thank you guys both so much for joining us.

Brian Clapp (01:43):

Thanks for having us.

Erin Schwartz (01:45):

Thanks. All right. So before we get into it, a survey. Do you currently employ any freelance, contract, or project-based workers? Yes. No. No, but you’re planning in the near future or unsure.

Brian Clapp (02:11):

Why we wait for you guys to do that poll? We do have some exciting news to share. The team at iHire has developed and launched a new freelance hiring marketplace. And this is really our response to the trends that we’re seeing in the labor market. We’re going to talk about that a lot today, about a lot of the research we’ve done and a lot of the product development that we’ve developed to give you all options to do something different with your hiring strategy and build a product ... We’ve built a product that we really think is an opportunity that all employers will be embracing. That it’s not always a simple answer to hiring a full-time employee, that sometimes you need a different way of hiring. Freelance projects, short-term needs, seasonal surges, and we’re allowing you to tap into our freelance marketplace and access industry-focused skills forward talent fast.

(03:02):

And it’s something we’re really excited about. We’ve been working on for a long time, and we’ll dig into a lot of the details of the labor market, like I said, and a lot of the research we’ve done that has pushed us this direction. But we really feel like this is a hybrid model that a lot of employers will embrace. And if you’re interested in learning more, you can obviously ask questions during this webinar, but you can also check out our landing page at ihire.com/freelancehiring. You’ll see in this presentation today that there’s a lot of options that can really help push your business forward in utilizing our freelance marketplace. So it’s something we’re really excited about.

Erin Schwartz (03:39):

All right, and here’s our results. Oh, wow.

Jesse Gomes (03:44):

Bingo.

Erin Schwartz (03:44):

Very interesting.

Brian Clapp (03:50):

So let’s dig into this concept. I’ll just take it away, Erin. The state of freelance work in America. Freelance is really soaring in the US. It’s no longer a niche or unconventional process. It is becoming a lot more mainstream. And you can really see here, 73 million independent workers in America, which is up from 42 million in 2019. Now, what happened during that time period? We’re all pretty much aware. Digging into the why of why this happened, the pandemic ended up being a real proof of concept for many people, that they were starting to work from home and they had to for a work from home environment and they liked it. And then you throw in the idea of flexibility and maybe being able to customize your own schedule. Plus a lot of people lost their job in that time period and they had to get creative and say, “Well, I can’t just go get another job.

(04:38):

The job market’s tight right now. How else can I supplement my lifestyle?” So they started doing freelance projects, using their skillset in order to benefit a company and benefit themselves. And they liked it. It really worked for them. And I think more and more people are doing it now, and that’s really the research and the indication that we’ve seen, is that this is an emerging field. People really want to build this into their lifestyle and their approach to work. And it’s something that we wanted to work with and capitalize on, but it really makes sense to see this developing in America and seeing this growth in the independent workers is really no surprise when you look at the last five years and how that’s affected the labor market.

Erin Schwartz (05:19):

Yeah. Freelance- I was just going to say, freelance isn’t necessarily just for freelancers anymore. There are tons of people out there where freelancing is their career, but we also see people in every stage of perhaps their full-time work journey looking to get more into freelance work to help supplement.

Brian Clapp (05:38):

Yeah, there’s so many reasons why, and we’re going to get into a lot of those today. The why, the how, the how to go about it. We really want this to be as actionable as possible for all of you listening, but it’s definitely not a little side project or a side quest. This is becoming a real reality for a lot of people and a lot of organizations, as proven by the poll question. As I mentioned earlier, our research, we’re a really data-driven company and our research helps us better understand the needs of our audience. So a few months back, we started doing this research study called the Freelance Revolution. We started asking a lot of questions, 31 questions of different candidates out there in the world who are of the working class. And it was a little over 2,000 candidates that gave us feedback. And the information was really pretty fascinating.

(06:27):

Whenever you do a large study of this size and you start to get over 60% results, that’s really strong directional evidence. So we saw 61% of candidates saying that they found freelance appealing. What was really interesting is there was another 17% that said that they were unsure but interested. And we kind of categorize that as a movable audience. Maybe they’re not a yes, they’re not a no, but if educated and informed that they’re going to really push in and check out that opportunity. So when you combine that, 78% of the audience is not saying no, that they really are interested in freelance or willing to work that way, which means there’s a lot of talent out there that is intrigued by this. 41% already have freelance experience. 11 were already currently freelancing or a large number of previously, and almost 56% said they expect to do more project-based work in 2026.

(07:22):

So the growth is really clear. Now, if you’re interested in seeing a lot more of the data, we’ll go through a lot of it today. We’ve got really specific things we want to share with all of you to help push this story forward, but if you want to dig into the data on your own, you can go. We have the link there and in our resource center as well, so you can start to look at that research report because there’s a really lot of fascinating information in there. The main takeaway here is, for all of you employers out there, is if you don’t start creating a plan to maximize use of freelancers and your team building strategies, you’re really missing out on a lot of top talent that wants to work this way and has maybe moved themselves away from FTE and is just doing freelance.

(07:59):

You don’t want to miss out on that talent. So now is really the time to start considering freelance as part of your hiring strategy.

Erin Schwartz (08:06):

One thing that sticks out to me on this slide, Brian, is that we surveyed candidates across 57 industries. Before iHire really got into the freelance space, I think I, myself, as well as others thought of freelance and kind of more typically your marketing, design, art, maybe some web design fields, but we really saw a desire and appetite for freelance work across healthcare communities, across blue collar communities, manufacturing, engineering. And that was kind of when we had our aha moment.

Brian Clapp (08:38):

Yeah, it really fits well with what we’ve always stressed for ourselves as an industry, as a player, to be quality and to be industry focused. And so we’re really driving top quality subject matter experts towards these industry focused roles that can really help to supplement a lot of the problems that people may face in their workload right now.

Jesse Gomes (09:00):

Okay. So this asks the question, what is freelancing? And that’s a really helpful and relevant question because you can definitely talk to two different people who are talking about freelancing and have two completely different definitions on what they mean by that. So we’re going to be throwing around that term a lot. So we feel like it’s important to define it. What we’re not talking about is just any kind of gig work, like maybe driving for Uber or a side hustle like your lemonade stand and your neighborhood. What we’re talking about is what’s written on the screen. So I’ll just go ahead and read it. We have a nice definition here. It’s really the independent employment where a professional is engaged for a defined scope over a defined timeframe or where they’re giving a, or they’re producing a specific deliverable. It involves them utilizing their specialized skills.

(09:51):

They make strategic contributions to your business, and it involves also client collaboration. We have some nice examples on the screen that kind of help flesh out what we mean by that. So say a startup business needs to bring on a freelance writer to contract them for a very specific scope, a very specific timeframe, we’ll say six months, and they’re going to produce a very specific deliverable, in this case, website copy. That would be a good example of what we mean by freelance and what that definition’s referring to. But then it also could refer to what we see in that second example, a fractional executive, someone who has experience as a CFO. A company is going through a transitionary period from one business leader to another. And so they bring him on to offer that specified or that specialized expertise on a specific defined scope or timeframe, that contract basis.

(10:44):

So that would be also another good example of that. And the third example there is positioned from the perspective of a small business who maybe within their staff, they don’t have the core competency to conduct a security audit. So they bring an independent IT contractor on to do that work. So we can see it can be very different, but it all fits within that definition.

Erin Schwartz (11:07):

Your earlier comment did make me think of a new tagline. The lemonade standards of today are the freelancers for tomorrow.

Brian Clapp (11:16):

Marketers always think. Thank you.

Jesse Gomes (11:21):

And so once again, we just talked about how freelance, it can be specifically defined, but also be somewhat nebulous. And so we actually went ahead and did a survey of all the different types of terms that freelancers can define themselves as. And this is super important because working across different industries, you will hear very different terminology. And so even within this definition, there’s going to be a specific type of phrase that’s maybe more relevant to the person that you’re trying to attract versus others. So it’s helpful to know. You can see here that there’s a wide swath, but the most popular one is independent contractor. That’s about 53%, so over half of freelancers kind of using that terminology to define the work that they do. But also on the other hand, we have that fractional executive, or at the bottom, you’ll see even 10% would define themselves say as a day laborer contractor.

(12:12):

That would be someone who’s maybe doing a specific timeframe where they’re coming in and doing physical labor and maybe there’s an event going on. And so it’s just for maybe a day or two. But even that would be fitting into our definition of what we define as freelance work. So that brings us to our next topic. Why should we hire a freelancer?

Brian Clapp (12:35):

Seems like a pretty good question, right? Every business is different. You all have unique problems that you’re trying to solve, but the use cases for hiring freelance versus full-time tend to be pretty consistent. We’re talking about things like speed. One of the biggest advantages is access to a flexible pool of skilled professionals quickly. We all know hiring can take a long time, a lot of processes, a lot of approvals. You should be able to access somebody in a really quick fashion that has the right skillsets to solve the problem that you’re facing in a much faster process. Also, talent shortages, challenge ... We’ve all faced this. I mean, how many people in the audience have faced challeng shortages where they’ve struggled to find those right people? Well, as your work problems continue to compound, if you wait to find the perfect FTE, maybe you just need to solve the problem with an industry expert who’s available to work freelance work for a short period of time.

(13:27):

And you keep them in your pipeline, you keep them available to you. They become a part of your team extension that you can reach back out to when you need them at that right moment. Niche expertise, that hands-on experience to tackle complex or time-sensitive projects, we all know that the answer is not always an FTE. And one of the things we love about the IR platform is that we can solve for whatever problem you’re facing. Sometimes the answer is FTE and we’re there to support with that. But sometimes the answer is, “I just need somebody to help me get over this hump with a certain project.” And you bring in that subject matter expert, you bring in that freelancer is willing to contribute their skills to your workforce, you solve for that problem and you keep the pace of your company moving. It’s a great way to access talent and move things along in a much faster way.

Jesse Gomes (14:18):

And right in line with that, all of those things are going to help your business be more agile and productive. Of course, with that full-time FTE, you’re going through that lengthy hiring cycle, and that’s maybe not necessarily positioning you to tackle a urgent project that’s maybe come up where you have a skill gap that you need to fill. A freelancer can plug in almost immediately and help you really capitalize on that opportunity. It may be a profitable opportunity that’s just come up and a freelancer might be the perfect person to help you accomplish that. They can get projects completed faster because of how quickly they can plug into your process. The productivity is definitely going to be improved. A good example may be, say you’re a marketing agency and you’re working with a client, but they have a last minute demand and your current workforce is fully staffed on what they’ve already been allocated to do.

(15:09):

That’s where we can use that example from the past where we talked about that freelance copywriter. They can come in and really produce for that client, produce high quality content and meet a very tight deadline, allowing your business to be agile and capitalize on a profitable opportunity you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.

(15:31):

That brings us to another benefit, which is the cost perspective. So we’re also allowing ourselves to really kind of mitigate some of those long-term labor costs. In that example we just gave, you have maybe already had a fully staffed business to be able to produce the work that you need to on a regular basis. So it maybe doesn’t make sense to bring on a full-time employee to capitalize on a short-term need. So with a freelancer, you can avoid the expenses involved with that long onboarding process, the benefits you might have to pay, the payroll taxes. All of that is mitigated because you just need someone for a specific period of time that reduces a lot of the overhead because we know when it comes to the cost of hiring someone, it’s really not just their salary that we’re considering. You can see on the screen there, the research shows us that it’s really 1.25 to 1.4 times the salary that the employee is being brought on, talking about those benefits, taxes, all their costs involved there, the ramp up period before they’re actually kind of producing for your business, all of that is involved.

(16:33):

So a nice little kind of adage, a little expression you can see on the screen there is when you hire freelance, it allows you to pay for the work that you need when you need it.

Erin Schwartz (16:41):

Love that.

Brian Clapp (16:47):

All right. So we’ve told you a lot of the why. We’ve dug into some of the research to show that the labor market is changing this way, but really the big question is how? How do we hire freelancers? So let’s get into that segment. One of the most important parts of this process is defining the role of freelancers in your business. And what I mean is now is really the time to start planning for a future with freelancers in it. The world is headed this way. The labor market is changing. Pressures are different than they’ve ever been before. So now’s the time to go through a planning with thoughtfulness process, which will lead to more success and more comfort with how this will work. Rather than trying to react at the last moment to a problem and get it solved in a new platform, in a new way, in a new methodology, planning now and starting to think about where do freelancers fit for you is really important.

(17:36):

Are you most often facing short-term skills gaps? Are there seasonal demands that you’re facing? Are there specific projects you have on your roadmap that need specialized experts? Start to understand that why, and then the how becomes a lot more easy, a lot easier, I should say. So here are a few common scenarios, project-based work. Define initiatives like Jesse was talking about where freelancers can step in, handle specific tasks without disrupting your core team. We’ve seen a lot of instances like this with lion cooks working in event or someone willing to do research to assist an attorney. There’s all kinds of use cases for somebody to come in and do a short time-based project-based project, project-based project. That sounded kind of redundant, but you get my concept here. Specialized expertise, like we’ve been mentioning, niche skills that your core team doesn’t have. Maybe you need a new technical implementation, creative design, IT operations consultation, somebody to advise on software choices.

(18:31):

We’ve seen home respiratory therapists come through to do work in- house for somebody. There’s a lot of different instances where specialized expertise can be leveraged through this model. And Jesse alluded to this earlier, but a trend that we’ve seen take on a lot in the last five years is concept of fractional or interim leadership. Sometimes leadership changes. Somebody goes on and takes on a new position or there’s a change in status and you can’t just leave that hole in your organization for a while, bring in a fractional CMO or CFO, and then allow them to step into a role and make an impact. And maybe it turns out to be a try before you buy concept. You allow somebody to see them work in the way that they handle projects, the way they fit in with your team, and maybe it ends up being somebody that you want to hire in the long run, but this is a great way to test case that and see if it can make the right impact in your organization.

(19:21):

So once you know where the freelancers can fit, you’re really preparing to hire strategically versus reactively, and that’s going to set you and the freelancers up for more success.

Erin Schwartz (19:32):

Yeah. The interim leadership example is really intriguing, especially when you think back to what Jesse was saying, that the typical cost of an employee is 1.4 times their salary. Another way that organizations may help offset workload while reducing overhead is by hiring interns or participating in an internship program, but leadership is not typically something that use case would cover. So marrying the idea of a freelancer with interim leadership is really intriguing.

Jesse Gomes (20:03):

Yeah. All right. So once you identify that appropriate use case, the rubber meets the road when you actually have to write that job listing. And that can be definitely an important step in really eventually finding the right person because when you have to understand who you’re talking to, or when you do understand, excuse me, who you’re talking to, you understand the right terminology that you need to use to attract them. As we already mentioned, there’s a lot of different terms that freelancers use to define themself, and then also terms they use to define the work they do, such as contract or project-based consultant, things like that. So understanding your audience is really going to be much more effective when you’re writing that job ad. Also, it’s really important to be specific. It’s not just a matter of copying and pasting the job ad that you were going to write for the full-time employee, and then you pivoted and said, “Okay, we can use a freelancer and we’ll just use the same job ad.” It’s going to be very different because it’s a different person that you’re speaking to in this case.

(21:03):

They’re going to be potentially balancing multiple freelance jobs. And so they really want to understand, do I have the time to do this work that you’re asking me to do alongside other work that they’re maybe delivering for? So saying something like, our content team needs you to help with some more content is not going to be as helpful as saying, “We need you to write three 1000 word blog posts.” That’s going to be much more actionable. Now I understand as a freelancer, yes, I can do that. Also, the hours and availability. We mentioned that, and you can see in the stat to the right, 60% of freelancers prize flexibility. That’s why they’re doing this work. So if they’re expecting with how you’re describing the job ad that they might need to be available in the nine to five workday that typically your work is being done, then that might be a deal breaker.

(21:51):

And if it’s ambiguous and not specified, that also might be something that holds them back from applying. So if it’s something they can do in their off hours or on the weekend, that might make all the difference when it comes to putting in that application. Also, in terms of the timeline of that deliverable, so is this something that they’re going to need to produce within a week, two weeks, or is it kind of two months, three months lead time that they have that might make it much more manageable and help them say, “Well, I’m finishing up a project in the next two weeks. I could probably deliver on that timeframe.” But if it’s a really tight timeframe, obviously they might not take that job. So that specificity is going to go a long way. And then last but not least, compensation, we know that’s extremely important and especially for freelancers, being clear about what they’re going to be paid for the specific tangible work that they’re going to produce is also very important.

(22:46):

And that transparency on the front end in the job advertisement is really just going to set yourself up for success because you’re not wasting their time, they’re not wasting your time if you guys are not aligned on what you’re going to pay for the work that’s being produced. And then finally, job ad best practices are still very relevant. So nobody likes looking at a large block of text on the screen. Nobody wants to read through that to kind of figure out what your job requirements are. So still formatting best practices like using paragraphs, subheadlines, bullets, all those help the salient points to stand out in it to be easily digestible. And really, if you can include an equal opportunity statement, that’s also great as well. So still keep in mind some of those best practices. Sometimes freelance job listings are a little bit more informal, but you don’t want to lose some of those best practices that you use in your standard full-time employee job ads.

Brian Clapp (23:42):

A lot of thumbs ups going wild when you said that, Jesse.

Erin Schwartz (23:49):

I’d say another thing too, in my experience, just with seeing what kind of job postings have been coming through as freelance, one other big differentiator between your typical job ad for an FTE, let’s say for example, you’re looking to hire a registered nurse, the title of your job ad may be registered nurse. Whereas with a freelance job, your job ad title should be a little bit more specific. Registered nurse for a flu vaccination clinic is kind of the trends that we’ve been seeing. The job ad titles are more action based than title based.

Jesse Gomes (24:22):

Definitely.

Brian Clapp (24:23):

Yep, totally. All right. So where? Where do you promote these jobs? It’s like the idea of having a strategy and setting yourself up and writing it all the right way. Well, if nobody sees it, it doesn’t really matter. So let’s head into the data a little bit again and look at this. Which resources do you or would you use to find freelance project-based work? And you can see on there that professional networking sites, networking and word of mouth are great ways to get the word out there for your jobs. For sure. But you also see industry specific and general job boards. Finding the right spot to put your job where they emphasize freelance as a way of working and build behind it is really an important way to make sure your audience is the right one that matches your desires. So I’ll use iHire as an example.

(25:08):

For decades, we’ve been delivering candidates, job opportunities that match their skills and match their experience and giving them a positive experience in doing that. We’ve built trust so that there’s a set of expectations. They know if we prevent the job to them and we match it to them, that they’re going to have, it’s going to be a worthwhile endeavor for them to look deeper into it. And so now when we talk to them and say, “Hey, we’ve got this great opportunity for you to leverage your skills in a project base that fits really your timeline and what you’ve told us is important to you.” Well, the trust is there, which is going to lead to the positive activity. So we believe, and we know that iHire is a great place for you to post your freelance roles, but additionally, you should be exploring your LinkedIn network, your professional network.

(25:50):

You should be really looking into the other opportunities to find the right people who can come in and make an impact in your organization. So that’s really spanning that whole picture for yourself to make sure that you’re getting the exposure to your role that you need so you get that right person in there that can make an impact right away. Fast.

Jesse Gomes (26:10):

And you definitely want to take advantage of your opportunities to really showcase your brand. This may seem like it’s not as important for a freelancer because it’s just a quick stint that they may be coming into your organization, but it’s actually extremely important. One of the key findings from our survey is that there is a very real trust gap between freelancers and employers. The reason for that is there’s a lot of scams out there. I don’t know if you’re like me and you get text messages to your phone every so often offering large sums of money for someone who has no skills, hasn’t worked a day in their life, just give us your social security number and it’ll be okay, right? That’s the reality. And the job market. Yeah. And that makes people skittish. It makes people cautious about what they may apply to, what they give their information to.

(26:58):

And so being very intentional about your brand and being very clear about your expectations, especially as a results to pay, is going to go a long way for really seeming like a legitimate opportunity for this freelancer to take advantage of. You can see in the stats to the right, 36% of freelancers say client reputation is crucial when they’re looking for an opportunity. And 35% of a respondent say that they’re not even interested in doing freelance work because they have concerns about scams or even whether they’re going to get paid, and that kind of turns them off. And so you can definitely do a lot to stand out as a trustworthy professional organization when you focus on emphasizing a clear, strong brand. That goes beyond just the channels that you control, like your website and your career site or your company profile page, which you have when you’re on iHire’s website, but it also goes into what’s going to come up just when a candidate Googles you.

(27:53):

And that’s a reality. They’re definitely going to put your name in Google. So the things that come up may be of concern to them, and you want to make sure that you’re kind of controlling the narrative. So if you can partner with a review site like Glassdoor, what is Better Business Bureau saying about you? What are your Trustpilot reviews say? All that’s going to go a long way and making them feel a little bit more comfortable. If you can solicit positive employee reviews or testimonials, things like that, those will go a long way as well. So when freelancers see that you have an established presence and a positive reputation, that’s just going to make it much more likely that they’re going to engage and respond to your job ad.

Erin Schwartz (28:34):

One tool I always like to share, Jesse, when talking about employer brand, and this applies outside of freelance, this would apply for FTE positions as well. If you don’t have Google Alerts set up for your brand, I highly advise you to, it’s free and you will get emails in real time, once a day, however you want to receive them, but basically you’re getting real time alerts when your brand is mentioned out there and you can react in near real time to anything negative or anything untrue that you wouldn’t want a job applicant to see.

Brian Clapp (29:11):

As Jesse alluded to, this trust gap in this process is really present and it’s something that comes up in the data a lot. And really one of the things we believe, and then we’re stressing to everybody, is that the key to success here is transparency. If you can clearly communicate details about the compensation that you’re going to provide, the payment timelines, when the person will get paid, the scope of the work with a clear creative brief or whatever’s needed to make it very clear, the expectations you have, the potential for future projects that you can be involved in, that’s going to make the trust signals improve. And if you can share this type of information, you’re going to, again, see yourself set up for success in this process. The more info you include, the more conversations you have with the candidates, we have a messaging center that allows people to talk back and forth for as part of this process.

(30:02):

But even before the project starts, setting that up and setting realistic expectations, but then even throughout the project, make sure that you are following up and touching base with people. They want to feel connected to the project that they’re doing, and if they’re going down the wrong path, they want to be course corrected because they’re only going to get paid if they deliver in the right way. So they want to deliver for you so they have a long-term relationship, but they’re only going to be able to do that if you’re communicating with them and having a conversation with them. Follow that structured plan, deliver on their expectations and each other’s expectations, and you’re going to break down some of those barriers in the trust gap and make things happen smoother for everybody.

Jesse Gomes (30:47):

And you definitely want to take do your due diligence to vet out freelancers. Obviously, the investment is less than bringing on a W2 full-time employee, but the same way that they’re researching you, you want to research them too. That’s going to set you up for success, of course. We have their resume maybe that they’ve submitted to us and they say that they can do all these different things, but checking their references, asking for testimonials, or if they have a portfolio, reviewing that in work samples will really give you a better sense of the quality and relevance of the experience that they have. Also, there may be an idea that you don’t need to interview someone who’s doing freelance work, but if you can work that into your hiring workflow, it’s really just going to, once again, give you more confidence in proceeding because that’s where you get an opportunity to gauge their communication style, what is their level of professionalism?

(31:41):

Do they even understand what the job ad is asking for? They understand what your business needs from them. You can ask good questions like, “Have you ever missed a deadline and what did you do to mitigate that situation?” To really understand the type of individual you’re going to be working with. And if your job that you’re bringing them on to do is maybe highly specialized or critical, there’s some good opportunities out there to go a little bit even further, like a paid test assessment to really get a better sense of if their skills are right for the job. Or say in an example where you’re hiring a freelance web developer, instead of asking them immediately to build this complicated e-commerce website, maybe just have them build a product page and see how they do with doing that, what their technical skills are, their level of attention to detail, can they meet the deadline that you gave them?

(32:30):

That kind of thoughtful vetting process is really going to ensure that you’re getting the right type of person, not just someone who has the right skills, but someone who’s dependable, responsible, and ultimately aligned with your overall expectations.

Brian Clapp (32:47):

Quick aside, we had a very similar expectation where we hired in a freelance way, a video editor to create some content for us, and we gave them a very small project at the start to see if they were a good match. And maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, but we learned a lot through that experience. So that’s a really great piece of advice there, Jesse. Looking at this concept of knowing what to pay and paying competitively, excuse me, independent workers want to work with clients who really respect them for their subject matter expertise, and really one of the best ways to show that you do respect them and that you want them to make an impact in your organization is through competitive pay. As Jesse alluded to earlier with the advantages of freelancers is that you’re not paying the payroll tax and the benefits and a lot of those other ancillary costs.

(33:36):

So don’t come back and then short them on their value because that’s not going to build a trusted and great relationship either. You really want to make sure you’re paying somebody according to their skillset, according to the scarcity that’s out there, researching industry benchmarks and understanding what those levels may be is going to, again, not only set you up for success for the long term, but it’s going to make a much more positive relationship. 51% of freelancers said project-based income is extremely or very important to their overall financial stability. It’s a tough world out there for people looking to get jobs. We know the economy is not great. We know there’s a lot of things that are holding people back. And if they go into a freelance experience saying, “I have skills, I have expertise, I can help you, and you come back really underbidding on their value,” that’s not setting anybody up for a proper expectation or for success in the long run.

(34:30):

So paying competitively, being prompt about it, being reliable is really a key to making your freelance strategy work for the long run.

Jesse Gomes (34:44):

And an extremely important thing to not overlook is the legal and compliance requirements involved in freelance. If you’re not already hiring freelancers, you might be getting excited and ready to go ahead and put that job at out there. But before you do that, you want to thoroughly research what the worker classification laws are and the differences between hiring an independent contractor, say, and a full-time employee, because with full-time employees, they’re part of your company structure, which are subject to your control. Whereas an independent contractor, they operate as a self-employed individual with autonomy. So there’s different laws that apply to one type of individual versus the other. And that’s where different labor laws and tax regulations come into the mix. And if you mislabel someone, you can set yourself up to be fined or get some kind of tax penalty or even open yourself up to legal risk.

(35:33):

And so those are definitely things to research well in advance. Also, it can help to have a lot of things very clearly defined in a agreement or contract before the work actually begins. So a lot of those specific things that you thought through when writing your job ad, like the scope, the timelines, those are great to help you get on the same page, but you also want those to translate into that contract so that anything that may be ambiguous don’t come up in disputes. And maybe if they weren’t specifically written down, that may make it more difficult to kind of work through what’s actually true. So when it comes to intellectual property, if they’re producing a deliverable for you, that of course is intellectual property, but who owns that being very clear in your job ad and being very clear in your agreement is important.

(36:23):

If there’s non-compete clauses, also important to spell out and how disputes are going to get resolved. And all of these things are things that require thought and maybe a little bit overwhelming. And so the last bullet there talks about, it may be something that’s worth just consulting an HR expert or a legal professional that you could outsource that to or just kind of look over what you’re expecting or planning on doing. And that’s someone you can definitely go outside to hire. iHire actually has very experienced, very capable HR experts, but of course you can find that a number of different areas. So just a good thing to keep in mind when you’re going into the fray of hiring your first freelancer.

Brian Clapp (37:11):

So the ideal way to make this work, if you can envision your future in this world of hiring freelance, is that you could really develop a pool of people that you’ve worked with over time that are these dependable talent pools that you can tap into. “Oh, I need help with HR. Oh, I need help with development with software engineering. I need help with IT. I need help with research. “Whatever it may be, whatever your needs are for your organization, you can develop a pool of freelancers that you can reach out back out to and have at the ready and be able to hire quickly and get them upskilled and ready to go and continually doing projects for you throughout the year. That’s a dream scenario because it against your speed to market or your speed to problem solving much faster. The only way you’re going to get there is if you start to treat these freelancers like an extension of your organization and you build long-term relationships with them and communicate and give feedback and pay them well and accordingly to their skillset.

(38:11):

There’s a lot of other little techniques you could employ. Maybe you want to offer them little perks like early access to beta testing, or you could even give them referrals to other clients, or maybe you give them a t-shirt in addition to their pay so they’re thinking about your brand or what it may be. There’s lots of little nice things you can do to make it a really respectable and respectful relationship. These aren’t just a outsider for you that came in and did something and they’re gone. Build a relationship and then you’ve got a long-term resource you can tap back into who wants to come back and work with you again and again. And that’s going to make this whole thing, it’s going to make freelance feel like an extension of your business rather than a one-off. And it’s going to help you solve problems faster and get this whole program running in a really streamlined way.

Erin Schwartz (38:58):

This is such a great point for brands out there that are really protective of their brand, like iHire is. So iHire, we have a brand guide that we provide to freelancers when they work on projects for us. And when someone not only gets your brand, but delivers a great product, purple unicorn. It’s amazing both ways. But use them again. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Jesse Gomes (39:21):

Okay. So just a quick recap of what we discussed. Why freelance? Well, freelance work is booming. Ever since the COVID pandemic kind of shifted the way people work, there is a specialized talent pool that’s ready to contribute to your business. And obviously you want to take advantage of that since it’s available to you. Definitely businesses can scale much quicker and deliver faster results while keeping costs down when they take advantage of freelance in the right way at kind of identifying those use cases. That’s the how, really. Once you kind of figure out that freelance might work for you, you want to be laser focused on what that use case is and figure out how they’re going to strategically fit in your business. Thinking about that definition, what is the scope of work? What is the deliverable? What is the way that this freelancer’s going to come in in a very elegant and clear way to provide value to my business?

(40:13):

And then being very clear in that job ad with all that specific information that we discussed, what is that? What are the specific work items that they’re going to produce? How flexible is the work that they’re going to provide for you? All that goes a long way to bridging that trust gap and then establishing your employer brand in a very clear, intentional way, and that’s going to translate all the way through your interaction with them. And then finally, what Brian was just discussing, the better you are during that relationship where you’re communicating clearly, paying them fairly, reliably, on time as it was laid out in that agreement that you put in writing, that’s just going to make that freelancer want to work with you again. And as difficult that it is as it can be to find the right person, it’s so much better when that becomes a repeat relationship.

(40:58):

And so that’s all going to set you up for success.

Erin Schwartz (41:05):

Thanks, Jesse. Thanks, Brian. Some really great content. We are so excited at iHire to be entering the freelance marketplace. We’re really excited to learn more about what you’re experiencing. So with that, we’d like to dig in or we’d like to jump into our Q&A. If any questions come to mind throughout this portion of the webinar, feel free to use that ask a question widget. And don’t forget to hang tight until the webinar concludes, you’ll be able to click that view certificate button in the certification widget to download your certificate of completion with both those SHRM and HRCI activity IDs, so you’ll earn your recertification credit. All right.

Brian Clapp (41:48):

Wait, before we jump into the Q&A, one comment for Carlos in the chat, you have to add iHire to your list of resources for freelancers. That’s the ask that we have of you since you put that in the chat of your doc there. I haven’t had a chance to look yet, but resources for freelancers, I hope you’re going to add iHire to that mix.

Erin Schwartz (42:08):

All right. How does your freelance platform compare to other freelance marketplaces like Upwork or Fiverr?

Brian Clapp (42:19):

Jesse, do you want to take that one or you want me to?

Jesse Gomes (42:21):

Go ahead.

Brian Clapp (42:23):

Okay. I think there are a lot of key reasons why we stand out versus Upwork or Fiverr. Unlike a lot of the broad marketplaces that we’re referencing there, we are focusing in on US-based professionals. iHire is always focused in on US as a talent acquisition source, and we’re going to continue that in the freelance marketplace. I think one of the big advantages there is that you’re going to access people that are within time zones that are easy to communicate with and that you can have a real tapped into assessments or knowledge of the workplace or consistent flow of communication that will benefit people. Additionally, we’re focused in 57 different communities, so it’s not just a marketplace for engineering or marketing or creative type roles. We’re going deeper into accounting and finance and manufacturing and engineering and all those different type of roles that could need freelance help as well.

(43:21):

So we’re digging in deeper there and we’re really stressing quality as we always do to match skills to what the needs are. So there’s no inundation of tons of useless bids coming in for your projects or opportunities. We’re going to focus in on those that are the best matches and drive them towards your opportunity because we’re building this on top of our existing matching technology and leveraging in even more of a skills database to make that as strong a match as possible to your needs. So we really look at it like a one-stop shop where some brands do full-time hiring and some brands do freelance hiring. We’re trying to do everything that you could need so you could come to us for whatever needs you have in the hiring marketplace.

Erin Schwartz (44:06):

Thanks, Brian. All right. What are the potential legal consequences of misclassifying a freelancer as an employee? Good question.

Jesse Gomes (44:18):

I could take that one. So when you misclassify someone, you’re not paying them or paying at least the taxes on them that are appropriate or that have been defined by the IRS. So in that case, if that goes on for a period of time, you’re going to owe back taxes. There’s going to be interest and maybe even fines that you have to pay. There’s also liabilities because if you misclassify a worker, they can then come back and claim back pay, including maybe overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. And so there’s definitely a lot of ramifications that can complicate things that you can really avoid by classifying them appropriately in the first place. Also, audits happen and that could result in additional fines. And so it just gets a little messy. So it’s definitely good to do your due diligence on the front end.

Erin Schwartz (45:13):

Do I need to provide a freelancer with any benefits like health insurance or paid leave?

Brian Clapp (45:20):

Okay. I can jump in there. Generally, no. And that’s one of the real advantages here is that true independent contractors aren’t entitled to employee benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, or paid leave. As I was kind of referencing earlier, you can give little perks like stipends or perks, wellness or project bonuses or T-shirts or something along that lines, but they should be structured carefully to stop from implying any kind of employment relationship. You really just want to continue to be careful, as Jesse was saying, with classifications, you don’t want to go too far above and beyond or push too far into hours thresholds or anything of that nature or giving too much. You can’t really give them equipment, or that could be seen as more of a W2 rule. So you have to be somewhat careful about that, but you do not have to do benefits like health insurance or paid leave at all.

(46:11):

Nope. That gives you the flexibility to hire quickly in this role to solve for that quick problem and move on.

Erin Schwartz (46:19):

Great. All right. That is all the time we have left for today. We appreciate everyone who submitted their questions and took time out of their busy days to join us. Another thank you to our presenters, Brian and Jesse. A reminder that you can read the full freelance report at ihire.com/freelancereport26 and check out our new freelance hiring marketplace, always trying to say marketing, not marketplace, at ihire.com/freelancehiring. If any other questions come to mind, you can always reach out to our amazing customer success team. You can email them at [email protected], and we will get you connected with the right person. Reminder again, to click that view certificate button in the certification widget to download your certificate of completion with both the SHRM and HRCI activity IDs for your recertification credit. Keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow for an on-demand recording of today’s webinar and an invite to our next webinar will be headed your way in a few weeks.

(47:23):

Thanks again, and I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day.