Whether you’re a doctor, engineer, or some kind of professional, maintaining your digital career network is pretty easy, thanks to online job portals. Creating professional connections and planning your next career step has never felt so empowering.
On the other hand, the digital revolution seems to have largely bypassed independent service providers (ISPs) like waiters, forklift operators, carpenters, etc.
This despite the fact that gig economy spending in the US for 2015 exceeded $ 792 billion 1.
The biggest problem for these freelancers or contractors is identifying, pursuing, and obtaining a steady stream of contract jobs; But they are largely ignored by the major job portals and mainly focused on professionals.
How ISPs got so far
Until now, service providers relied heavily on various types of networks to grow their careers:
1. Suggestions or recommendations from the family
2. Advice from friends
3. Social networks to keep abreast of developments in nearby areas or regions
4. Maintenance of digital portfolios on various service websites
5. And using the connections of a staffing company.
However, these techniques had their own drawbacks: ISPs tended to find themselves with days or weeks of downtime between successive jobs; some of the service applicants tended to change the terms of compensation midway through a job or after it was done; a service provider had to wait for a thorough background check to complete before being hired for any new work; and the relatively high expense required to place advertisements on service websites.
The change in expectations of service applicants
But the biggest hurdle an ISP faces is the changing expectations of a digitally empowered society.
Until a few years ago, service seekers often enlisted the services of a friendly neighborhood plumber or electrician. Opinions about them were formed based on experiences or physical interactions while using their services.
But the digital revolution, which came along with access to dozens of plumbers or electricians at the push of a button, broke those physical interactions and replaced them with personal or background details from an ISP, sifting through their reputation, ratings, and reviews on various sites. online. service platforms.
Meanwhile, corporate service applicants remained steadfast in their approach to forming partnerships with staffing firms and conducting background checks on ISPs every time.
A barrage of background checks
Therefore, ISPs are currently being asked to adjust to a dynamic hiring process without much help.
There is no policy that allows them to keep a single universally accepted background check certificate, which may be updated from time to time, to serve as proof of their credentials.
For example, consider the social security number (SSN). An SSN serves as an authorized method of identification for tax and health care purposes. In other words, a person does not have to prove their identity, income history, gender, place of birth, etc., during each instance of filing tax exemptions or making use of a health care service.
So why can’t an ISP just run a comprehensive background check, record it, and then use it when needed in the future? Not only does this greatly simplify the hiring process, it dramatically reduces the time between two successive jobs.
The messy world of reputation maintenance
Over the past few years, the dynamic world of startups and technology services has finally decided to fill the glaring void: a job portal focused entirely on the non-professional workforce. Initially, ISPs reacted positively to the flood of job portals launched for them.
But this quickly turned into something of a nightmare.
ISPs now have to optimize their profiles on a dozen different platforms satisfying different algorithms, maintain a healthy reputation by being active and easily accessible, respond quickly to any new comments, and overcome the inevitable false reviews / ratings from competitors.
Service websites, the dreaded middlemen, weren’t much better, as ISPs had to pass on advertising costs to customers just so they could make a small profit for themselves.
So why can’t ISPs have their own equivalent of the Facebook wall? Why can’t they create, maintain, update and optimize their digital profiles / ratings / reviews on one platform and then share them on the web whenever they want?
The end of the status quo
The status quo as it stands does not appear to have a net positive impact for ISPs. There is an urgent need for a platform that allows them to conduct a comprehensive background check once and for all, display and share their credentials on the web, and receive reviews and ratings from service applicants in a secure and authenticated manner.
And TrustLogics is poised to be the answer to this particular puzzle.
The hiring disruption that independent service providers urgently need
