If you work in HR, you’ve probably heard about crowdstaffing. It’s a smart alternative to the traditional freelance recruiter work model. In this article, we’ll focus on the essence of effective crowdstaffing and explain in which ways it’s different from the conventional approach.
How Does Crowdstaffing Work?
A typical freelance recruiter has to multitask:
- Finds suitable candidates for various organizations;
- Keeps continuously looking for new clients;
- Promotes themselves using different marketing tools;
- Drafts contracts;
- Is in charge of accounting;
- Runs a database of talents;
- Interviews professionals who’re looking for jobs;
- Acquires new knowledge.
A crowdstaffing platform can make a life of such a specialist much simpler. A web resource of this type unites multiple recruiters, each of which has their database of contacts. Whenever a client places a request for an employee with specific skills and experience, they aren’t limited to the connections of one HR manager only. They get access to a huge pool of workers and the speed of searching increases significantly.
HR experts focus on immediate recruitment tasks. They don’t need to handle the contracts, negotiate with clients or cope with administrative duties. Dedicated project managers spare them from these responsibilities.
Clients can benefit from referral programs. Recommendation systems help them to detect the best recruiters within the platform.
Crowdstaffing comes in handy for any industry and any kind of business, be it a small startup or a multinational corporation. This method works well for all types of tasks and projects, regardless of their terms and level of complexity.
Conventional Approach or Crowdstaffing: Which Is the Best Recruitment Method?
There is no one-fits-all answer to the question “What methods to use to hire top talents?”. Below, we’ll list the primary arguments in favor of crowd recruitment.
Stability and Security
When working as a freelancer, a recruiter might fail to get their invoices paid from time to time. They might get involved in legal issues that would consume a lot of their time and nerves.
Crowdstaffing platforms take care of billing and paperwork. They rely on the assistance of tax advisors, accountants and lawyers, all of whom can boast impressive expertise in the HR sector.
Access to a Large Pool of Clients and Talents
A manager can ask their in-house HR team or a recruitment agency to look for new employers. Yet these service providers will be able to reach only those people who are featured in their databases plus those whose resumes are publicly available. Meanwhile, there might be numerous passive candidates for the vacancy. These are people who aren’t actively looking for a job because they’re happy with their current positions — but if a better opportunity presents itself, they would be glad to use it. Crowdstaffing platforms give clients access to a much more extensive selection of talents and boost their odds of finding the right ones.
Opportunity to Cut Down Expenses on Personal Promotions
Freelance professionals have to invest a lot of resources in promoting themselves:
- Build personal websites and optimize them for search engines;
- Place paid ads;
- Have profiles on social networks;
- Run blogs.
On a crowdstaffing platform, they get a constant influx of new clients without investing anything. The higher the rating of a specific specialist and the more positive customer reviews they get, the more people will be eager to use their services.
Environment to Share Experience
On a crowdstaffing platform, recruiters can discuss the tools and strategies that they resort to, share lifehacks and results of recent research, ask questions and get consultations. The cross-pollination of ideas enhances their collective professionalism.
Chance to Reach Top Brands
When freelancing, most recruiters can only dream of working with the largest, most generous and most demanding brands. Crowdstaffing provides them with this opportunity.
Higher Speed of Work
On a crowdstaffing platform, the recruiters detect the optimal strategy for each search in the shortest possible time. They can search across many industries simultaneously. This is especially important when the client wants to scale their business.
Final Thoughts
The recruitment model of crowdstaffing tends to be more efficient than the conventional approach to hiring new employees. Multiple recruiters join forces on an online platform that takes care of marketing and billing as well as legal and administrative tasks. Clients can benefit from a higher speed of work and access to a larger pool of talents. Crowdstaffing comes in handy for businesses of any size and projects of any complexity level.
