Ah, freelance recruitment. For a lot of experts, taking professional matters into their own hands is the ultimate career-dream. From a distance, going freelance offers what we all crave: more control, more freedom, and an opportunity to increase our earning potential. And while this is all true, becoming your own boss can also throw a few unexpected hurdles in front of you that you never even thought of.
What are the challenges of freelance recruitment? In this article, we talk about the most common challenges freelancers may encounter at the start of their career and will discuss useful tips and even concrete solutions by joining Hire Abroad.
The Freelance Recruitment Market at a Glance
We’ve already touched on the benefits of independent recruitment and what it actually means to leave an already functioning recruitment agency and start from scratch. It might sound scary at first, but the fact that an estimated 12% of the global workforce is freelancing, highlights that there are means and solutions for every professional need, including independent recruitment.
It’s also expected that by 2027, nearly half of the US workforce will be part of the gig economy, or approximately 86.5 million people. Such a trend shift means that there will also be a need for sophisticated online solutions that will offer tailored services to meet the needs of freelancers. On that end, Mordor Intelligence forecasts that the freelance platform market will reach $14.17 billion in 2029, accompanied by a compound annual growth rate of almost 17%.
While future predictions look positive, there are still quite a few challenges that recruiters may and will face. From adequate self-organisation and time management to simply looking for clients and candidates in the right places, independent recruiters need to create effective models for self-governance and find the right software solutions that help them streamline their work.
The Challenges of Freelance Recruitment
- Taking Initiative and Finding Balance
According to statistics, only half of freelancers work 5 days a week, and on average, half of them spend 6 hours on average on unproductive work, with 38% of them working more than 40 hours a week.
Not having a healthy work-life balance as a freelancer can either lead to burnout, or you not earning enough to support your family or yourself. Trying to secure as many clients as possible, finding quality candidates, and setting up a work model that can sustain itself can easily become a vicious cycle where you more or less become a slave of your self-imposed obligations. On the other hand, there are a myriad of pitfalls in freelancing, but the absolute lack of time management and procrastinating too often can lead to stagnation and not generating enough income.
Setting attainable goals, clear boundaries, and optimising your workflows is a good way to avoid over- or underworking yourself. On the other hand, having a centralised platform, such as Hire Abroad, where you can take care of communications, vacancy and client-hunting, and repetitive bureaucracy can be a lifesaver in streamlining your processes and doing more with less at the same time.
- Looking at The Right Places to Find The Best People and Offering the Best Vacancies
Experts agree that the labour market looks vastly different now than it did before the pandemic. After a lot of people stayed at home or even got laid off, they started to rethink what work means for them and whether they will accept any offer as long as it pays the bills.
This is a massive headache for employers but also means that recruiters need to work harder, to find top-notch vacancies and pitching it to candidates who have the necessary hard and soft skills to become a valuable employee.
As an independent recruiter, catering to all of these different aspects can be cumbersome, as in most cases, you’ll need to establish your professional network first, create a well-curated candidate list, and always stay on the lookout for great vacancies that offer great benefits.
To boost your efficiency and to streamline your workflow, the best thing you can do is find a rock-solid client base with a steady stream of above-average vacancies. For that matter, consider Hire Abroad, a platform that allows you to instantaneously connect with employers so you can get back to candidate hunting as quickly as possible.
- The Challenge of Coordination and Communication
We all communicate via multiple channels not just in business, but everyday life as well. And even though we are used to it, it’s easy to let things fall through the cracks and clog your communications. While a lot of this boils down to good self-organisation, it’s easy to miss important updates and opportunities.
This is where using a centralised communication hub can help you keep track of relevant messages, ensuring that both your clients and candidates (and you), are on the same page.
- Understanding the Legal Aspects of Recruitment
International recruitment (even inside the Eurozone) has several challenges, and can get especially complicated regarding the legal aspects. From work permits to immigration laws to taxes and employment regulations, navigating complex contracts can take up a huge chunk of your time and may even discourage candidates to take the offer and move abroad.
As freelancers who are trying to grow your operations on the international market, you need to familiarise yourself with (at least) the laws of the country you’re sourcing your candidates from and the country where firms offer vacancies.
Source: Pexels
Even then, the best case scenario would be partnering with experts who can take care of the paperwork instead of you, communicate with employers, while you set up everything else with the candidates (departures, arrivals, and assistance with the first steps of settling in).
- Becoming a Trustworthy Recruiter
Building trust is paramount for any business and it’s no different for freelance recruiters. There are several ways you can build trust both with clients and potential candidates, but it will take time and effort.
For example, most candidates will be using social media groups for international work opportunities. Joining these groups and bombarding candidates with your offers might seem like a good idea, but in reality, it might just deter them from taking up your offer. You need to take things slow, and establish yourself as a reliable and knowledgeable expert first, by being active in the community, sharing insights, and generally, just by helping candidates with their questions and concerns. Once you’ve built that trust, pitching work opportunities will resonate more positively with the group.
Building credibility and trust with employers also takes time. Curating a portfolio of your work and success stories is essential for making a good impression, but you will also need to showcase your expertise, experience, and commitment.
Building trust gets easier in time, but you can speed up the process if you use the help of mediators (more on that later), who are already nurturing long-lasting relationships with clients, offering top-notch vacancies, that will also pique the interest of candidates.
Hire Abroad Can Help Overcome Freelance Recruitment Challenges
- Focus on What Matters
We’ve touched base on the fact that finding clients, setting up paperwork, and performing other repetitive, mundane tasks takes up a large chunk of a freelancer’s time. Hire Abroad seeks to remove these hurdles with a centralised hub system, where you can instantaneously connect with established employers with available vacancies.
Furthermore, the system can automate invoicing and other repetitive processes, enabling you to focus on finding the best candidates for the job. More specifically, the platform offers comprehensive candidate overviews, flawless document management, and a sophisticated vacancy matching system, all in one interface.
The platform also offers its own success manager, whom you can regularly talk about any challenges you may have, helping you both in finding good candidates and maneuvering the Hire Abroad system.
- Centralised Communication
We’ve also talked about the challenges surrounding communication with clients and candidates. In addition to offering a centralised communications dashboard, the team at Hire Abroad also takes upon themselves to act as a mediator between you and your clients. This means that we will take care of all client-side communications while only having to focus on helping your candidates.
Also, our planners and technical experts aid you in navigating on the platform and setting up the best possible conditions for you doing your job and helping top-talent relocate.
- Fewer Legal Hurdles
The mediator role of the team goes beyond the boundaries of handling communications. We also prepare the necessary paperwork, automate repetitive bureaucratic necessities, making international recruitment less about pushing pencils and more about offering value to the right candidates and filling up vacancies with ease.
- Build More Trust With Less
The platform only works with vetted employers that offer excellent working conditions, competitive salaries, and other coveted work perks, helping you establish yourself among expat candidates as a recruiter who offers value with each proposal and email.
In addition to this, the platform’s sophisticated automatic matching system will help you get the vacancies in front of the most relevant candidates, which will mean a higher satisfaction rate for your clients as well. As a matter of fact, our data shows that employees coming through the platform have a 17% longer average stay, 12% lower no-show rates, and 7% more hours worked. Needless to say, in addition to better client satisfaction, this will also help you boost your earnings as well.
Invest Your Energy in The Right Platform
Independent recruitment gives you the opportunity to manage your own time, become your own boss, and maximise your earning potentials. However, capitalising on all of this requires a lot of work, effort, and sometimes even luck. To gain the upper hand and build your network faster, you need a tool that takes away mundane tasks, optimises communications, and ensures that both your clients and candidates get the most value for their time.
This is where Hire Abroad comes in. If you’d like to learn more about this one-stop shop platform for recruiters, schedule a call with us today.
