Last week I had a great conversation with Brian Hoffmeyer, SVP Market Strategies at Beeline, around why candidate fit will be critical for the contingent workforce in 2020. With so many organizations anticipating greater needs for contingent workers as shelter in place orders are lifted, finding best fit candidates as quickly as possible becomes paramount to success.

Common Problems

Contingent hiring professionals agree that time to fill positions, poor culture fit, and resumes that fall short are top problems that come with hiring and retaining contingent workers. And when organizations are unsatisfied with a contingent hire the most common problems are that the contingent worker:

• Didn’t meet the expectations that were set out for them (time, quality, etc.)
• Were unable to get adoption from the team they were working with to solve the problem
• Disrupted the team they were working with
• Were unreceptive to the opinions and thoughts of others on the team

Cut Problems Off at the Pass

Many of these problems can be minimized if organizations assess candidate personality fit early in the hiring process. Personality science, specifically the Big Five model, has been shown in over 50 years of research to be predictive of work behaviors and performance. Hiring someone who has the right personality composition for the job that needs to be done and who will fit in well with the team can eliminate these problems from the start. Hiring someone who is personable and who embraces the organizational culture, for example, will have many benefits. These individuals are more likely to get along well with the team they are working with, which will make the communication between the two run more smoothly. When there is good rapport, the contingent worker is likely to get all of the necessary information from the team to do the job well and is more likely to receive buy-in of the solution once it is completed. When time is of the essence, hiring someone who is conscientious and who prioritizes schedules and work quality can reduce the occurrence of project stalls and delays. When projects are done well and adopted the first time, overall costs go down. You don’t have to bring in a new hire to start over or to fix someone else’s poor work!

Decrease Time-to-Hire

Administering an assessment at the start of the hiring process can provide valuable information that can be used in part to prioritize candidates and inform the interview process. When hiring managers have an understanding of the way a candidate is likely to approach the work, they can ask better questions and better evaluate a candidate’s responses. This all adds up to increased efficiency in the hiring process and real-time savings.

Key Takeaways

• Personality science can help you make predictive hiring decisions for contingent workers
• Leveraging candidate fit in your contingent hiring process can help you maintain the culture and ensure contingent work is adopted
• The impact of fit is real - reducing time-to-hire, increasing likelihood of buy-in and project success, decreasing hiring costs

To learn more about easily adding an assessment to feel the impact contingent worker fit, connect with Traitify.