Over the past two years, freelance platform rolls have grown by an estimated 60% percent. Altogether, close to 70 million freelancers offer their services part- or fulltime in the US according to recent surveys by Upwork and MBO Partners. The number of freelancers around the globe is, of course, a multiple of that number. McKinsey estimated that over 500 million freelancers would likely participate in freelance marketplaces by 2025.
For freelance marketplaces, the freelance talent expansion is both helpful and challenging. Helpful, of course, because more freelance expertise is available to SMB and enterprise clients around the world. Challenging, however, for two reasons. First, because each freelancer, to be considered for interesting and well-paid work, needs to provide potential clients with full information on their work experience, areas of expertise, credentials, and availabilities. And second, as the population of freelancers increases, complete biographical information is essential in helping marketplaces “curate”; that is, select freelancers who are well “matched” to meet client needs in the shortest possible time.
Too many freelance marketplaces have large populations of freelancers where complete information is lacking or out of date. One well-known marketplace boasted a population size of 40,000 on its website but in fact had complete information for only a few thousand. But these days the quality of profiles, and the information available to clients in selecting freelancers in evaluating and selection freelancers, is a much bigger deal. Marketplaces with significant gaps in knowledge of their freelancers run the risk of hampering sales, losing business, and doing serious harm to their reputation.
Here’s why:
Clients are more sophisticated and demanding than ever. As support for freelancing matures, clients want to know the freelancers they are bring on board have the right experience, expertise, competence and, for international work, language skills. As Leslie Garçon, CEO of Weem, an independent management consulting platform points out, clients are utilizing their freelance consultants to fill out join consultant-client teams working on specific priorities. Garçon notes, “We work with large companies, startups, and investment funds. Clients increasingly ask for specific profiles – expertise, sectors, and language skills – to complement the skills of internal team members. Constantly updated data on individual professionals is therefore more essential than ever in curation.”
Modern curation has shifted from human judgment to data-based relevance. In years past, marketplaces like Toptal depended on the knowledge of expert “matchers”, talent professionals who supported sales by identifying the right freelancers for the project based on their experience and knowledge of individuals. But, in many platforms the population of freelance platforms has outstripped the insights of matchers. It’s harder and harder for these professionals to “know” their freelancers, and they are too prone to bias of different kinds. And it simply a less professional response when pertinent data should be available and transparent. As Garçon of Weem points out, specificity of qualifications has become increasingly important. Curation is quickly shifting from “art” to “science.”
Enterprise clients want less risk and that means more data. The growth of enterprise freelancing adds urgency to the need for continuing investment in perfected profiles and nearly real-time AI support. Clients want to know that the freelancer has the specific experiences they want to see, relevant performance assessments, and what they are like to work with. For enterprises in particular, risk is a critical factor in selecting freelancers. The stakes are higher for enterprise companies than for young startups. Enterprise staff are often reluctant to bring freelancers on board and, when full information is not available, the cost of error is perceived to be greater. If platforms reduce perceived risk and improve the odds of a prescient match by providing additional data, that only improves the client relationship.
The importance of “soft” as well as “hard” performance factors is growing. As freelancers become more of a factor, and as technologies permit, clients will more often want to know more about freelancers’ professional as well as technical competence: their maturity, work style, team skills, client relationships, planning and time management, and how others experience working with them. They’ll also want to know how well freelancers keep up through continuing ed and certifications. Platforms that curate both hard and soft skills in matching will experience greater success and stronger client loyalty.
AI is an increasing imperative. AI is already being used as a tool to facilitate performance evaluation in industry. A recent Recruiter.com article said this about AI: “As with many enterprise tech tools, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) have been playing an increasingly important role in performance management systems and strategies in recent times. Leveraged properly, these analytics and AI capabilities could have a powerful impact on employee performance in your organization.” AI is able to provide freelance platform matchers and clients with both more sources of information and greater depth of information about individual freelancers: their experiences, areas of past and current expertise, color on the roles they’ve played in the various projects they’ve supported, their qualifications, continuing education, and their professional as well as technical strengths. As importantly, generative AI can more immediately curate the best fitting freelancers for the project as scoped. As McKinsey recently put it referring about AI in selection, “The best application of gen AI is in large skill pools where you’re trying to fill a reasonably well-known job … We need a more productive and efficient way to navigate all the profiles coming through.”
Great freelancers want to join platforms that share a “freelancer first” philosophy. Successful freelancers want to work with marketplaces that invest in them, care about them, and effectively represent them, including helping them get their story and credentials out there. Accepting large pools of incomplete freelance applicants sends the wrong message to freelancers: that they are not individually important, that size values more than quality, and that freelancers are a commodity, not a highly valued asset. Moreover, advertising a high talent count that includes many incomplete profiles speaks poorly of the professionalism of the platform. Clients will wonder but so will top freelancers. Remember, freelancers will choose the marketplaces that best represents them.
In the post-Covid, AI-accelerated, economy, successful freelance platforms will maintain a high bar for the quality of their freelancers, and industry will reward their excellence with a continuing flow of interesting, well-paid, work. A key bridge is the perceived professionalism of the platform, particularly for enterprise company clients, expressed in part by offering clients fully updated information on each of their freelancers. Knowing and caring for a platform’s most important asset – its talented professional members – is best manifested in how well their talents and achievement are presented and up to date.
Viva la Revolution!
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