If you are a doctor, engineer or some kind of professional, maintaining your digital professional network is quite simple thanks to online job portals. Creating professional connections and planning the next step in your career 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 is despite the fact that sharing economy spending in the US in 2015 exceeded $792 billion 1 .
The biggest problem for these freelancers or contractors is identifying, finding, and obtaining a steady stream of contract work; but the major job portals largely ignore them and focus mainly on professionals.
How the ISPs have managed so far
Until now, service providers have relied heavily on various types of networks to grow their careers:
1. Suggestions or references from the family
2. Advice from friends
3. Social networks to keep abreast of developments in nearby areas or regions
4. Maintaining digital wallets on various service websites
5. And use the connections of a staffing company.
However, these techniques had their own drawbacks: ISPs often encountered days or weeks of downtime between successive jobs; some of the service seekers tended to change the terms of compensation in the middle of a job or after it was completed; a service provider had to wait for an extensive background check to be completed before being hired for any new work; and the relatively large expense required to place advertisements on service websites.
The change in the expectations of the requester of the service
But the biggest hurdle facing an ISP is the changing expectations of a digitally empowered society.
Until a few years ago, service seekers tended to turn to the services of their friendly neighborhood plumber or electrician. Opinions about them were formed based on physical experiences or 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 down those physical interactions and replaced them with an ISP’s personal or background details, its reputation, ratings and reviews scrutinized in various online sites. service platforms.
Meanwhile, corporate service seekers stuck to their approach of forming partnerships with staffing companies and running background checks on ISPs every time.
A barrage of background checks
Therefore, ISPs are currently being asked to adapt to a dynamic recruitment process without much help.
There is no policy that allows them to maintain a single, universally accepted background check certificate, which can 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 identification method 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 that they apply for tax breaks or use a health care service.
So why can’t an ISP just run a thorough background check, record it, and then use it when needed in the future? This not only greatly simplifies the hiring process, but drastically reduces the time between two successive jobs.
The messy world of reputation maintenance
During the last few years, the dynamic world of start-ups and technology services finally decided to fill the big gap: a job portal focused entirely on the non-professional workforce. ISPs initially 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 by satisfying different algorithms, maintaining a healthy reputation by being active and easily accessible, responding quickly to any new comments, and overcoming the inevitable fake reviews/ratings from competitors.
Service websites, the dreaded middlemen, weren’t much better as ISPs had to pass advertising expenses on to customers just so they could turn 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, such as it is, does not appear to have a net positive impact for ISPs. There is an urgent need for a platform that allows them to perform a comprehensive background check once and for all, display and share their credentials across the web, and receive reviews and ratings from service seekers in a secure and authenticated manner.
And TrustLogics is poised to be the answer to this particular conundrum.