Newsletter January 2020
Gig economy makes the leap to high-value professionals
If until now the gig economy was related to a labor market that emerged within the sharing economy more prone to job insecurity and low-skilled jobs, the trend points to a new profile of high-value professionals.
The origin of the gig economy is in the United States, where there are estimates that already point to 30% of the working population in this category. It arrived in Europe later, taking advantage of the crisis and as a way of providing employment opportunities through mini-jobs and occasional short-term contracts. The other characteristic was that it was restricted to low-skilled tasks. But the gig economy market is evolving and is now beginning to give way to many more qualified professional profiles considered to be of high value to companies.
At least that is what they say in Outvise, a platform that brings together a network of more than 23,000 expert professionals from around the world. Eusebi Llena, the company's CEO, and founder, is the one who puts us in context.
"There are, on the one hand, professionals with an impressive background in large companies who, either because of their age or for whatever reason, are pushed into unemployment at a mature age. But alongside these, there are also young professionals who prefer not to be tied to a company for life. They are more motivated to work flexibly and on projects that are interesting to them. When we talk to our freelancers to find out what their main motivators are, the first is that they put the quality of life before work and the second is to work on specific projects that are attractive to them. The economic reason does not even appear in the top 3", he argues.
However, even though, on the face of it, it seems that money is not the main driver, LLensa says that many of this group of high-value experts have an average turnover of between 400 and 800 euros since in markets such as Germany or the Middle East it varies between 800 and 1,200 euros a day.
As far as SMEs are concerned, Llena highlights as the main advantage the possibility of having a more agile and economical way of having the necessary talent capable of covering certain deficiencies or of undertaking the implementation of new innovative projects. Faced with this situation, the big companies tend to resort to business consultants, who disembark with their team of specialists in the applicant company "at a price ranging between 50,000 and 70,000 euros per person. An SME cannot afford this, but it can use a platform and contact that high-value professional it needs," he says.
This is precisely what they do. They offer professional freelancers in three specific areas:
- commercial (media experts, traditional and online marketing, digital transformation...),
- corporate support (management and new business strategies),
- technology (system architects, data, but not developers or graphic designers).
HOW TO SELL YOURSELF IF YOU ARE A HIGH-VALUE FREELANCER
As far as the professionals are concerned, Eusebi Llena understands that they too have to learn to put themselves to good use in order to encourage commissions. In this sense he gives a series of recommendations:
- work and take good care of the network of contacts. Nearly 82% of these professionals claim to receive the projects through direct recommendations made either by their group of friends or by their network, which also works on Linkedin;
- nothing of diffuse curricula. Better to prepare several different resumes than to include in one all your skills saying you know a lot about everything. When companies turn to these professionals they do so because they have a very specific problem or need to solve, so the more you do your training, the better. At Outvise they call it "actively managing your curriculum";
- sign up for some digital platform. This is another way you could receive orders. According to Outvise, 65% of high-value freelancers come into contact with customers through these platforms.
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