“My colleagues that recruit professionals for contract gigs are all telling me that business is booming,” says Jessica Riester of Flexwork Connection. Her company recruits consultants and provides professional staffing services for high-end finance and accounting roles. “And I have to agree.”
The current job market has left a glut of highly-skilled professionals looking for work as companies are laying-off by the thousands. Experienced executives and managers across a broad range of industries and disciplines—marketing, finance, and operations—are suddenly faced with brushing up their resumes, something they haven’t had to do for a long time.
At the same time, however, the work still needs to get done. Even down-sized companies need to develop customer markets, advertise their wares, deliver services, and collect payment. And in this highly-competitive market, these companies need the best possible combination of skills and experience available for their shrinking payroll dollars.
Enter the professional consultant. Able to bring years of experience and talent to the table, willing to work as necessary, and generally paid by the hour, consultants can give companies the optimal pay-for-performance option.
Take ERS, a small electronics recycling company in Orange County, California. For less than the cost of a single marketing manager at around $75,000 per year, they are able to get the professional marketing services generally available only to Fortune-500 companies. They pay $250 per hour to a former marketing VP for less than 5 hours of work per week. The lead consultant then coordinates a team of less expensive consultants by the hour for creative, telemarketing, web design, event planning, and direct mail services.
The company wins because they pay only for the hours directly spent on their project, not for employees to drink coffee, gossip by the water cooler, and wait for returned phone calls. They also get to tap the varied skills of a team of people, rather than just one. And for the consultant, the lifestyle is glorious. They get to choose their own hours, do meaningful work, and broaden their professional experience in a variety of different settings.
“This is just one example of how the workplace is changing to a free-agent nation,” says Joanna Elliott, founder of The Start Company, a business consultancy firm. “As the economy tightens, companies can no longer pay for anything but results.”
In the old days, people with outside, non-work interests or commitments lost out to those “committed” employees that spent sixty plus hours per week at their desks. Professional moms, for example, complained of pressure to choose between their families and their careers. In the new workplace, the rewards will come to those who can provide the maximum benefit for the client, not the maximum number of hours.
Compensation for consultants can vary. Some are paid hourly and others are paid by the project. Many are also offered bonuses for early project completion, cost containment, and/or sales effectiveness. The typical hourly market rate for a consultant is about double the hourly base salary rate of a full-time associate. Remember, though, that you will not have to pay benefits, overhead, or for any non-billable activities, so the net cash outlay is usually much less than for an employee.
Finding the right consultant can be tricky. While it may be easier to terminate a bad consulting relationship than a full-time employee, high consultant turnover can be very expensive. There has emerged a new breed of recruiter; consultant placement firms, also called “talent aggregators,” that specialize in locating not only the right background, but also the right “consulting skill-set”.
“Not everyone has the ability to manage themselves and their time efficiently to maximize results,” concedes Jessica Riester of Flexwork Connection. “The old workplace doesn’t teach those skills; in fact, it is often the exact opposite. You would be surprised to know how many successful executives I have met that cannot function outside of the traditional work structure. When you take away the office politics and the focus on hours as a measure of success, many people just don’t make the cut.”
Some examples of these firms include Flexworkconnection.com, YourOnRamp.com, FlexperienceStaffing.com, and MSquared.com to name a few. There are also new “premier talent fairs” springing up to help dislocated professionals connect with forward-thinking companies. One such event coming to Orange County, CA in October 2008, features a panel of employer experts and networking opportunities for potential candidates. More information can be found at Next Generation Work Event.
“There is a large untapped talent pool of highly educated women who have left traditional, inflexible careers,” says Catherine Clifford, of YourOnRamp.com, an online job board and resource for women in career transition. “We match this talent to employers looking for consultants and part-time employees. Etcetera hired us to find managers and sales consultants to meet their growth targets. They found five candidates in less than two months and are continuing to hire from our site and at our events.”
The current market has created the perfect storm for the “free agent nation” to thrive. For those stuck in the old paradigm, the next few years are likely going to be really tough.
By Kelly Watson, founder and president of CareerPartners.org.
