The Inc. 5000 list, renowned for showcasing some of America’s fastest-growing private companies, is a coveted achievement that numerous U.S.-based businesses strive for each year.

Employ Inc., a leading provider of people-first recruiting and talent acquisition solutions including JazzHR, Lever, Jobvite, and NXTThing RPO, — has been fortunate enough to make this annual list and be deemed one of the most successful companies today.

What Making the Inc. 5000 Means to Employ

Being named to the 2024 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies is a significant achievement for Employ Inc., reflecting our rapid growth and the strength of our innovative approach to talent acquisition. This recognition underscores the effectiveness of our people-first strategy, which integrates the unique strengths of JazzHR, Lever, Jobvite, and NXTThing RPO to deliver unparalleled recruiting solutions.

This accolade not only highlights our successful revenue growth but also validates our commitment to offering customized, cutting-edge solutions in a challenging economic landscape. Our inclusion on this prestigious list signifies that we are not just keeping pace with industry demands but leading the way in transforming how organizations approach hiring and talent management.

This recognition reinforces our position as a trusted and forward-thinking partner in talent acquisition for our clients and partners. It confirms that our comprehensive suite of services and our dedication to prioritizing people over products are driving real, measurable success. This award is a testament to the hard work and innovation of our team and positions Employ Inc. as a continued leader in delivering impactful, people-centered recruiting solutions.  

As we continue to innovate and introduce new solutions to market, we will remain focused on delivering a recruiting experience that begins, and ends, with the people served.” – Steve Cox, Employ CEO

About Employ

Looking for purpose-built recruiting technology to empower your talent acquisition team? Visit the Employ website to learn all about our solutions for companies of all sizes and recruiting complexities.

Guest blog from

We’re in the middle of a revolution in recruitment. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a key role, with tools like ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies helping enhance hiring and HR processes. For example, these technologies can assist with sourcing and screening candidates, and improve the overall candidate experience. 

In short, these AI tools are indispensable for modern recruitment.

ChatGPT provides a unique solution that can use AI insights to complement your ATS software and saves your team time, money, and effort. You may have heard murmurings about using generative AI in the recruiting process — find out how ChatGPT works to help streamline the entire sourcing and hiring process.

Leveraging AI for Sourcing

Recruiting and hiring top talent takes real effort in this competitive market. Personalized and engaging messages that stand out can go a long way with passive candidates.

That’s where ChatGPT comes in — it can automate personalized outreach while integrating with email platforms. With detailed job descriptions and candidate qualifications, it generates high-quality, tailored messages based on these insights from recruiters.

Imagine you’re a recruiter for a tech company looking to hire a software engineer with expertise in machine learning. You have a list of potential passive candidates who may not be actively seeking new opportunities but could be interested if approached with the right message. Manually crafting personalized messages for each candidate can be time-consuming and challenging.

Feeding ChatGPT the job description and the qualifications of each passive candidate generates customized messages tailored to highlight how the candidate’s skills and experiences align with the position.

ChatGPT integrates with some email platforms, allowing recruiting teams to automate personalized outreach. At the rate this technology advances, it won’t be long until we see a ChatGPT plugin that feeds directly into an ATS, allowing recruiters to streamline their approach even more.

Leveraging AI for Screening

There’s no doubt that Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the way recruiters seek out potential hires. But what about the way they screen them?

Incorporating machine learning into the resume screening process can expedite the process for recruiters almost seamlessly.

Recruiters can feed ChatGPT information about individual candidates sourced through an ATS, which is powering how recruitment works today, and a list of qualities they demand from specific job roles.

ChatGPT can then delve deep into a potential employee’s past performance, education, and experience to provide users with insights that encourage more informed decision-making on who would be good to invite to an interview. These added insights about a candidate’s potential fit for a role could make recruitment faster, easier, and more productive.

Leveraging AI for Interviews

Recruiters are no strangers to the challenge of asking the ‘right questions’ when finding and selecting the most talented candidates. Imagine you’re a recruiter tasked with hiring your company’s first web developer, and leadership finds it challenging to articulate the exact skills or qualifications needed.

That sounds like an impossible problem, right? But here’s where ChatGPT can add value; simply input broad descriptions of all the tasks required for this role and then watch as ChatGPT works its magic to come up with highly specific questions that help you to find the best and most qualified person.

Leveraging AI for Candidate Experience

Incorporating tools like ChatGPT into your recruitment process can significantly enhance efficiency and enrich the candidate experience. Integrated into your company’s website, these AI-powered chatbots can interact with candidates in a personalized and effective manner, guiding them through the application and interview process.

Creating an AI chatbot might seem like a complex task, but it becomes pretty straightforward with the powerful API provided by platforms like ChatGPT. If you don’t have a dev or engineer on staff to build a custom chatbot, a growing industry of agencies and contractors can create one without breaking the bank.

These chatbots facilitate a more engaging, user-friendly, and efficient application process that job seekers highly appreciate.

Personalized Communication and Feedback

Another significant advantage of AI chatbots is their ability to provide personalized communication and feedback. They can generate customized messages to thank candidates for their application, update them on their application status, and provide constructive feedback post-interview. This personal touch enhances the candidate experience and fosters a positive image of your company.

By using an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, you can streamline and enhance this communication process. The chatbot is programmed to generate customized messages for each candidate, ensuring a personal touch in every interaction.

Imagine you’re a recruiter for a design agency that recently posted a job opening for a graphic designer. You received numerous applications for the position, and it’s crucial to maintain clear communication and provide personalized feedback to each candidate throughout the hiring process.

After interviewing several great candidates, your team has chosen the person who embodies everything you were looking for in the role. It’s an awesome situation to be in — unless you have to communicate the decision to the candidates who didn’t get the job.

ChatGPT is a lifesaver in these situations. You can prompt the platform with a few specifics about each candidate and have AI write a thoughtful, encouraging message that leaves every candidate with a positive impression of your company. For example:

We want to thank you for applying and interviewing for the Graphic Designer role at DesignAgency. While we were impressed with your skills and background, we decided to proceed with another candidate more closely aligned with our current needs. We truly appreciate your interest in our company and encourage you to apply for future openings. Your expertise in logo design is exceptional, and we believe that strengthening your UX/UI design skills could further enhance your profile. We wish you the best in your job search and future endeavors.

Final Thoughts

Incorporating an AI-powered chatbot into your recruitment process can significantly enhance the candidate experience and streamline recruitment operations. It offers a personal, efficient, and supportive platform for candidates to navigate the application and interview process, ultimately leading to a higher caliber of applicants and a more effective recruitment process. It’s time to consider investing in AI technology to enrich your recruitment strategy and secure the best talent for your company.

Founded in 2015, GoCo.io is modernizing HR, benefits, and payroll with its flexible, easy-to-use, and industry-leading solutions for SMBs. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, and serving customers nationwide, its mission is to automate manual HR tasks and empower HR professionals to make work a better place. Unlike other HR platforms, GoCo is built to be flexible enough to support existing processes, policies, and providers so that SMBs don’t have to change the way they work in order to adopt a modern HR system.

So if you’re looking for the top takeaways for company leaders like yourself, look no further. We’ve compiled top priorities for business leaders to focus on in their companies and improve their recruiting efforts for 2023.

#1: Scalability Is a Strategic Advantage

No matter their size or recruiting complexity, companies are still navigating rocky terrain when it comes to hiring. Those that are actively hiring for new positions have challenges finding enough quality candidates. That’s why it remains the top priority for HR leaders in 2023. In fact, nearly two-thirds (61%) of HR decision makers indicate their first priority in recruiting this year is improving the overall quality of candidate.

However, based on Employ data, the number of new job listings across organizations decreased last year between the second and third quarters by 10.4%, representing a pullback from historic highs seen in early Q2 2022. With new open jobs trending downward, companies will likely experience a continued increase in the total number of applications in 2023.

So while the labor market remains tight, it is also possible that companies are pulling back on hiring during this time. In response, business leaders should adopt more agile recruiting strategies that enable them to scale up or down, depending on their own business needs.

Scalability has become a key strategy for successful recruiting. It allows teams to evaluate their hiring process at all steps of the talent lifecycle to find areas of improvement and keeps teams ready to adjust to changes in the market.

Agile recruiting helps companies to:

• Analyze and optimize recruiting processes

• Evaluate and improve on key recruiting metrics like quality of hire and time-to-hire

• Shorten the hiring process to fill roles quicker with qualified talent

• Easily adjust to the changing job market to meet candidates where they are

#2: Technology & Process Prioritization Is Essential

Following multiple years of job market uncertainty, employers are still looking for ways to speed time to hire and focus on automating parts of the hiring process. This is often done by identifying technology and processes that can take repetitive, mundane tasks away from recruiters and hiring managers, and automate those activities for faster hiring.

Companies that plan to increase recruiting spend will most often do so by increasing their budgets for new recruitment technology processes (59%), job advertising (57%), new recruiting team role hires (45%), and by expanding their existing recruitment technology stack (43%).

Additional technology investments will likely go toward:

• Applicant tracking systems (59%)

• DEI initiatives (51%)

• Candidate relationship management (50%)

• Sourcing, including RPO (47%)

• Career sites (41%)

• Offers and onboarding (41%)

> PRO TIP: Leverage purpose-built recruitment technology

Adopt recruitment software that is tailor-made for the complexity, size, and hiring needs of your business. By investing in purpose-built technology, companies can ensure they are more competitive to connect with the right talent and streamline their processes.

#3: Recruiting Outcomes Are Paramount

Understanding where HR decision makers face the biggest challenges right now, and actively seeking to address those difficulties, can make a difference for companies looking to improve the quality of candidates and improve the speed of hiring.

Here are two strategies that can help organizations improve their overall quality of hire, increase efficiencies through automation and workload reduction, and support compliance across companies of all sizes:

• Deliver positive experiences
  Take care to invest in the needs of hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates, and deliver positive experiences for these audiences. Work to shorten feedback loops, improve communication and collaboration, and engage each stakeholder more deeply within the hiring process. If applicable, focus on engaging with gig workers and nurturing relationships with individuals who are in revenue-generating roles. Ensure the hiring process delivers positive experiences that enhance the company’s employer brand.

• Identify where to optimize processes
  Leverage data-driven insights and analytics that inform where bottlenecks exist in the recruiting process and uncover opportunities to speed up time-to-hire and boost the quality of candidates. By keeping a clear pulse on applicant flow and the talent pipeline, companies can uncover insights into where the recruiting process can be improved.

Final Thoughts

Interested in deeper insights to start the new year? Download the Employ Quarterly Insights Report here or discover other relevant content in our resource library.

Traditionally, screening out, or eliminating candidates because they don’t meet specific criteria, has been the default practice of hiring teams and recruiters. But with recent discussions on how quickly this can decrease the talent pool of incredibly competent candidates, industry leaders are trying a new approach. Let’s take a look at both more closely and determine how to use them to your advantage in a challenging hiring environment.

Screening Out Candidates

There is a time and place for screening out. 

• Physicians need a medical degree. 

• Accountants need CPA certification. 

• Truck drivers need a Commercial Driver’s License.

In some cases, it’s completely necessary to have firm, non-negotiable requirements for your applicants. To waste time on the interview process without them would be a disservice to you and the candidate, so it’s entirely plausible to rule out candidates without these specifications at the application stage.

Pros of Screening Out

There are two occasions where screening out is entirely necessary.

The first is in the search for candidates for a highly technical position as listed above. An ATS can filter out applications without these specific criteria. However, there’s a distinct difference between roles that require specific accreditation and roles that technically don’t require a certain degree or level of education.

The second occasion where screening out is relevant is when a candidate cannot meet the basic needs of the role. If the role would put the candidate’s safety at risk, or they cannot meet the required physical demands of a job, they would likely be disqualified from the position. Likewise, if your role requires the candidate to be in person in California, but they’ve noted that they live in New York and are unwilling to relocate, then disqualifying or screening out a candidate makes sense. As long as your qualifiers aren’t discriminatory, screening out a candidate can be strategic move.

Cons of Screening Out

The biggest downfall to screening out is eliminating qualified candidates using the wrong metrics, which is a common mistake. There’s a difference between not having a commercial driver’s license (which is a requirement by law) and not having a bachelor’s degree for an entry-level position.

This is a slippery slope. Unconscious biases can sneak into this process and cause talent acquisition teams to use criteria, such as gender, ethnicity, or other factors irrelevant to the job description to screen candidates. These biases can not only prevent you from finding the best candidates; they stifle innovation, productivity, and employee engagement.

Luckily, there’s an alternative to screening candidates out.

Screening In Candidates

Screening “in” is commonly misunderstood and underused. This process, at its core, is a more inclusive approach to hiring that considers candidates who may bring refreshed experience, enthusiasm, and energy to your organization through their unique experiences.

Screening in versus screening out may simply involve broadening your criteria, such as indicating, “We’re looking for someone with a degree in Public Relations, but will also accept degrees in Journalism or Communications.” Furthermore, you may accept related experience in lieu of a degree altogether.

The screening-in process allows candidates to demonstrate their expertise or provide context to their application that’s often overlooked when hiring teams or recruiters default to screening applicants with two-dimensional criteria.

Perhaps your usual candidates possess a degree in sales, business, or economics. If you limit your search results to only those particular degrees, you are likely to miss out on someone with a degree in engineering who could offer a fresh perspective. If you’re concerned the candidate’s background doesn’t correlate seamlessly to the work at hand, consider a screening question within the application or a screening interview for further clarification and offer the chance for the candidate to illustrate their unique experience.

Screening In Versus Screening Out

The job market is tight and shows very few signs of slowing. There are 10.1 million open jobs and nowhere near enough applicants to fill those openings, making finding talented candidates more competitive than ever.

Companies embracing the screening in approach will benefit from “hidden gem” candidates who may not have the traditional background, but will thrive in the position, nonetheless. Rethinking the conventional criteria in which you screen is often the first step in increasing your quality of hire and meeting hiring goals with diverse candidates.

Looking for more insights into attracting candidates in a tight labor market? Subscribe to our blog or view our hiring resources for more hiring information you can use.

What role will hiring technology play in your 2022 recruitment process?

To understand the role of recruiting technology in this new year’s hiring process, we asked HR professionals and recruiters this question for their best insights. From centralizing data through ATS to global hiring, there are several ways hiring software impacts recruiting in 2022. 

Here are nine ways hiring software is changing recruiting in 2022:

• Centralized Data Through Applicant Tracking Systems

• Quicker Recruiting Process

• Employ Candidate Assessment Tools

• Online Testing

• Predict Candidate Fit

• Use AI To Automate

• Easier to Hire Globally

• 90-second Personality Assessments for Fit

• The Future Of Recruiting 

Centralized Data Through Applicant Tracking Systems

With a hot job market, it’s essential to share opportunities through various job boards, platforms, and outreach. We leverage an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to have one source that captures all the data – regardless of how the candidates apply. That way, we can post free and sponsored jobs, conduct outreach campaigns, and generate interest for multiple roles at once without any of the data remaining locked in separate systems. A centralized approach means you can ramp up hiring with various people having access to the most up-to-date info, decreasing data loss risk, and ensuring better continuity.

Colton De Vos, Resolute Technology Solutions

Quicker Recruiting Process 

As a recruiting company, we can apply the services and recruiting technologies we provide to others to our hiring process. We take a look at candidates’ personalities and experience, trying to ensure they’ll fit in with our company culture. Once we advertise a position, we already know what we’re looking for, so recruiting technology helps us screen candidates to match the right job and do it faster.

Jon Schneider, Recruiterie

Employ Candidate Assessment Tools

We help many companies find culturally-aligned talent, and we would be fools not to apply the same principles and methods we use to help others when trying to fill our positions. Since we know how valuable and effective they are, we utilize the same cutting-edge candidate-assessment tools to assist our clients. Our positions are the proving ground for the services and technological tools that benefit our clients.

Ryan Nouis, TruPath

Online Testing

Many companies who have moved to remote work will evaluate a candidate’s skills and competencies online. Companies will leverage technology tools to conduct assessments and other tests to ensure that the people joining the workforce have the desired skill set. The good thing is that these tools are optimized for mobile devices, meaning people can access the tests from nearly anywhere.

Harriet Chan, CocoFinder

Predict Candidate Fit

Hiring software will have a more prominent role in the recruitment process in 2022. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are being integrated into many aspects of recruitment, from applicant screening to predictive analytics for personnel selection. In 2022, the most effective recruiters will use modern tech tools to find and screen talent. These recruiters can intelligently use the latest psychology and behavioral economics insights to predict how potential hires might react in certain situations before making an offer or not extending an interview invitation.

Claire Westbrook, LSAT Prep Hero

Use AI To Automate 

Technology will play a huge role in our hiring process in 2022. We have just recently invested in a technology that helps sort through candidates’ resumes and gives us the best potential fits for the position using AI technology. This software will help automate the process of sifting through countless resumes and instead give us the top 10 or so that we can sort through ourselves. Our HR team is very excited about this new technology, and we are excited to use it in 2022. This AI-powered application process saves our team time and money and allows us to focus on the candidates that are the best fit for the position.

John Wu, Gryphon Connect

Easier To Hire Globally

Data analytics is predicted to play a significant role in global recruitment in the coming year. With the right technology in place, you can easily access data on the most effective sources to find the best talent. This information is essential for companies looking to recruit the best talent from all across the globe. This sets up the company for new markets and increases the chances of finding the perfect candidate for the job.

Chris Thompson, Backdoor Survival

90-second Personality Assessments

There is no doubt that pre-employment talent assessments are valuable. They provide critical insights into a candidate’s personality, attitude, and hard skills. However, most are excruciatingly long and can turn candidates off. That is why in 2022, we’re adopting a lightning-fast, picture-based talent assessment tool that only takes 90 seconds to complete. With just a minute and a half of rapid-fire answers through a talent acquisition app called Traitify, we can significantly narrow our candidate pool to ensure we’re only looking at applicants that would be a good fit for our team.

John Ross, Test Prep Insight

The Future Of Hiring Software: 2022 and Beyond

The need for recruiting technology is not slowing down with the continued rise of AI, anti-bias software, and other all-in-one HR solutions. In 2022, the demand will only continue to accelerate and grow.

Au contraire, similarly to other industries, it’s automating more and more tasks away from recruiters. This has its pros and cons, of course, but whenever a machine can be programmed to do something for us and remain more objective while doing so, then well, it’s just a matter of time before it’s given that task.

Thus, HR professionals nationwide need to keep this in mind as recruiting is quickly becoming a highly quantifiable and automated role on par with marketing or sales.
The future is here, and it’s not leaving anytime soon.

Peter Bryla, Zety

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.

Perhaps you’ve experienced hints of it on some level within your own organization, receiving requests from employees who have now had a taste of remote work and want to explore more flexible options for better work-life balance.

Employees learned that they could deliver everything their employers needed with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection. They’d then have more time to spend with loved ones, reduce stress, or pursue personal passions.

While employee turnover was already on the rise over the past two decades — particularly among Millennials and Generation Z — the work-from-home boom that came with COVID-19 encouraged employees to rethink their employment opportunities.

What Does the Great Resignation Mean for Your Recruiting Process?

The facts are in: it’s a candidates’ market, so the stakes are high for your business. While the power is in your candidates’ hands, you still need to ensure that each applicant you hire is the right fit for their position and your organization. The pre-pandemic hiring process is no longer enough to compete.

Here are a few things you can do to enhance your current recruiting process.

Create a Positive Candidate Experience

Most employers understand the powerful position that talented candidates now hold, so they’ll focus on creating a positive candidate experience that garners results. It’s crucial for you to make the user experience friendly to applicants. Here are a few things you can do:

• Make the application process easy with the ability to fill out and submit forms online.
• Allow for easy resume and cover letter submission.
• Agree to communicate via each candidate’s preferred channel, such as email, SMS, or social media messaging.
• Provide timelines and deadlines up-front, such as the tentative duration of your search and when they might receive a follow-up from you, regardless of your choice.

Develop and Foster an Inviting Company Culture

Many employees felt burned by the events of COVID-19: in some cases, it was unavoidable for employers to let employees go, but it also spurred workers to put their needs first.

As a result, many candidates are now searching for a company that focuses on creating a warm and inviting environment focused on inclusion and professional longevity.

When you take on a marketing approach to recruiting, you can develop and broadcast your business’ company culture to ensure that everyone feels valued.

Some companies are doing the following to create such an environment:

• Allowing for remote work lets employees spend the bulk of their working hours at home. However, to fortify company culture, they might ask employees to come in for a few hours each week for meetings and gatherings.
• Establishing strong onboarding and mentoring opportunities to help everyone feel like a part of the team from the first day, whether working remotely or on-site.

Invest in Recruiting Software That Offers Insights and Analytics That Matter

Timing has rarely mattered more. With the right recruiting software capabilities, you can streamline the recruiting process to find the right candidates quickly. Explore critical ways JazzHR recruiting software can help you hire the right people to reduce the possibility of employee turnover:

• Source and manage your talent pool from top job boards and channels with a single click.
• Rank and track new candidates with a reliable, centralized system.
• Promote your company brand and culture to candidates who will embrace it all.
• Stay in lockstep with your hiring team to ensure no candidates fall through the cracks.

Takeaways

Now is the time to get out in front of the Great Resignation, so you don’t have to feel its sting. Attract and retain candidates by showing them you believe in their talent, and want to provide an environment that helps them thrive.

If you’d like more information about JazzHR software solutions, fill out our contact form for more details or to schedule a demo.

• The Current State of Hospitality Hiring

This graph compares the recovery of industries against their position in February 2020. Despite recent changes – and the $28.6 billion allocated to small restaurants and bars in Biden’s ARPA bill – hospitality is still lagging behind. There are a few factors at play here.

The bill also extends unemployment benefits to September at $300 per week. Salaries have to meet or exceed those benefits and stimulus payments to motivate people to return to work.

Young people, who would’ve once been the majority in these roles before the pandemic, have had to find other means of employment. Remote office jobs are in high demand, and many former hospitality employees have moved into this type of work. Construction, manufacturing, and packing goods have also been popular amongst younger workers. On top of all that, under-30s are more willing to take bigger risks with gig economy work and entrepreneurship.

Perhaps most significantly though, the easing of lockdowns country-wide has resulted in a “buyer’s market”. Too many hospitality venues are looking for employees all at once. Employers are raising hourly wages across the board to draw discerning job seekers away from competitors.

• How to Attract Hospitality Staff

The first and most obvious way to attract hospitality staff is to offer a higher wage. We’ve all heard the calls for the federal minimum wage to be raised to $15 per hour. But did you know the federal minimum wage for US workers who rely on tips has not increased for three decades and stands at just $2.13 an hour?

Although employers must ensure the difference is paid up to the current minimum wage, this means that most tips are not used to boost pay beyond the minimum, but to supplement it.

In the hospitality industry, tipped workers deserve to have a more reliable baseline to make ends meet. The most impactful choice is between raising wages, or paying your existing short-staffed team overtime — though the latter strategy risks burnout.

What if you can’t afford to increase wages, or want to go the extra mile? Well, consider these options:

• Advertise the exceptional levels of health and safety standards for your workplace.
• Promote your company culture and values.
• Call out opportunities for career advancement, and build clear pathways to get there. You could even provide a transparent pay scheme.
• Invest time in training and onboarding, so that less experienced candidates are given the chance to learn on the job.
• Consider starting an inclusive hiring program, and making accommodations to lower the barrier to entry for employment.
• Offer additional benefits such as child care vouchers or free meals.
• Give people the option of set or flexible shifts.
• Provide bonuses for referrals.
• Use an Applicant Tracking System like JazzHR to optimize your hiring process and reach as many people as possible.

Jot down any ideas that stand out from this list — and some of your own — then pick a few to develop and trial. That will give your hiring program a significant advantage over competitors. And, for an in-depth guide to hospitality hiring, look no further than our free franchisee hiring toolkit.

Of course, when hiring these types of workers, you’ll need to follow the right regulations.

Otherwise, you could open yourself up to legal scrutiny and (potentially) some hefty fines. Which, frankly, isn’t ideal.

Fortunately, today’s your lucky day. We’ve done some of the legal diggings for you.

Contract Employees VS Contingent Workers

Before we dive into the legalities, let’s first define what we mean by contract employees and contingent workers. (Trust us, understanding the difference is important.)

Contract employees

Contract employees, as the name suggests, hold a contract with the employer. As such, they fall under their direct supervision. This means their employer is liable for handling workers’ compensation and employee benefits. Any other benefits are determined by the job contract.

Contingent workers

A contingent worker is often an independent contractor, freelancer, outsourced consultant or temporary worker. Companies typically bring them in to fill capacity or skill needs. Unlike contract employees, businesses do not recognize them as employees.

6 Regulations To Keep Top of Mind

American hiring and employment laws are an absolute minefield. One foot out of line and boom.

That’s why it’s important to research the appropriate regulations.

Here are a few to get you going:

1. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FSLA dictates that employers must pay the federally-established minimum wage, as well as calculated overtime pay. This only applies to employees. Many businesses exploit this regulation and hire contingent workers to avoid paying a liveable wage.
2. Tax forms. Whereas contract employees must complete W-4 and W-2 forms, employers must request a W-9 form from independent contractors (contingent workers).
3. The EOCC and anti-discrimination. When it comes to many anti-discrimination laws, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADA), you’ll have to closely assess your workers’ status. For contingent workers, the issue of who manages anti-discrimination claims differs. So, we suggest running through the 15 factors provided in the EEOC’s Guidance.
4. Internal Revenue Code. Yes, we’re back on tax. Tax obligations sit with either the employer or the worker, dependent on their employment status. Please note, however, that some independent contractors count as employees under the Code. (We know, it’s painfully confusing.) Some examples include certain delivery truck drivers and full-time travelling salespeople. You can find out more about this here.
5. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). For temporary workers, both the employer and the relevant staffing agency play a role in maintaining a safe work environment.
6. Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). There are a few numbers and rules for this one. But, long story short, if a temporary worker falls under the threshold outlaid in the Act, they’re eligible for family and medical leave.

‘Okay,’ we hear you say, ‘and what happens if I fail to achieve compliance?’

Well. Let’s dig into that.

The Penalties of Noncompliance

The biggest compliance issue surrounding contingent workers is misclassification.

If an employer misclassifies a worker for tax reasons or because of a misinformed judgment, they could face legal backlash.

This is something Uber (UK) faced in 2021.

After a grueling legal battle, courts determined Uber drivers were in fact employees, not independent contractors. This, of course, would entitle them to minimum wage pay, holiday pay, and rest breaks.

Uber must now calculate compensation for the 25 drivers who came forward. Unlucky.

Get Researching

Who knew employment regulations could be so hideously confusing?

We hope our overview has offered you some clarity into the laws surrounding contract employees and contingent workers. But, please bear in mind that we’ve only skimmed the surface.

There’s a whole world of regulation fine print to read out there. And, really, the best way to ensure complete compliance is to seek the appropriate legal consultation.

We wish you well on your quest!

So, how do you find the people you need during uncertain times? If you were relying on local or regional career fairs to meet potential candidates, virtual events offer a socially distanced, cost-effective, and efficient alternative.

What Are Virtual Career Fairs?

Virtual career fairs are the perfect solution for employers to find the right talent while observing social distancing considerations, mask requirements, and quarantine orders.

As a result, they have moved from being considered ‘next-gen’ events to being more mainstream. No surprise, as they save time, money, and energy for businesses and participants.

Everyone still provides all the vital information and learns what they need to without disrupting their respective workflows. In 2021, virtual career fairs have become an essential tool in the hiring process.

Are Virtual Career Fairs Good Talent Sourcing Channels?

Now more than ever before, virtual career fairs offer you a low-cost, low-risk way of connecting with position-specific talent.

In 2016, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reported the high regard employers held for online job fairs, with 99.4 percent of respondents indicating they already participated in such recruiting strategies with great success. Many reported that they were more effective than social media hiring campaigns.

These events give you a chance to extend invitations for talent to share their information and answer a few essential questions in hopes of setting up an interview with you. You can then review the candidate’s submission materials and answers to your questions and decide whether you want to offer them an interview.

It’s an excellent way to fast-track the candidate search process and an efficient first step in an online recruitment process.

Will Virtual Hiring Events Remain a Modern Sourcing Strategy Post-COVID-19?

It’s important for you to know how much your organization should invest in virtual hiring events. Are valid long-range sourcing channels? A temporary Band-Aid during ongoing coronavirus concerns? Or a tech trend that will soon pass?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is convinced that online hiring fairs are here to stay. Small- and mid-sized companies that have invested in this technology are likely to keep these practices in place to reach online candidates in the future.

Are Online Hiring Fairs Suitable for All Industries?

It’s important to know whether a virtual career fair will work to attract the right talent to your business before making any commitments. In short, the answer is yes. Any business committed to finding the right candidates can benefit from virtual career fairs.

Here are a few strategies you can use to attract the right talent to your company:

• Streamline your engagement process to identify promising candidates early by creating filters, including qualifications, requirements, education, and work experience.
• Brush up your branding to ensure that your candidates understand your business, as far as what you do, what your mission is, and if they can envision themselves working for you.
• Ask questions anticipating specific answers that offer insights about the candidate and how well they might fit into your corporate culture

Do You Need Help Navigating the Virtual Career Fair Environment?

If you need more ideas and insights about participating in online career events to source the best talent, we are here and would love to help! Our JazzHR team can share some insights to determine whether this online sourcing channel is right for your business.

Research from Gartner suggests that the job hunting landscape has changed in several foundational ways:

• The volume of job board applications has made hiring and selecting time-consuming and inefficient.
• When applied to a multigenerational workforce with multifaceted needs and expectations, the ‘one size fits all’ approach leads to ‘bad hiring results.’
• Social media plays an outsized role in job searching and recruitment.
• Candidate expectations of both employment and employer have changed.

They’re developments with clear implications: employers need to adapt if they’re going to compete for the best that younger talent pools have to offer.

Tomorrow’s (and Today’s) Workforce

Those developments need to happen soon because millennials, ‘GenXers’ and Gen Z are quickly making their presence felt:

• Millenials and GenXers collectively account for over 60 percent of the global and US workforce.
• Gen Z account for 24 percent.
• 79 percent of millennials found their last job via social media.
• Millennials make up over a quarter of users on Facebook and two-thirds of LinkedIn users.
• GenX accounts for 16.9 percent of LinkedIn users.

It’s an applicant’s market. Employers have to follow where their future employees lead — not only to find the most qualified candidates but also to get to know what drives their behavior, expectations, and preferences.

Social Media Platforms

Job seekers rank social and professional networks above all other job-search resources. That includes referrals, which are ranked more highly by employers. The statistics make a strong case for hiring on social media because it seems to be where everyone’s looking for a job:

• 45 percent of the global population is on social media.
• 62 percent of job seekers use it to research companies and gauge employer branding.
• 49 percent of professionals follow companies to track job postings.
• Facebook tops the social media networking list, with 2.8 billion users worldwide.
• LinkedIn is next, with 740 million users in 200 countries.
• LinkedIn generates 40 million job searches a week.
• An average of 55 LinkedIn resumés is uploaded every second.

If you’re not already looking for candidates on social media, you should be. They’re looking for you there.

Employer Branding

More than half of prospective candidates visit company websites to conduct their research. Make sure it’s easy for them to find what they want — detailed job listings and a sense of your business’ culture. Build excellent brand presence, an ‘authentic’ employment value proposition (EVP), and a well-thought-out social media plan for a strong overall recruitment strategy. Keep a close eye on review sites such as Glassdoor, too, where at least half of your potential hires will be sizing your organization up.

Networking and Referrals

Networking and referrals are the ‘number one way people discover a new job.’ LinkedIn’s research shows that companies who use employee networks and referrals expand their talent pool by a factor of ten and significantly improve the probability of hiring strong, quality candidates.

Internal Hiring

Your own employees can be your best candidates. That’s especially true for the health and manufacturing sectors, but it applies across the board. Employees build up a wealth of knowledge and experience by moving around the company. Move or promote employees looking for a new challenge, career progression or simply to upskill. Formal internal programs and structured career paths can boost employee retention rates, reduce hiring costs and generate positive reviews from happy employees, improving employer branding in the process.

Meeting Candidate Where They Are

Despite their size, job boards account for less than one in six of all available positions, and one in one hundred hires. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth posting on, but it does mean that it’s probably worth automating the process so you can focus your time and effort on more ‘valuable’ hiring channels.