For the most part, your department’s budget and market rates dictate what you can pay a contractor to join your team. So, upping pay to attract a candidate generally isn’t an option. But you still want and need top talent.
Below, we offer two quick-hit tips to make your company as appealing as possible to contract workers.
Incentivizing Contractors vs. Full-Time Employees
Set pay rates aren’t the only reason wooing contractors can be tricky. There are simply more guidelines to follow when you hire a contractor vs. a full-time employee of your company.
All to say, we have one caveat to offer before we get into the two contractor-focused tips. If you are hiring an employee, use the tools at your disposal. You can offer full-time hires all the usual benefits, like:
- Medical and dental insurance
- Retirement savings options
- Opportunities to give back
- Paid leave
- Sick and vacation time
The list goes on. And there are countless extras you can offer, too.
Now, we promise we’re not trying to steer you away from hiring contractors. Quite the opposite! Despite it being a bit more difficult to incentivize temporary hires, there are so many benefits to bringing contractors on board. A contractor can get you through a busy season seamlessly, for instance. Or help you pilot a program you’re not sure will work in the long run.
There are scenarios for every kind of hire. Our job is to help you attract the right people, so let’s get to those tips for enticing contractors.
1. Offer Contractors as Much Work Flexibility as Possible
More and more companies are attempting to bring people back into the office. But it’s decidedly not what the people want. As a result, your company will stand out if you give your hires leeway with when and where they work.
If there are no restrictions on how much flexibility you can offer, go ahead and tell prospective hires they can work remotely 100% of the time. On the other hand, if you have a location agreement (or upper management that simply wants employees in-person), you’ll have to be more creative in how you offer flexibility. But it’s far from impossible!
If you can’t offer a completely remote position, how about a hybrid one? Can the new person choose the days they come in? Can they choose which office they’ll work from? Can they flex their hours to allow for school pick-up?
Being flexible with working arrangements shows you care about a contractor’s work/life balance. Again, you might have to be creative with how you offer this flexibility, but it’s worth your effort to attract the best talent to your team.
2. Entice Job Seekers with the Promise of New Technology
Many candidates for technical positions welcome the opportunity to work on new technology and/or learn a new technical skill. Say you’re looking for a software engineer to sandbox a new tech. Make that clear in your job postings. It very well could give you a leg up in the eyes of job seekers.
It doesn’t matter whether the technology in question is new-age (as in, your hire will be on the cutting-edge of working with it) or new-to-them (as in, your hire will be learning a new skill). Either way, doing something fresh is often appealing to highly skilled technical folks.
Bonus: Getting someone through your doors who hasn’t yet used a certain technology brings a new perspective to your team. And fresh eyes can contribute value and insight you didn’t have before.
Need More Recruiting Support? Tap RedStream’s Network
You can get an effective hire to choose your company. If you need additional help finding and securing contract workers (or full-time employees, for that matter), we’re here for you. Delivering exceptional talent is what we do.