On-demand talent is nothing new. However, vertical-specific, on-demand talent with multiple candidate choices is answering most hiring manager’s wants and needs. Even with workplaces shifting to measuring performance based on results rather than project length, faster time-to-fill is still a hiring need that will never go extinct. Vertical talent platforms want to embrace the time-to-fill challenge and planned ahead on integrating with contingent workforce programs.
“Many Contingent Workforce Program leaders from the Enterprise are hearing about and educating themselves on the various platforms that will give them access to new/expanded talent channels,” says Ray Culver, CCWP, CEO of CW Solutions Group who helps staffing firms and HR tech platforms develop go-to-market sales strategies.
Culver further explains how Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are keeping current with the evolution of vertical talent platforms. MSPs are partners of corporate Contingent Workforce programs to manage project and contract based talent.
“MSP Partners are growing much more familiar with the various platforms and working through any contractual issues that might be out of the norm from the standard one-to-one agreements,” explains Culver. “At day’s end, the more talent channels that an MSP Partner can make available to their end client, the better. The end client will either gain access through their program or will go direct and bypass the MSP Program. It pays for the MSP partner to figure out how to play with the various platforms.”
Combining one industry with the talent that drives the specific sector growth into a platform has opened the free-flow of capital into this sector. Even with a crowded talent solution field that has investors working due-diligence overtime.
Level-One Fund recently led a $19 million series B round of investment capital into Vangst, a talent platform for the maturing Cannabis industry. Level-One Fund currently has two on-demand talent platforms within its portfolio. Talent Marketplace, a one-stop-shop for project managers and business analysts is also poised to deliver focused talent especially to sectors such as finance and real estate where the absence of those professions stops growth.
Talent platforms supporting socially new industries such as Cannabis have investors speculating correctly about upward sector growth. M&A firms are also directing their investor’s funding toward traditional industries such as health care, which has experienced unprecedented talent demands in recent years.
Trusted, Inc announced in Q4, 2021 $149 million in investment to support the growth of their hospital staffing platform Works. This series C round was led by StepStone Group with participation by Craft Ventures and Felicis Ventures who were early investors of Trusted, Inc.
“The pandemic exacerbated what we already knew: healthcare staffing is in a crisis and previous attempts to modernize the workforce have fallen short,” says Trusted, Inc CEO Lennie Sliwinski. “Through a combination of technology and close working relationships with organizations like Mercy, we’ve built a platform that is going to help hospitals meet staffing challenges head on so they can keep their focus on delivering quality patient care.”
As noted by Sliwinski, Trust, Inc’s vertical talent platform has already been deployed by an enterprise organization, Mercy Hospital system. A positive sign that a niche talent sourcing innovation can be easily implemented on top of legacy systems supporting contingent workforce programs.
“If a corporation has a Vendor Management System (VMS) deployed, there could be opportunities to incorporate a talent and/or recruitment marketplace into the existing supplier ecosystem via an API integration,” says Culver. “If said marketplace does not have an integration built with the VMS Partner, it could be a manual process to give access to the marketplace(s) and the talent or recruitment partners they represent.”