Purpose

This document introduces customers to the Eightfold Talent Flex product and includes information about how to access the product. After reading this document, customers will understand the purpose and benefits of Talent Flex, as well as how it differs from the Eightfold Talent Acquisition product.

Audience

This document is directed toward new users of the Talent Flex product, including recruiters and hiring managers, as well as Eightfold employees.

Background

The labor market is changing in our post pandemic world. We’re currently seeing a huge shift toward contract work, and many companies will be expanding their contingent workforce. Historically, many hired contract workers have previously applied for full-time roles within a company. In fact, over the past three years, approximately 20 to 60 percent of the hired contractors at Fortune 500 companies had applied for a full-time role.

In order to thrive in our digital age, it’s essential for companies to utilize the contingent workforce, but this group is often the least effectively managed workforce in any organization. The cost of finding contingent talent has risen significantly over time, while talent quality and talent experience has been suboptimal.

Sourcing and screening candidates on current technology solutions (that is, vendor management systems, VMS) is also very time-consuming and ineffective, which results in lower talent quality and longer time to fill. A large percentage of resumes submitted to these systems is not what hiring managers are looking for, and screening candidates on a VMS is challenging because there is no support from data insights or machine intelligence.

Current VMSs may also provide a negative experience for contingent workers because of lack of visibility into contract opportunities and lack of project mobility. Managed service programs (MSPs) and agencies today are focusing on finding new talents rather than rediscovering talents from their broader talent pool.

Companies are starting to recognize that direct sourcing can address many of these challenges and result in several benefits. The Eightfold Talent Flex product can help companies unlock these benefits.

Purpose of Talent Flex

The purpose of Talent Flex is to enable the right job opportunities for contingent workers by creating a fair, transparent, and effective talent marketplace. The product aims to provide contingent workers with the tools and resources they need in order to build out their career just as full-time employees do. It also aims to help companies see significant cost savings in hiring, fill gig positions more efficiently, and hire workers of higher quality and higher productivity.

Key benefits

Benefits of using Talent Flex may include the following:

• Helping candidates more easily find their next gig
• Helping companies instantly find the best candidate from their applicant tracking system (ATS) and talent network for a gig based on skills, location, and availability
• Reducing friction for candidates and hiring managers by automating the application and interaction process (for example, using SMS, email, chatbot)
• Automating the collection of feedback from hiring managers and contractors once a gig is complete
• Tracking the gig experience and feedback to help candidates develop or mature their skills for future gigs
• Using hyperpersonalization for candidates based on prior gigs, skills, and engagement

Talent Flex user personas

There are several user personas who may benefit from the Talent Flex product:

• Recruiters, hiring managers, and resource managers: These personas submit worker requests, review short-listed candidates, conduct phone interviews, and make final hiring decisions; they care about cost and the skills alignment of hired workers.
• Contingent workers: This group comprises nonpayroll workers, including agency workers, independent contractors, freelancers, and temporary labor, engaged by a company to do work under its instruction. This group cares about having the same level of tools and resources to build their careers as full-time employees do.
• Employees: This group refers to the employees of a company that is looking to hire contingent workers. Employees of the companies may like to refer their friends to contract opportunities at their company.
• Hiring executives, such as chief human resource officers and chief financial officers: These personas care about cost saving, total talent management, time to fill positions, better employee satisfaction, and a strong talent network.

Comparing TA and Talent Flex

The Talent Flex product is set up in a similar way to the Eightfold Talent Acquisition product, so customers familiar with TA may have a natural transition to using Talent Flex. Although the two products do different things, they each have similar features. TA has positions; Talent Flex has gigs. Within each position or gig, both products have several of the same tabs: Overview, Leads, and Contacted, but within those tabs, the type of information shown for each product is different. And there are also unique tabs in each product; Talent Flex also includes tabs for Gig in Progress and Gig Completed.

Unlike the information in TA, which is related to full-time or part-time roles, the information shown in Talent Flex is relevant to gig roles. For instance, in a gig role, the pay rate and availability may be two major factors to consider when hiring, so this information is required when a candidate is applying for a gig, and the information is visible at a glance with the candidate’s name and basic information in the Leads or Applicants tabs.

Requesting the Talent Flex product

To request a Talent Flex PCS instance, contact your Eightfold customer success executive, who will work with our Eightfold Solution Architect Team on your request.

Accessing the Talent Flex product

To access the Talent Flex product, log in to your Eightfold account. In the top-right App Switcher menu, if you’re not already in the Talent Flex product, select Talent Flex. You may notice that there is no option for TA from the App Switcher menu. The Eightfold TA product and Talent Flex product cannot currently coexist. If a customer needs both TA and Talent Flex, two separate instances are created, one for each product respectively.

Note: A basic career site is needed in order for a customer to utilize Talent Flex.