BENGALURU: External gig work in the information innovation (IT) industry is at the center of attention following the moonlighting debate. Portals that offer gig work have seen a sharp increase in tech projects. But on the other hand what's interesting is that gig work appointments are made very much like full-time IT occupations — with thorough assessments of the potential specialist's capability for projects, and onboarding only after background verification.
Dinesh Chandrasekar, boss strategy officer at Pactera Edge, which runs international gig platform OneForma, says that prior to onboarding any gig laborer, a test is given in their center area of skill. "We test on our own application so it's not possible for anyone to cheat. That is one way we assist with maintaining the confidence of the client in what we give. However we are a freelance platform, we need the client's confidence for them to come to us for an ever increasing number of gigs," Chandrasekar says. Right now, IT freelancers on the portal constitute around 20% of the total profiles taking up gig work. Chandrasekar said this figure was around 5% not long before the pandemic.
Gig marketplace Taskmo utilizes artificial intelligence to screen resumes when they are uploaded on their application. Like OneForma, Taskmo also has a technical test based on the jobs individuals are applying for, before gig laborers are onboarded. "We also normally track the work they have already done. They should show us links to their work. We take a gander at all that and confirm assuming it matches the abilities mentioned in the resume," says prime supporter Prashant Janadri. He says their algorithm will show only profiles with great ratings.
Both these platforms say that there is no mind moonlighting, and profiles are usually filtered based on the criteria set by clients. "There's no real way to be certain that those signing up with us are not working with any company," Chandrasekar says.
Tarun A, a freelance software professional based in Andhra Pradesh, says that scrutiny is usually tough when the client is in banking. "Banking clients assess your knowledge in the financial sector. They want to be aware assuming you have related knowledge dealing with banking clients and what their identity is. Other sectors are not really particular," Tarun says. He gets the vast majority of his gigs through regular work portals and he says selection is usually based on only one interview round on these traditional work portals. Many of his clients are medium and small-scale companies and startups. Bengaluru-based IT professional Mahati (namechanged) says that a portion of the platforms she has registered with conduct a video call to authenticate profiles prior to displaying them on the portal.
According to Nasscom's 'Eventual fate of labor force Decoding the gig labor force 2. 0' report, which was released as of late, 60% of surveyed organizations increased their gig labor force by over 10% in the past two years, with 15% increasing it by more than 30%. The report said the demand is usually for devops professionals, testing, data science and analytics.