When should you hire a freelance expert? Companies often struggle to find skilled professionals, so the simple answer given below. The range within the freelance market is as great as that of the full-time job market. Every independent consultant has their skills, expertise, and strengths. All these skilled executives, consultants, experts, and project managers can acclimate quickly to a new environment and start contributing immediately. Businesses almost always hire freelancers for three reasons:
- To get specialized advice or a fresh perspective on big projects
- To help out or enhance their current teams
- To manage changes to fill temporary gaps in leadership or during times of change
Understanding Independent Consultants
Independent consultants are individual professionals in their fields who work under contract toward providing expert advice and service to empower businesses. Independent experts provide capability, but they also provide an objective third-party opinion. What differentiates them from the larger mass of the consulting firm is that they offer personal attention and direct access to highly experienced specialists.
Trust is Key When Hiring a Consultant
When you think about bringing an independent consultant onto your team, trust is the most critical aspect of your relationship. Recent work by Gallup shows that: trust is fundamental; when trust exists, 87% of successful partners agree that this increases confidence that the partner will deliver.
Building trust in the choice of an independent consultant historically involved face-to-face discussions with the top leaders and additionally with the parties that will actively engage in the work. Most of this now takes place virtually with independent experts adding value while working remotely. Qualifications and alignment of interests are more important than ever. Qualitative factors also can impact a project’s success:
- Their motivations for the project align with yours.
- Their definitions of success match what you're aiming for.
- There's genuine excitement about the project on both sides.
Remember that you have a role to play as well. Work together closely with your consultant and provide them with your time, your team's access, and support in general. In doing so, you will likely reach the successful implementation of the project results.
Here are some ideal situations to consider hiring an Independent Consultant.
1. WHEN YOU NEED RESULTS FAST
Hiring an Independent Consultant for short-term projects is beneficial as it lets you concentrate on urgent tasks that need immediate attention. Instead of spending time and resources on hiring a permanent employee who must meet a wide range of needs, focus on your critical needs for the next three months. Break the work into specific projects and prioritize them.
This approach works well for both major initiatives and smaller projects that need attention. While your team handles the bigger goals, a seasoned freelancer can quickly come in to help you meet a pressing deadline or achieve a significant goal. No matter how fast things move, on-demand professionals can match the pace: Unifai can provide the right expert in just three to five business days.
2. FOR SPECIALIZED HELP OR EXPERTISE—FOR A LIMITED TIME
This is the clearest reason to hire a freelance professional. Perhaps an important project is behind schedule and your team lacks the resources to catch up. A freelance project manager with the right expertise could put things back on course. Or maybe you’re venturing into a new market and need expert advice on unfamiliar terrain. A freelance specialist can fast-track your analysis and clarify how this new venture aligns with your overall strategy.
Freelancers are adept at entering projects midway and quickly getting up to speed. They don’t just advise—they actively participate and drive the project’s success. They handle the intensive tasks and adapt swiftly, allowing your staff to stay focused on their primary roles.
3. TO MANAGE POST-STRATEGY PROJECTS OR SMALLER PROJECTS THAT BIG FIRMS OVERLOOK
Think about a strategic update of the business plan or a reappraisal of your tech vendors. Every organization has essential but not extensive consulting projects. Why pay for a big team of junior consultants when an individual, independent expert can get better results for you at a lower cost?
In those situations, anybody could quite easily involve a large firm in strategy development, but when they leave, execution might get fuzzy. Unifai enables precise allocation of consulting resources at specific problems, helping the follow-on work to ensure flawless implementation.
Working with an independent consultant allows you to select the people who will work on your project and streamline the process for your team. This approach cuts out most of what working with a traditional consulting firm involves — including bureaucracy and expensive overheads.
4. FOR ONGOING SUPPORT IN SPECIFIC AREAS OF NEED
The nimblest companies know where they are short of knowledge—and actively look for areas in which more expertise is required. Whether for ongoing, finite initiatives like business case production or one-off events like significant business restructuring, such businesses systematically incorporate independent professionals into their resourcing strategies.
Thus, by adding extra skills and capacity only when needed, the companies can stay lean and save on the fixed cost to prevent the overuse of existing resources.
5. TO STAY PRODUCTIVE DURING HIRING
When teams are overstretched and leadership vacancies impede progress, temporary professionals can act as a crucial link until you find permanent staff. Instead of wasting time on long recruitment and training periods, independent consultants can boost leadership capacity and keep projects moving forward.
You might have an important vacancy, but you don’t have to halt progress on essential tasks while searching for the right candidate. By bringing in temporary experts who can handle immediate needs, you free up time to look for a candidate with the right skills for the future—while making headway on vital projects that prepare the ground for your new hire’s success.
6. TO ESTABLISH AND DEVELOP NEW FUNCTIONS
With the vision of a future new business line, function, or capability in mind, companies frequently plan for its implementation or enhancement. While this is understandable, and filling these critical roles in this new area with full-time employees is necessary, the urgency to get from the present to the future sometimes results in over-ambitious and very hard-to-fulfill job descriptions.
Do the skills needed for a permanent leader in a function’s regular operation match those needed to initially build it? Often, they do not. A temporary, independent leader can be crucial in setting up the function's structure, creating policies and procedures, and hiring essential staff—and then stepping aside for a permanent hire better suited for ongoing operations.
7. WHEN HANDLING INCONSISTENT WORKLOADS
All businesses have variable workflow periods, sometimes irregular and unpredictable. After a significant business acquisition, flexible staffing allows the hiring of independent professionals to adjust team sizes up or down depending on the need.
This approach is particularly useful for managing large product portfolios or boosting M&A teams during periods of intense deal-making—enabling companies to incorporate specialized expertise, add complementary skills, and increase capacity precisely when it’s most necessary.
8. TO BENEFIT FROM A TEMPORARY LEADERSHIP VACANCY
Leadership transitions are periods of high challenge, but they also present the perfect opportunity to actualize new skills and try new roles, organizational structures, or fundamentally permanent changes. Many companies today engage an independent interim leader to assist in evaluating organizational culture, challenges, and goals—hence obtaining an objective view of the possibility of that new permanent hire.
Besides temporarily filling the vacancy, interim leaders provide valuable assistance during the hiring process. They can apply their expertise and knowledge to guide organizations on the qualities needed for a permanent position. They can also help by assessing candidates based on their grasp of the company’s requirements.
Connect with Unifai for Consultancy Needs
As your business considers the strategic move of hiring an independent consultant, remember that finding the right fit is crucial. Unifai can streamline this process by connecting you with vetted, top-tier consultants who are ready to transform your business challenges into growth opportunities. Harness the power of external expertise through Unifai and propel your business towards its objectives.
