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I find that some people will realize remote/online workflows actually work better for some of them. And some others may learn they prefer workflows with in-person interactions - in any case, the situation will shape what opportunities people look into moving forward. And companies will be faced with the tough decision to make regarding what systems to leave in place with people and what others to automate, or streamline.

On another note:

I took a look into this problem and, for some time, tried a couple potential ways to tackle it. Something I learned was that the problem is the product of mainly 2 variables, what it takes for us to train a new person into the workforce vs what it takes to automate the current systems. A huge portion of this problem with project-based workflows lays on the challenges of tracking & managing deliverables (and in all fairness, that to a certain extent, that problem was fixed already, though in fragments) and also when creating an onboarding experience, in order to suit, all if not most, of the different roles and skill sets needed to match clients.

Being that these workflows come with multiple, and oftentimes personalized, payment arrangements for services (unless W2 employees of either the provider or client company) it became apparent that even when solving the problem for the discovery and matching of opportunities, the onboarding of this information alone would require far too much time investment from the provider/employee.

Then is the issue of validating this resume information, its reliability and proving its authenticity. On top of that, also if feeding the information to a system to match candidates with opportunities, stress testing it for miss spellings, context, and special cases. All while maintaining a level of quality standards, trust and safety to both, clients and providers alike. Training individuals in the pipeline for the opportunities they seek is also largely it's own standalone problem. As it stands today, it requires a significant time and financial investment for a student and family, in the US at least, to get most common university level certifications.

It's worth highlighting It's efficacy in practice does not always prove more efficient than other less institutionalized approaches. Which leads me to believe is the reason most big companies are now looking into other things as potential indicators as they consider candidates in their pipeline. (Today, as per the situation with the COVID-19 Virus, I find to a great extend a globally leveled playing field between traditional and alternatives learning methods).

To be honest, I don't think this is an impossible problem. Just one with multiple facets that also happen to have an intricate layer that sits on top of the more simple fundamental elements of our traditional means. and i believe that if we can bring attention to each of these in the right order and at the right time we can optimize it. However, that is not a starting point for an effort with such small resources like it is a startup and such ease to automate.

This whole set of moving parts on an evolving landscape and that´s just the beginning, there´s another issue that results on a separate problem. People end up in-between jobs more often and for longer periods of time, probably faster than what it may take to adjust a different standard of life that suits new individual economic conditions. This leaves us with individuals overqualified for the work and services they provide, and that would just be a constrained economy.

That's why we switched our focus to gig-work as opposed to project-based work. The time-based nature of the majority, or what turned out to be the majority, of the types of services allow to create a simple system to provide a more widely and engaged solution. Efficient at the stage of this transition into what I was considering was already an eventual move to a more "remote first" future, a future that as production costs lower, and times in product cycles shorten (putting the current pandemic situation aside) should, but only if done properly, allow society as a whole to enjoy from all: the freeing of time, increase in productivity, less resources needed to upstart, all in all the fruits of optimizing workforce and its logistics. Harshly put, a place where human interaction, though optimized, is valued for what it is, and what it isn't, according to each scenario and what it takes to bring that skillset, or service to fruition. I mean who knows maybe it inverts everything to the point products are unfademly cheap, office space is ubiquitously no longer purchased, tech salaries lower, and in-person service interactions are worth far more within reason some function of how long & or difficult is to learn or automate it. I suppose, we'll find out as we go.