Good news for data scientists — you have one of the most in-demand skill sets in the world. Data science and data analysis will be the most sought after talent by 2025, and 46% of companies are already struggling to recruit.
If you’re looking to fill skills gaps in data science with freelancers, you’ll need a way to source, hire and manage a non-traditional workforce. Fiverr Enterprise provides an IT talent pool where you can gain instant access to a wide range of data science professionals, ready-to-hire and able to meet your business requirements.
In this article, we’ll outline the process of hiring data scientists, and how on-demand tech talent can help meet the most pressing challenges in the IT industry.
Related content: read our guide to talent management.
What Are Data Scientists?
Data scientists are tasked with extracting business insights from all kinds of data, both structured and unstructured. Workers are usually highly skilled in statistics and mathematics, using both toolsets to interpret a wide range of data, identify trends and patterns, and make predictions.
As well as statistics, data scientists often lean on hands-on programming skills, using different languages to help analyze and visualize data. With the rise of AI and machine learning, companies may hire data scientists to build predictive models and machine learning algorithms to add to programs and applications. Data scientists will work with data in-depth, cleaning and organizing raw data so that it can be used, and creating visual representations of data to share with other stakeholders across the business.
There are also many soft skills needed to be a strong data scientist. The role involves deep research skills to obtain domain experience of the industry, robust communication skills to cooperate with other departments across the org (including non-technical stakeholders), creative thinking, and problem solving to create custom solutions for client challenges.
Importance of Data Science in Modern Businesses
Data science has become a critical toolset for many IT companies. Businesses use data science to inform their decision-making and reduce risk, to understand customer behaviors, and to tailor products, services and strategies to each audience. In this way, using the data becomes a companies’ competitive advantage.
Many businesses also use data science to help automate routine and manual processes, speeding up time to value and reducing inefficiencies. A data-driven culture is a modern imperative, promoting intelligent decision-making that uses more than just gut feeling.
The Process of Hiring Data Scientists
For IT companies looking to hire data scientists, there are a number of considerations, especially when the industry is facing such an intense skills gap. One approach is to look towards a growing number of freelancers, especially as there simply aren’t enough new graduates to fill emerging roles.
Here are the three steps for hiring data science freelancers:
- Sourcing Data Science Talent: First, think about where you will find consultants or freelancers. Traditionally, this was from staffing agencies — but many companies now feel they come with too high a markup and a limited, local pool of talent. Freelancer marketplaces are growing all the time, but you need a way to find the right people through the crowd.
- Screening and Evaluation Process: With many candidates at your fingertips, how will you find the right fit? This is a question of both skills and cultural fit. In many cases, you’ll be sending these freelancers out to be the face of your brand with a client or a customer, and you need to make sure they are fit for the role, and have the right personality, too.
- Offer and Onboarding: Once you’ve chosen the right person, you need to work out the pricing model, and get them onboarded quickly so they can start racking up billable hours. Here, you’ll need to consider compliance, Legal documentation, payment terms, systems access, and more. If you want to work with them again in the future, how can you streamline the process next time?
Challenges in Data Science Recruitment and How Fiverr Enterprise Addresses Them
To see success with a freelance data science strategy, you need the right tools and technology in place.
Fiverr Enterprise provides an IT talent pool, curated especially for you — one place where you can gain instant access to your own carefully vetted Dev & IT talent, that’s ready-to-hire and able to meet your business requirements.
Hire any tech expertise, eliminate resource uncertainty, reduce hiring costs and maintain a consistent and quality workforce. Our SaaS solution enables you to confidently take on more projects, knowing you have a dedicated talent pool that’s always available.
We tackle three main challenges head on:
Finding the right expertise
Fiverr Enterprise provides access to a global, pre-vetted talent pool of tech skills. AI and Machine learning experts, data analysts and business architects, statisticians, data miners.. the list goes on. Get access to top professionals in the field, with proven experience and instant availability.
Getting data scientists on board quickly
WIth our on-demand talent pool, no need to trawl through hundreds of profiles and hope for the best. Decide on your requirements, and we offer a white-glove sourcing and hiring service that serves you compliant, vetted tech talent in no more than 48 hours. Automated onboarding workflows mean they can get to work immediately.
Keeping to a budget
Stop hiring in-house “just in case” and scale up and down to meet specific project needs instead. That means no more non-billable workers. You can also form relationships that stand the test of time by keeping in touch with freelancers you’ve worked with in the past and forging direct relationships — no agency markups in sight.
Ready to augment your data science talent pool with thousands of skilled professionals in the field? Speak to one of our workforce experts for a walkthrough of the Fiverr Enterprise platform.