Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/124894
HRO Today Forum Europe Temporary Is the New Permanent The winner of the 2012 iTalent Competition is driving to change the way we work. By Debbie Bolla "Imagine a liquid market for talent in which someone knows their value. A market in which people choose who they work for, when they work, and for how much." That vision is the backbone of the start-up 3Desk, a temporary workforce marketplace focussing on the promotion and distribution of face-to-face freelancers cofounded by Razvan Dinu and Tom Savage. And the idea and platform certainly wowed the judges of the first annual 2012 iTalent competition in Dublin, crowning this inventive and inspiring pair the winners. Dinu and Savage believe that the future of work will be more flexible and employees will have the freedom that doesn't necessarily come with a full-time position. "People will be 'agents' rather than employees. We want people to have more choice," says Savage. "Imagine employers being able to choose the talent they need as and when they need it." And their vision has just cause. Dinu reports that 50 per cent of the U.S. workforce will be temporary by 2020, and in the U.K., the temporary workforce is growing by 10 per cent each year. The entrepreneurs saw an opportunity in the marketplace to tackle a growing workforce challenge. Their solution? An online platform that connects employers with temporary workers based on needs and suitability. In a nutshell, connections are driven by job descriptions. Key attributes from postings create an employee profile, and matches to said profile are found within the database of more than 270,000 freelancers. [34] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | WINTER 2013 But there is a lot more than that to the winner of the 2012 iTalent Competition. Cofounder Tom Savage clues us in on where they came from, where they are going, and how they see the future of work. How did the idea for 3Desk evolve into a reality? We think that freelancing will change the world. So we've grand ambitions, but having started a number of businesses before, I'm well aware that these things take time to mature. Every entrepreneur starts with an idea, a vision, and each day they make tiny steps in the hope that they will be proved right. A number of my friends had started successful internet businesses, but I am not a 'developer,' so I knew I needed to partner with someone that complemented my skills. I'd previously run a recruitment business, so I decided to use my executive search skills to try to find someone who would buy into my vision who could build this platform. I spent four months doing nothing else, contacting more than 500 people and interviewing close to 150 before meeting Raz. Raz was just finishing a Ph.D in artificial intelligence, but what caught my attention was his entrepreneurial streak (he'd started another start-up during his studies) and his technical ability. He'd won silver medals at two international math Olympiads. Raz was clearly exceptional, and that intense search paid of and is still paying off every day.