Moonlighting, a mobile on-demand freelance marketplace, on Wednesday entered into a strategic partnership agreement for blockchain with Kelly Services, a workforce solutions company.
Kelly Services plans to use the freelancing community subscribed on Moonlight’s new Blockchain Profile Management System (BPMS), due to launch in August 2019. The BPMS is essentially online resumes on a blockchain. But a key benefit to freelancers is the resume or profile is portable.
“Mobile technology, self-service, and the platform economy are all priorities for the modern workforce,” said John Healy, VP and Managing Director of Kelly’s Office of the Future of Work. “And with data privacy emerging with an ever-increasing focus, we expect blockchain technology to offer even greater opportunities for a more efficient and secure process in the upcoming years.”
The BPMS project will load over 700,000 profiles currently on Moonlighting onto a public blockchain. By having the resumes on a network, it will allow portability, hiring data like reviews, referrals and recommendations as well as verifications of third-party licenses and certifications.
The blockchain network will directly help job-seekers and professionals, by eliminating the need to upload and verify their skills, profiles and documents on every job marketplace.
Apart from saving time, the network will also assist companies looking to hire verified professionals from a larger pool.
EOS connection
Moonlighting’s BPMS will run on the EOSIO protocol. It will allow job-seekers to create trusted work profiles which can also be accessed by other freelance and gig marketplaces.
Earlier this year, Moonlighting announced funding from FinLab EOS VC Fund, a venture capital fund backed by FinLab AG and Block.one, the publisher of the blockchain protocol EOSIO. EOS conducted a year-long ICO and raised $4 billion, the biggest ICO raise by a large margin.
“Block.one’s EOS VC division continues to support endeavors that bring real-world solutions to life for blockchain,” shared Paul Grotowski, COO of EOS VC. “We’re excited to see the EOSIO protocol at work and in action for something meaningful like helping people find work.”
Founded in 2014, Moonlighting is not a blockchain company but is now adopting the technology. It already has significant distribution through deals with U.S. news companies Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune. As a result, Moonlighting is featured on 150 sites including the USA Today and the L.A. Times.
Other recruitment blockchains
Recruitment websites haven’t been that active in blockchain to date. One exception is Recruit, the owner of Indeed and Glassdoor which set up a $25 million fund to invest in tokens rather than shares.
To date the main focus of blockchain for recruitment has been for verifying credentials where there is a lot of activity. One of the biggest players in the sector is Sovrin. But major consultancies PwC and Deloitte both have credentialing solutions.
The Health sector has significant activity. For example, blockchain is used to verify qualifications for foreign nurses working in the U.S. Plus there are solutions from the Synaptic Health Alliance backed by big insurers, from Hashed Health’s ProCredEx, and an IBM consortium.
