Pros
It’s not all bad: most of the folks you will engage with at Belay are very kind, bright and well-intentioned. Belay is a firm that presents professionally and polished. This is a option for temporary contract work, on a part-time basis. They do not prohibit you from contracting with other clients outside them – which can help with earnings. Their internal systems are well thought out, organized and efficient as they have a lean team and push a lot onto the Contractor. The team is responsive and pleasant. You can pick how many hours you want to work and post availability in your ‘profile’ on a job board so placement folks can reach out to you directly if they have something that they think will work for you based on that availability.
Cons
Belay takes a very large portion of what they bill your client. This leads to many clients finding “cheaper labor” via gig work sites, resulting in the instability of very short-term assignments for Contractors. Hourly contracts start at 45/month and can go up to 110+ but the higher hour contracts are very rare. This means that you would have to support 4 different clients to work full time; sometimes clients require that you support multiple folks in their firm – this can quickly grow to out of control numbers. You do, however, get a very small ‘bonus’ if you get your client to increase contracted hours. There’s a 1 year non-compete/non-solicit in their contract; this means you can’t work directly with a client they paired you with for a year- even if you both disengage from Belay. There is a contract buyout option available to clients but it is at such an exorbitant rate that few clients can afford the lump sum (most clients are small business and ‘entrepreneurs’). This results in limited earning potential for contractors and a block to gaining full time employment with benefits based on the relationship. Belay’s Client Success Consultants (CSC) are charged with interviewing and ultimately assigning Contractors with clients. Like most placement professionals, these consultants can be a bit ‘salesy’ and, given that most have never served as Executive/Marketing/Personal Assistants, a little out of touch on the needs assessment. Contractors are not permitted to speak to the client prior to engagement; they may only view a video ‘intro’ call with the CSC guiding the client to understand what the consultant feels their needs are. - Placement Coordinators are the ‘screeners’; they decide if a Contractor ultimately gets to interview with a CSC for an engagement. This is most recently based on a predictive personality assessment. As has been recently documented and publicized, personality tests are based on antiquated and disproven pseudo-science. They screen out people for attributes that have nothing to do with how they would perform their jobs. They’re discriminatory and implemented under the guise of ‘saving time’ (read: laziness) in screening candidates and they promote accountability avoidance or ‘blame shifting’ – “but the test results said they were a fit.” Clients are not screened nearly as vigorously as contractors. The level of business acumen among small business owners and ‘entrepreneurs’ is much, much lower than in classical business industries like investment, accounting, marketing and consulting. Don’t expect to grow professionally by teaming up with these folks. As mentioned above, clients are often inexperienced leaders that are overwhelmed and are being told that having an assistant manage their inbox is the answer. These folks quickly discover that they can get much cheaper labor via sites like Upwork and will generally go that route after a short period of both Belay and the contractor trying to increase the contracted hours.
