Who is the freelancer?

What is the freelancer?

By definition – someone that works for different companies at different times rather than being permanently employed by one company.

They have no benefits, no job security, no full-time place of employment, no paid for training, vacation is when they can get it and they pay for their own travel.  And yes, with multiple clients comes multiple conflicting schedules.

That’s what you hear about the most, what is often not spoken about is how they have the freedom to work on a variety of different projects on a perhaps a variety of different technologies and a variety of different times.  If you don’t want conflicting clients, don’t take conflicting projects.  If you want to take vacation, plan your work around it.

The problem with being a freelancer is that we expect it to come with all the benefits of being a full-time employee but it is a completely separate job category driven by those with an entrepreneurial streak not sure where they fit but wanting to try a number of different things before they do decide.  Or maybe a way for them to figure it out along the way.

You can freelance with benefits and find mobile places of employment to get out of the house and better yet you can charge all your parking to your company at large.

The real killer that holds people back from Freelancing full-time isn’t any of these things – it’s the having to sell yourself over and over and over again.  When you apply for a full-time job, you do this once, you apply, you get the job (or you don’t and you rinse and repeat somewhere else).  But once done it’s over.  When you are freelancing, you are constantly doing this, constantly selling yourself, constantly keeping your LinkedIn profile up-to-date – that’s the dilemma.  That’s the piece that holds people back from jumping in again and again.

So if selling yourself is what is holding you back, than figure out a way to do it, to do it better and to improve with each project, don’t take one large, 5 year project, take a bunch of 6 month projects and get used to that feeling of uncomfortable until you find the next dilemma to work through.

 

Want more? Check out my book Code Your Way Up – available as an eBook or Paperback on Amazon (CAN and US).  I’m also the co-host of the Remotely Prepared podcast.

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