Freelance Career – Myths And Reality

Freelance Career – Myths And Reality

Freelancing allows a person to offer his services to many employers or clients, without being tied to a long-term arrangement. Work is done by-project. In most cases, people do freelance work as a sideline to one’s real job and in order to earn extra money. But there are plenty of people who make a legitimate career out of freelancing.

Going freelance offers a certain appeal. For one thing, it allows people to work at their own schedule and be the boss of their own time. People doing freelance work can opt to work at home or work while on vacation outside the country. Especially with technological advances today, where people can literally do transactions from anywhere in the world via the internet, a lot of freelance work is easily accomplished and achieved.

But freelancing also carries its own drawbacks. Below are the myths and realities of keeping a freelance career:

• MYTH 1: There is no job security. A project done for Client A does not guarantee that Client A will still need your services tomorrow

On the contrary, if you have built a good relationship with a client, and if you have provided good services, chances are on their next projects, hiring you may be a priority. For many clients, hiring a freelancer is cost-effective. They pay little money than a regular employee and freelancers usually provided the same, if not better, results.

• MYTH 2: If the economy is bad, you might also find little freelance work as a result of this

On the contrary, the demand for freelancers is increasing. Even with an underperforming economy where constant job lay-offs happen left and right in many companies. The reason for this is companies have seen the potential of outsourcing. And as company employees shift and change jobs, it’s the freelancers that benefit from this loss by stepping in to fill the spot they leave vacant.
While it is true that lay-offs happen for many organizations, freelance jobs remain high on the demand.

• MYTH 3: Freelancing only benefit those highly trained and experienced in their field

Not necessarily so. The beauty of freelancing is that you can choose projects based on your skills. If a project is something you know you can’t handle, you could turn the client down or recommend someone else more qualified. Or better yet, you could ask for a project you could best work on. And because you have your time on your hands, you can build-on your skills while working on other projects. Doing this, you are thereby gaining experience as you go along.

• MYTH 4: You earn less with freelancing. A regular job pays better

Not in this day and age. Before internet became a lucrative source of freelance work, contacts and projects did come limited because there were fewer avenues to seek projects from. The World Wide Web has opened plenty of opportunities for many companies and freelancers to work together. There are so many freelancing sites such as rentacoder, scriptlance, and getafreelancer where you can advertise your services. What’s more, many transactions take place without both parties ever having to meet face to face. It is convenient, cost-effective, result-driven and fast. Freelancers can also take more than 2 jobs or 2 projects at the same time because of the extra time in their hands and that, of course, would mean additional income.

• MYTH 5: There are limited job offers for freelancers. Many of it has to do with marketing

Not anymore. Below is a list of freelance work many can do from their home or anywhere, as long as there is an internet connection:
• Engineering
• Graphic Design
• Legal Consulation
• Administrative work
• Writing
• Translation
• Multimedia
• Marketing
• Programming
• Technology
• Customer Support
• Online Tutorials

The key to succeeding in freelance work is in your hands and not on someone else’s principles. To be truthful about it, freelance work is a lucrative and enjoyable career path, but nobody says it was going to be easy. Satisfaction can be achieved, but failures do happen a long the way.
But with the right motivation, you guarantee yourself the longevity to stay in this type of career. And only you can confirm these myths to be true, if you do not make the effort to correct it.