All about freelancers

Freelancer is not a profession, but rather a way or path of professional self-realization. It is worth translating the word (free - "free", lance - "spear") to guess its meaning. But the most correct would be an adapted translation of the term, which sounds like this - "free artist". Today, many want to acquire such a status, because the prospects of working on freelance seem very tempting.

In simple terms, a freelancer is a person who decides for himself who to provide professional services. He is his own boss and subordinate. He is not a member of the staff of the company, organization, firm, is not a hired employee. Wherein he can cooperate with the same companies, organizations and firms, as a rule, on the principle of remote work.

A freelancer does the same job as an employee in the state, only he, as a rule, finds his customers himself. He decides for himself how much work to do, how to organize his working day, when to take a vacation, and so on. Most of the freelancers work from home, where they equip their workplace.

Both for the employer and for the specialist himself, this is beneficial: there is no need to keep an employee on staff who must complete either a complete cycle of work or some limited amount. In fact, the customer does not have to promise the freelancer permanent employment. Like a freelancer, he is not obliged to work with one customer for a long time and on a permanent basis.

To say that freelancers do less work than employees hired officially and on a permanent (or clearly defined in time) basis, it is definitely impossible. Since a freelancer does not receive a salary on a specific day, does not have traditional bonuses, does not go on a paid vacation, he himself builds a work schedule and it is simply unprofitable for him to be lazy. Plus, you need to think ahead, provide for force majeure, make savings for these cases.

They are ambiguous - this is the first. Different people will evaluate the same features of the profession in polarity. They are interpreted differently - this is the second. The expectation / reality effect is triggered, which should have been foreseen.

The obvious advantages of freelancing.

• Mobility, lack of attachment to the workplace. For most freelancers, this is their biggest professional advantage. You can work anywhere in the world: from home, being in the capital and at the farm, in the country, on vacation, working while sitting at a table in a cafe or even on the lawn in a city park.
• Lack of standardized working hours. It is installed by the freelancer himself. For early risers, it could be 5 am, if that time is most productive for a person. And those who like to sleep longer will not be ashamed of getting up late, and the working day may well begin at 12 noon. How much to work, when to take breaks, how many days a week to devote to work - also the freelancer himself decides.
• Independence from schedule and bosses. Of course, the deadlines for orders and communication with the customer are adjusted, but globally the freelancer does not have strict obligations regarding the schedule and working hours. That is, you do not need to ask for leave to go to the clinic, sick with a child, or a trip to another city.
• Involvement in the profession, self-development. As a rule, freelancers are people with a high degree of self-control and self-organization. They understand that they build their careers themselves, they organize their own budget, and their advancement also depends on their efforts and volume of work. There is no boss who will decide something, there are no bonuses that are automatically written out for the entire department.
• Savings on clothing, travel, meals. Working from home, you don't have to worry about the appearance: dress code and hairstyle. This saves a lot of budget in many cases. It is also not necessary to get to work in most freelance options (but this is only in the case of remote collaboration).

Cons of freelancing:

• self-sufficiency in work, regular search for new orders;
• uneven income (many freelancers cannot cope with the distribution of personal funds and go to work in the state);
• the risk of problems with the approval of bank loans;
• nervous work style (not for everyone, but for those who cannot boast of good self-organization skills);
• independent bookkeeping, tax payment control;
• lack of social guarantees, social package;
• there is a high probability that the freelancer himself must pay contributions to the pension fund;
• high risk of fraud on the part of customers.

Of course, freelancing is not suitable for all people. For many, this is a daunting uncertainty that carries risks.

Self-employment, the status of an individual entrepreneur is the legally confirmed status of a person who is engaged in a particular professional activity. The word "freelance" has not yet been interpreted by law, that is, a freelancer can be both self-employed and an individual entrepreneur. And he will have to somehow register himself in order to pay taxes, work honestly and not have problems with the law.

A huge number of specialists prefers to work on freelance today: accountants, photographers, animators, editors. Very often these are demanded professions, highly paid, highly competitive.

The main areas of freelancing.

• Copywriting. There was a time when the word "copywriter" was the first synonym for the word "freelancer". Today, copywriting is considered too general, a broad concept, which is usually divided into segments of activity. But to summarize, a copywriter is the author of informational and advertising texts. He creates texts mainly for Internet projects, for social networks, commercial structures. A copywriter can work relatively constantly on the exchange, cooperate with different customers, look for them on their own, or (as happens with experienced authors) receive lucrative offers.

• Translations. In part, translators are also called copywriters. In the case of freelancing, the translator is not on the staff of translation bureaus, other firms and structures. He receives orders from professional sites, from a client base or by other means.

• Development of logos. A popular area now where designers (primarily web designers and illustrator designers) realize themselves well. These are educated specialists who know how to work in a number of popular modern programs. These are people with good imaginative thinking, basic art education, understanding of the advertising market. The services of such a freelancer will cost a lot.

• Editing, proofreading. Sometimes these professionals are hired by the same customers who are looking for copywriters. They cleanse the texts, prepare them for placement on the site. But proofreaders and editors do not always work on the Internet; it can also be people who cooperate with publishers.

• Programming, application development. One of the first freelancers were programmers. True, documentarily and legislatively programmers are in many ways more protected than freelancers of other professions. Contracts are concluded with them, agreements that clearly regulate cooperation.

• Marketing, including content marketing. This includes the rapidly developing SMM sphere (Social Media Marketing). These specialists help sell a service or product using modern, proven tools. In this profession, you need to learn constantly, since the market is changing rapidly, as well as its needs, trends, ways of achieving goals.

• Recruiting. Recruiters can provide intermediary work, look for specialists, select people for the staff, for a contract, or simply find the right employees for the customer.

• Legal sphere. Requires professional education, license or other compliance dictated by law. A lawyer can also work from home, advise, accompany transactions, and more.

• Tutoring. In part, today this area is moving online: more and more often you can see requests for tutoring via Skype (for both teenagers and adults who study the language, for example). The tutor himself chooses the clientele, workload, work schedule.

• Journalism. A journalist may not be tied to a particular media, but make custom projects or simply present a product for which there is a customer later.

• Design. We are talking about the creators of web interfaces, and about graphic designers, presenters, animators.

• SEO. In short, these are specialists who promote sites in search engines. They promote both custom projects and their own (if there is such a desire), that is, income is regulated by skills, volume of work, personal involvement and organization of their own sites.

• Targeting, contextual advertising, traffic dealership. Make direct leads and sales to customers. Professions belong to the creative and analytical sector.

• Web development and website development. High-quality coding, layout, software development, testing - if a person knows how to do this and is ready to connect his life with it (at least temporarily), freelancing fits perfectly into such a web designer's system.

• Video editing. There are videographers (those who shoot), they can also be freelancers and in most cases they are. But you can concentrate only on editing, for example, editing videos for bloggers is a popular request today. Editors are also engaged in the creation of journalistic films (they can be invited to a specific project), they also edit clips - for example, the team shot a simple clip, and the conditional singer Loya decided to give it to the pros for editing. Savings and very popular tactics.

Do not forget about such traditional spheres of activity as fine arts (in fact, many artists were freelancers even before the appearance of this word), literature, drama, and scriptwriting.

One of the first and simplest steps is to subscribe to public pages, thematic communities in social networks. There are orders, vacancies, there you can declare yourself, leave a portfolio. In a sense thematic publics are the "trade union" of freelancers: a place for communication, discussion of professional issues and even pricing. Such resources perfectly help to cope with the obvious disadvantage of freelancing - the lack of a team. Although many people like to work alone, sometimes communication with colleagues, like-minded people, partners is lacking.

They are the main sources of orders - for aspiring freelancers, for sure.

The most famous sites.

• Kwork. The service store in which the performer leaves an offer, the customer buys it. There is a fixed minimum price, which cannot be reduced.
• Work-zilla. A good platform for beginners, there is a sea of ​​simple orders, which are still taken up by "zero" freelancers. There is a guarantor of payment, there is arbitration for the analysis of disputes.
• Yandex. Services". A platform that helps you compare prices, find a contractor for your request. Yandex works with both individuals and companies.
• Alot pro. Service for finding remote work for both beginners and pros. Here you can find orders for those who want to completely "fill" the working grid with them, and for those who just intend to earn a little extra money and quickly get a fee.
• Freelance. A typical exchange, but with a good structure, open battles and contests, a media center to support users.

Some exchanges and service platforms have their own groups in social networks: this is both advertising and good recruiting of good performers. Also, as already mentioned, there are publics on social networks that unite performers, help find work and solve highly professional issues.

Thematic forums and chats are no longer as popular as in the old years: social networks and exchanges are rightfully replacing them. In addition, "chatters", as performers are often called exchange forums, are an exhaustive platform for discussing the search for new orders. That is, there is no need to look for third-party resources.

Professional communities also exist online. Even in a small town where several photographers work, as a rule, there is a group or chat where colleagues share information. They redistribute orders, if there is such a need, suggest how to find a customer for beginners. Experienced specialists have already formed a client base, they simply cannot cope with such a volume of potential work, therefore they willingly recommend orders to beginners and other colleagues.

It's obvious that a freelancer, albeit virtually, has to communicate a lot. He monitors information on the market, looks for new projects, monitors the appearance of materials on self-development and professional growth. And you also need to be ready for this employment.

One of the most effective tools for finding orders is creating your own blog, website, or social network page that will help you to declare yourself and become a bright candidate for the job. This is more than a portfolio, it is our own platform where a specialist is engaged in self-promotion. The better structured this site is, the more chances that the customer will come here and choose this particular specialist.

Examples of where to start.

• A newbie copywriter can start a commercial page on Instagram. With informative information about yourself, examples of finished works (excerpts, excerpts, links). You can also give professional advice there, if there is a willingness and some experience for them. There you can also conduct reviews of professional literature, resources for growth. Finally, Instagram sells great visuals: photos, good angles, and a pleasant image of a copywriter make it the most interesting candidate among faceless competitors.
• A video editor can start a blog where he will share his work, projects, experience. You can alternate examples of work with information on training, professional advice and simply interesting materials for both a potential customer and like-minded people.

A person without experience should not count on decent sums, but even, for example, a novice copywriter can earn 10,000 rubles for the first month in a new craft for himself. And if he is smart, efficient, quickly adapts to a new professional environment, then 20-30 thousand rubles at the start of his career is a very real amount. If you work only on the exchange, it is a little more difficult, the stakes are not so high there. But if you hurry up with the search for a customer, counting on long-term cooperation, and combine this with a stable exchange income, the amounts will come out quite good.

Video editor, web developer, marketer can get from 20 to 50 thousand rubles for the first month. But these values ​​are always approximate, because each person is built into the profession in his own way - someone will get used to it very quickly, someone will not be able to get used to self-employment. But in any case, it is not worth believing that a newcomer earns a good average salary in the price orientation of his profession.

In the next collection of 5 basic tips for those who are already ready to "dive" into freelancing.

1. You cannot stop learning. You immediately need to allocate a certain amount of professional time for it: read, watch thematic blogs, go to online courses if some skills are not enough.
2. Time management is everything. The work schedule (week / month) must be set immediately, otherwise procrastination and constantly floating working hours will make any freelance ineffective.
3. Portfolio work - from the first days. If you do not leave links to successful projects, if you do not save your successful works, then it will be problematic to find and put everything together.
4. Work on promotion. This is most effectively done by developing your own blog, this is the best platform for self-presentation.
5. Not being able to do anything and making money will not work, you need to hone your craft. You should not take orders that the performer does not understand at all.

And, of course, you need to immediately understand how your own accounting department works - to record income, expenses, distribute funds, do not forget about taxes.

There will always be those who criticize any good undertaking. If your friend didn’t succeed, it doesn’t mean that you will not succeed. After examining a large volume of reviews, we can say that success is achieved by targeting him.

Great freelancers come from:

• people with good self-discipline;
• willing to work a lot and with passion;
• who know how to allocate their time;
• those who do not need the presence of the collective;
• ready to learn new things constantly;
• able to adapt to frequent changes in the market.

And, judging by the reviews, as a rule, those who are used to working strictly according to the schedule (from 8 to 17 and nothing else), who do not know how to organize themselves a financial safety cushion, who are not ready to compete by all the rules, usually fail to "take root" in freelancing (that is, study, take test assignments, create a page for promotion).