Working in the creative industries: is freelancing the road to success?

Freelancing is a fantastic way to offer your services while working for and managing yourself. Seems like the perfect job right? Before we can answer this question we must take a deeper look into what it actually means to be a freelancer and the responsibilities that come with the title.

The Cambridge dictionary defines the term Freelancer as:
"someone who does particular pieces of work for different organizations, rather than working all the time for a single organization."

Working for yourself can be very liberating. You get to decide when you work and what you work on. Working on projects that you care about can really boost your work mentality and motivate you to work harder. However, jumping from job to job may seem scary, and it totally is. Work is never guaranteed, so when one project is finished you may have to search for some time just to find another job to pay the bills. Work may fall through during a project or you may encounter errors that you simply cannot fix yourself.

Freelancers represent themselves and to find new work rely on past experience to build trust with a client. Having a stellar portfolio, especially in the web development industry, showcasing your skills is hard to build up at first and you may have to rely on cheap, or even free, work. This makes starting off as a freelancer even more difficult. When you have nothing to show for yourself clients will most likely choose someone else over you and you will miss out on much-needed work. This can lead you into a vicious cycle of not having any needing experience to get a job and needing a job to gain the experience. Here are some tips from Stefan Mischook, a highly experienced web developer:

To sum up the video into points here are the steps you need to undertake to land your first job as a freelance web developer:

• Set up a portfolio: This is a must, not only will the client be able to learn more about you, they will be able to see working examples of what you do. Your website should serve as a hub for all things you and it allows potential clients and employees to see what your specialties are.
• Learn the basics: Learning HTML, CSS and Javascript are big musts when it comes to landing a job in the industry as they are the backbone of every product. To be a freelancer you are expected to have extensive knowledge, and remember: professionals are highly knowledgeable in their field. Learning some server-side languages are a great plus too as they will allow you to branch off into more fields.
• Build up your skills and portfolio: Demonstrating that you can do the job at the start is very challenging, Stefan suggests you do some cheap or even free work with smaller companies in order to add some show pieces to your portfolio.
• Network yourself: Using skills I mentioned in my 'Does the concept of professionalism applies to the creative industries?' piece such as, being polite, genuine and just overall nice to people you should start to make a network of potential clients that may be able to offer you work somewhere along your journey.

Outwith Stefan's video, there are some other important factors to understand when trying to become a freelancer. You are competing against everyone in the world, so you must price yourself accordingly and based on your experience or you will find it incredibly difficult to find work. Once you gain clients it is vital that you work with them and incorporate their ideas, after all, they are hiring you. Keeping them updated and informed with updates helps create a good relationship and trust factor ensuring that plans won't fall apart halfway through a project.

So now we know what a freelance web developer is, and the best tactics to become one we need to look at the potential pros and cons of working for yourself and come to a conclusion on whether or not it is the right route to go down for you.

Pros

• You get to decent when you start work and what time you finish
• You can choose where you work, such as the comfort of your own home
• You get a free pick at projects you want to work on
• You gain an easier work life balance
• You don't have to stick to a strict dress code

Cons

• Work is never guaranteed, you will need to be actively searching for your next project
• You need to be an all-rounder, learning basic web design is not enough anymore, you have to have extensive knowledge in back-end coding, server-side scripting, and UI ethics too
• You will be in charge of everything, from gaining clients to drafting up legal contracts filing your taxes

In summary, freelancing is not for everyone. If you are an independent individual that enjoys working alone and can keep motivated during spells of no work then freelancing may just be the perfect route for you. However, if you enjoy specializing in a specific area and working with a team to produce a project without all the nasty paperwork then you may want to choose a more conventional job.

Sources

Stefan Mishcook - "How to get your first web development job" - Published June 19, 2016

Cambridge Dictionary - Freelance definition

Jennifer Kyrnin - "The Advantages of Being a Freelance Web Designer" - Published March 18, 2017