Old Tin Roof

Freelance or Freelancer?

I’ve been read­ing a few free­lancer blogs for a cou­ple of years, and although I’ve found much of their advice use­ful, it seems like a lot of their posts are focused on the stay-at-home free­lancer that is try­ing to build up a decent list of reg­u­lar client.  There doesn’t seem to be much for the con­tract free­lancer that works in slightly longer term roles at a clients offices.

In the IT sup­port world, the sep­a­ra­tion is more appar­ent — you’re either a com­pany try­ing to gain mul­ti­ple clients and grow your busi­ness, or you’re a con­trac­tor that moves from role to role (usually).

I guess I’d like to pass on some of my expe­ri­ence as an IT sup­port con­trac­tor, a stay at home free­lancer, an employer of free­lancers (in a per­ma­nent man­age­ment role) and now a con­tract free­lancer in web devel­op­ment myself.

It’s all about your pro­fes­sional attitude

When I was employ­ing free­lancers on a reg­u­lar basis, I was often shocked at some of their atti­tudes (and some­times their apti­tude) when they arrived at the stu­dio.  Over a few years I met a range of scruffy, unin­ter­ested, half asleep devel­op­ers that were more inter­ested in putting their per­sonal view across (or play­ing online games) than get­ting some work done. Of course I also got to work with some folks that were awe­some, switched on and made their pres­ence missed when their time on a project was over.

Add some value

There are some key things you can do to make your­self valu­able to a team, and make a pos­i­tive impact on the peo­ple you work with:

Keep­ing positive

It’s not about being the most hyper and cheery per­son in the room (that can get very old, very quickly).  It’s more about keep­ing pos­i­tive about any task that you’re set, and being pos­i­tive that you can help get things done in the right way. This means that you’ve got to know your stuff, and can be con­fi­dent that if you don’t know the answer to a prob­lem, you can use your skills to work it out.  The wrong way to deal with dull tasks is to argue, or even sulk about it (wor­ry­ingly, I’ve seen this more than once).

Being awake and alert

This may be obvi­ous to most peo­ple, but turn­ing up to a free­lance gig yawn­ing, not pay­ing atten­tion, or being dis­tracted by other things is a sure fire way to annoy the per­son who is employ­ing you.  You’re there because they need your skills, and they are likely to get frus­trated with some­one who acts like they’re just another ‘bum on a seat’.

Remem­ber you’re there to help

If you’ve seen a clients prob­lem or issue hap­pen before, and you can con­tribute in a mean­ing­ful way, then make sure you do so (but remem­ber to be tact­ful).  If you see some team mem­bers going through the ringer try­ing to fix an issue that you can solve, and you stay quiet, but let them know after they’ve fixed it, you’re not going to win any friends.

Make sure your skills are bet­ter than average

As a free­lancer you need be at the top of your game. No excuses. If your skills don’t jus­tify your wages, why should some­one employ you?  Don’t be a big head tho, another way to lose friends is to try and tell every­one you know every­thing.  If you do know a lot more than the peo­ple around you, then intro­duce your knowl­edge gen­tly.  No one likes to be made to feel like they don’t know what theyr’re doing. And remem­ber to soak up your envi­ron­ment like a sponge: if you get the chance to work in a new method­ol­ogy, or tech­nol­ogy, then learn as much as you can about it while you’re there.

Be sen­si­tive to other people

This is some­thing that came up very recently on a con­tract for me, but remem­ber that how you see the world is not nec­es­sar­ily the way that every­one else does. Try to be aware that phrases you use might not fit in with the com­pany envi­ron­ment (I’m not talk­ing about swear­ing here), and with­out fail be ready to admit that you might be wrong and apol­o­gise where necessary.

Don’t men­tion the money

It goes with­out say­ing, but you should never talk about your rate, or the money you earn each year. It’s bor­ing for a start, but it can also unset­tle peo­ple who might oth­er­wise be happy with their job, and pos­si­bly make them resent you. Free­lanc­ing isn’t a pop­u­lar­ity con­test, but it helps if the peo­ple you work with enjoy work­ing with you.

I’m sure there’s a few more things that I’ve for­got­ten, but hope­fully this will help some­one out.