Usually freelancing is associated with a relaxed atmosphere working from any place on the planet preferably somewhere on the beach with a cocktail in one hand and a laptop in another one. Some people though imagine freelancers as people who cannot find a real job and have to work hard to barely make ends meet.
As always, the truth is somewhere in between, and it’s actually on a freelancer to decide on the pace of work, the number of projects to take, clients to work with, and the office location preferring home or a local cafe.
The most beautiful thing about freelancing is complete control over everything. Starting from the number of hours you work, negotiating project pricing, and making decisions to work only with clients who share your values. That’s why freelancing is getting more popular day by day.
This year was special, as the COVID-19 succeeded by the economic recession transformed the job market. Many people lost their jobs due to staff cuts, some businesses haven’t survived the pandemic, work from home became a new trend. These are just to name a few changes it brought.
At the same time, the freelancing market is thriving, as employees and business owners consider it more economically wise to pay per contract and establish a short-term relationship. According to recent research, 47% of employees will switch to hiring independent contractors as a result of COVID, so it’s high time to consider a freelancing career to protect your earnings.
Some freelance jobs require professional training, a previous work record, and/or a portfolio. However, there are also some options for people without a specific background. Let’s check what professions are the most popular on the freelance market this year:
Web Developer
With digitalization, this profession remains on the top of freelance jobs, as nowadays establishing an online presence is a must. Learning at least one programming language and choosing the specialization of front-end developer (building graphic interfaces) or a backend one (specializing in the architecture, business logic, and databases), and constant practice on pet projects and internships will pave the way to a successful web development career. Despite the fact that the women in technology move is in the development stage, as according to the recent data, only 25% of technical industries employees are women, the number of females occupying software engineering positions has a positive growth trend.
Project Manager
Taking into account the popularity of remote teams, project coordination becomes more challenging, so here where a project manager steps in. This person is responsible for the process from the start till the end starting from defining the deliverables to making sure that the final result corresponds to the stakeholder’s expectations (and everything coming in between).
Like any managerial position, it presupposes working with people, leading calls, and communicating a lot with teams and clients. To become a project manager you’ll have to learn a bunch of things about budget planning, risk estimations, and task distribution. Luckily there are various project management courses that can help to learn fundamentals and start searching for the first job.
Web Designer
The web design field is really versatile, as depending on the preferences you have a choice between a User Experience (UX) designer who takes care of making the user flows on the website as smooth as possible, or a User Interface designer who is responsible for the maximum interface usability like buttons, navigation, and other elements. One more option is becoming an illustrator and work on the visual assets for an application or a website. To become a designer, you’ll need to develop an aesthetic vision, learn the Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, or another one depending on your specialization.
Data Entry Specialist
The main job requirements are attentiveness, researching, and typing as the main responsibility of a data entry specialist is gathering the information from different sources in one place. Acquaintance with Google Spreadsheets or Excel will make the work much easier. While this work may seem to be easy and the experts are constantly saying that the smart algorithms will replace this job soon for a long time now, it’s not getting away, as there are still many edge cases that algorithms cannot follow. So at least for several upcoming years, this job will remain popular.
Virtual Assistant
This profession is all about organization, so that’s the first skill one needs to develop to land a job. The main responsibilities may vary depending on the person you are working for, but usually, it contains answering calls and emails, booking meetings, and helping with other administrative tasks. Knowing Google Workspace or other task managers will help to achieve maximum effectiveness to free time for your clients.
Copywriter
Content marketing is a powerful tool for growing the audience and matching it with the fact that many businesses moved online, this profession got even more popular the demand for written content such as blog posts, articles, ads, slogans, etc increased. So if you have a perfect command of language as well as strong storytelling skills, it’s the great start of a freelancing career.
Where to find work?
After deciding on the job profile and acquiring the necessary skills, comes another issue. Where to find a job? And here’s where the adventures start, as it may take up to several months before you get the role you are looking for. The most common places to start looking for opportunities are freelance platforms like Upwork or Freelancer. For designers, the website for portfolio sharing like Dribbble, Behance, and even Pinterest will not only help to find inspiration but attract potential clients and new challenging tasks. Linkedin is another way to search for freelance projects through the professional network. Last but not least, don’t forget about building your personal brand on social media to grow the audience that will be interested in your services.
Wrap Up
Regardless of the reasons to consider the shift from a traditional job to self-employment be it for diversifying income or recovering from the job loss or even pursuing a career change goals, the sooner you start freelancing, the better results you will be able to achieve in the long run, as with experience it’s easier to find the new clients and avoid the pitfalls on the way.
At times, it may seem to be more complicated as you take full responsibility for the quality of your work, the choice of clients, and finance matters, as some freelance opportunities may be seasonal ones. But changing the traditional working day in the office to freelance gives you more freedom, flexibility, and independence that justifies all the challenges.