How To Become A Freelancer? All You Need To Know To Get Started.

Today in this article, I am going to explain how to become a freelancer. Freelancer generally means a person who is self-employed and is not necessarily committed to any organization or companies. Freelancers are also called Independent Contractors as they undertake the tasks on the basis of contract with individuals or organizations.

In today’s time, the number of people who work from home has increased exponentially. Thanks to the emergence of the Internet, people can work from wherever and whenever they want. 

Unlike the previous times when people had to go to the office/workplace to work, people can work anywhere to their convenience without even being associated with any sort of organization thanks to freelancing platforms.

Jobs which freelancers could do:

• Content Writing
• Digital Marketing
• Website Development
• Programming
• Typing
• Graphics Designing
• Application Development and many more.

There are many ways through which you could get freelance jobs. Of course, you could get contracts on the basis of your connections. You could also advertise yourself on the basis of your qualifications, experience, skills on social media sites like Facebook, Linkedin etc.

The drawbacks of getting a freelancer job like this is that, there is no regulatory body in between the client and freelancer. The client has no assurance whether the job would be done or not and on the other hand, the freelancer also has no guarantee whether s/he’ll get paid or not.

To address this issue, there are several websites that serve as freelance working platforms. They act as a mediator between the client and the freelancer. Some of them are:

• Fiverr
• Upwork
• Freelancer.com
• Elance
• CloudPeeps and many more

Generally, A freelancer works on a per-project basis. For example, a freelancer might take a certain number of projects in a month and charge the client by either per project or per hours(hours worked) basis. 

As freelancers work on deadlines, they could work on any time they want before the deadline. 

The freelancer working process generally encompass following things:

• A freelancer reaches out to the possible client
• They both agree on the price and deadline of the task
• After the freelancer does the task, the client pays for it. The tax is taken out of the paycheck which freelancers must pay on a quarterly basis.

Each and every thing has two sides of the coin and so does freelancing. Here are some of the positive things about freelancing:

• There is always a working opportunity for you as new jobs are posted every minute on freelancing platforms.
• As a freelancer, you have complete control over your schedule. You can manage your time effectively and work according to your convenience. There is no limitation on when and where do you work, You could also find balance in your personal life and work life.
• You have an amazing opportunity to gather experience working with different clients which you’d never find in a conventional office workspace.
• If it’s not working out with your current client, you could easily shift to other ones. Therefore, you have an opportunity to only work with those which you really want to work.

Here are some negative things about becoming a freelancer:

• You have to be self-disciplined and self-motivated as there is no boss checking on you.
• You may have to work longer hours than what you used to work in office hours but it’s not always the case. You may have to work a lot less as well.
• Sometimes you may not get any work as there is the possibility that no client is willing to hire you for work. This could be frustrating for you.
• It takes time until you get your first paycheck as you have to build your profile, build connections so it will take a while before you earn money.

So after reading this article, you might have got a fair share of ideas regarding how to become a freelancer. It is a long and continuous process and you have to be consistent in your work and also follow deadlines and provide the clients exactly what they want at their best convenience. 

Read more articles from Techmandu!