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Freelancers and contractors in this craziness

10 months ago from Kris Kim, Designer

  • Reece ButlerReece Butler, 10 months ago

    I'm based in Sydney, and I'll be honest, I'm a little concerned how I'm going to fair over the next few months. I've been full-time freelance for 5 or 6 years at this point, but the last 12 months have been the toughest, and I can't see it improving in the next few months.

    My biggest problem will be finding new clients and projects, which won't be a unique problem, particularly since I think there will probably be a lot of new people being forced to go it alone. And the biggest hurdle to getting that work will be that despite my many years of experience, I don't have a portfolio of current work that even closely represents my skills and experience due to either;

    • The majority of my day to day work being just small and one off tasks like website updates, code tweaks and changes, ad resizes, newsletter updates etc...
    • Agency/contract work which I either only contributed a small amount, or don't have permission to share.
    • Complacency. There's a bit of neglect on my part which set in over the last few years, as work was mostly coming my way without any real effort on my part. I certainly haven't been on top of keeping my work as up to date as I should have.

    My plan will be to obviously build a better portfolio, and I guess be more proactive in out reach to potential clients.

    Interesting times ahead.

    2 points
    • Mike A.Mike A., 10 months ago

      You need to change your product/services structure & pricing.

      0 points
      • Reece ButlerReece Butler, 10 months ago

        Any recommendations? At the moment that advice is a little vague.

        I see my immediate problem being that I have no way of demonstrating that I can do what I say I can do. Do you think that's not the case?

        0 points
    • Kris KimKris Kim, 10 months ago

      Hey Reece, how are things going on over there? I hope it's not too bad as here. Have you worked on any personal projects? In my current portfolio, I have 5 works and 3 of them are personal projects. But still I've managed to attract recruiters to get interviews.

      0 points
    • Daniel Shires, 10 months ago

      I feel your pain Reece!

      I'm employed full-time at the moment for a cruise company, but obviously our position as a business is going to be severely tested over the next couple of months, and my job doesn't feel that safe.

      My only advice would be to up-skill as much as you can – either through Ui/Ux/Code – whatever direction you want to go in – and find personal projects that you can utilise your skills in. It's something I'm working on myself at the moment, and I feel the pressure to continue with it because who the hell knows what life will be like in 3-6-12 months.

      All I do know is things will get better eventually, and when it does, I don't want to be that guy who's sat on his arse and done nothing about it!

      0 points