Why should I hire a freelancer?
The freelance economy grows without stopping and you can take advantage of its great benefits. In this guide you’ll find everything you should know about this new trend and how it can benefit your business.
An army of workers at your reach
Technology has completely changed the way we work and today there are more freelancers than ever. In the US they are already more than 34% of the active population (about 53 million) and this figure keeps growing year after year.
In this guide we’ll talk about the reasons why many professionals choose to work as freelancers, and how your business can benefit from this trend.
We could define freelancers as people who work for one or several companies, temporarily or permanently. To simplify a bit, we’ve classified them into 5 groups:
- The classic freelancer: They work on one or several temporary projects simultaneously.
- Multi-jobs: They combine freelance projects with “traditional” part-time jobs.
- Dedicated freelancer: They work for a single project for an undefined time. But later they’ll work on other projects and for other clients.
- The night owls: They are freelancers with a full-time traditional job who dedicate hours to freelance projects outside their work schedule.
- Business owners: They are freelancers and owners of a small business. They can work under their name or under their company’s name.
4 reasons to be freelance
Before talking about what a freelancer can contribute to your business, it’s interesting to know why many professionals opt for this way of life. These are some of the reasons:
Invoicing: Having multiple projects and being your own boss allows you to work more hours and invoice more.
Flexibility: Freelance work adapts to your life and not the other way around. Which means you can go pick up your children from school, for example, and recover the work hours at night or on the weekend.
Work anywhere: Not everyone feels comfortable working in an office. Freelancers can work in a coworking space, at home, in the library, at university, in a park or any other place.
Freedom: Freelancers can choose who they work for, what projects they participate in and for how long. This is particularly beneficial for creative work.
Why hire freelancers?
Freelancers are particular people: willing to not have fixed income each month, to not have job security, to not have the benefits of traditional workers,…
Which means that:
They are used to working hard and being organized. They are experienced, intelligent and with many skills. If not, they wouldn’t have managed to survive.
They expect to be judged based on results, not based on the hours they’ve dedicated to doing a job.
And precisely for these reasons, they are so interesting for small businesses like yours.
Although the hourly rate of a freelancer is higher than the hourly rate of a normal worker, their cost can even be lower. The freelancer pays their own taxes and in many cases you won’t even have to offer them a desk or computer because they normally prefer to work with their own equipment and in their own space (office, coworking, home,…).
Use your online invoicing program to calculate costs, you’ll realize that, in many cases, a freelancer allows you to save money.
If the work to be done has clear objectives that must be achieved in a short time, hiring a freelancer is always the best option.
What jobs can a freelancer do?
Freelancers are usually former employees who decided to go on their own, so for practical purposes they can do everything a traditional employee does.
Anyway, there are certain jobs where a freelancer can be ideal:
For unique projects: It doesn’t make sense to hire a worker if you know you won’t need them when the project ends. It’s much more practical to hire a freelancer.
For short and very specialized jobs: Training workers in new fields they don’t master can be very expensive. It’s better to hire services occasionally, when you need them.
For creative work: The sector with the most freelancers is creativity: designers, writers, photographers, audiovisual producers,… These types of jobs fit well with freelance work characteristics because there are specifications and a final product.
For commission work: Freelancers are used to being paid for the work they do, they have the skills to achieve objectives quickly and efficiently, which means they may be willing to be paid only by commission.
On the other hand, with some exceptions, freelancers are not a good option for customer-facing work. This type of work, which requires many more hours, is more suitable for an employee.
How to hire the right freelancer?
Finding the ideal freelancer for the job you have at hand isn’t always easy. Anyway, there are some tricks you can use to find your ideal freelancer:
Ask: among your network of contacts, friends, suppliers and clients. Surely there’s some freelancer they can recommend.
Use pages to locate freelancers: There are many pages where you can find freelancers offering their services. They can be a very good place to start. Some of them can be: SoyFreelancer, Infojobs freelance, Freelancer…
Use social networks: Contact freelancers through their social media profiles, especially LinkedIn. Try to verify the information they give about their experience or completed work.
Ask for references: Ask for references from freelancers you find in companies that have already hired them.
Check their knowledge: If you have a big project at hand, you can ask them for a test. Keep in mind that you should pay them for the time they’ve dedicated to this test, especially if the work is used later.
Get the most out of the freelance trend
New technologies and cloud applications have helped freelancers reach a larger audience than ever. Thanks to this, more and more professionals are opting for this way of life.
This is great news for you as owner of a small business because it means you have many more talented professionals at your disposal. And you only have to pay them for the work they do.
