The freelancer business model, which has become widespread in recent years, is becoming more popular every day. People think that doing their own work is more attractive to setting their own working hours, and they want to adopt this way of working. I will explain these mostly because I have negative experiences while working as a freelancer. Although this is my personal experience, I have seen a lot of similar situations and problems around me, but I want to reiterate before I begin, these are my personal experiences and thoughts.
First of all, I would like to say that it is almost impossible to work as a freelancer for a corporate company as a freelancer if you do not already have working experience. Corporate companies do not want to risk working with inexperienced freelancers.
When you cannot work with corporate companies, the places where you can naturally work are businesses such as local businesses and small production facilities. These businesses do not meet their needs from sites like Linkedin Kariyer.net Indeed. Although many freelancer sites such as Freelancer.com are very nice environments, many customers who want to do business do not know such places. Since the owners of such businesses are mostly middle-aged and over, they do not have a good command of internet cultures. I have found all of my Freelancer jobs through Facebook and my acquaintances as a reference.
Most of these people want to see you face to face. For that reason, I don’t remember how many shops I entered in my home town. While the culture of being a freelancer is the place you want to be at your workplace, I often had to go to the shops all the time. Most of the time, the places where you do business want to see you to make sure you are doing that job. I don’t remember how many times I went to my customers place for so many things that can be said on Whatsapp.
Let’s continue with the work culture. It is almost impossible to do business in this business by signing contracts with small businesses. Opening the contract term is almost equivalent to finishing the job before it starts. If your job is not a niche job, or if you are not someone with a large portfolio, you are in danger of losing this opportunity to someone else as your alternative will come out soon.Let’s come to the work culture. It is almost impossible to do business in this business by signing contracts with small businesses. Opening the contract term is almost equivalent to finishing the job before it starts. If your job is not a niche job, or if you are not someone with a large portfolio, you are in danger of losing this opportunity to someone else as your alternative will come out soon.
Naturally, because the customer knows that there are too many students or freelancers to do this job like you, he often starts to take the ropes for him side . He says what he wants from you and immediately demands a price from you during that conversation. You have to give a price without considering what the work to be done is, what kind of processes may affect that job. Because you know that you have many competitors, you usually say a little less than the amount you think you deserved.
Oftentimes, these conversations are not resolved due to reasons such as someone else offering lower wages or other freelancer candidates being selected. So far, I have had phone and face-to-face interviews with more than 40 customers. We decided to work with 8 people. This is not an industry standard, but there are many different factors that affect its positive. I just wanted to tell you my numbers for example
Before I explain how to work as a freelancer, I want to explain what I did. Although mostly web projects, I have also done jobs such as logo, brochure and business card design.
Let’s get to the point where a lot of work ends before they start. After you agree on the price, you will naturally request a starting fee. Some customers will accept your offer even if it is slightly lower than you would like, but many customers will want to ask for some of the work from you and then give the money. At this point, you should definitely not trust your customers. I could not get paid for any of these jobs that I accepted without experience. The phones were not turned on, or excuses were made mocking human intelligence, such as traveling abroad during the pandemic period.
I learned new technologies and methods while doing this because each job I do is a special niche in itself. For this reason, I did not see this time as a waste of time. However, I was a little upset that I couldn’t get the money I was psychologically entitled to. However, I can say that these experiences have had a positive feedback for me as I am in the structure of learning a lesson from every mistake.
I don’t know if the same is true for everyone, but since I was a computer-savvy person, I did things like attaching ram to the shop at the place I went for free. There are also customers with very strange requests. There had been too many people looking to launch an illegal betting or prostitution site. Of course I refused because I knew they were illegal.
Another problem is that, unfortunately, most of the time, you have to do business the way the customer wants, even if you know more accurately. To give an example, even though you know that the green color in that site title will be bad, you cannot oppose the customer and you do it that way. If you are a person who likes this job a little bit, when you enter your bed at night, that design is not as it should be, it can make you unhappy.
Isn’t there any positive side to working as a freelancer? Of course there is. If you work with a person who pays on time and respects the work you do, you really enjoy your work. You gain both an income item in a country where finding a job is increasingly difficult, and a professional experience in addition to your knowledge. However, it is really difficult to find such customers most of the time. And it is not a job where you can earn permanent income. You work when you find a customer.
I personally decided that this working style was not suitable for me at all. I continue my career path by participating and winning the exams of a Sap consulting company.
This process taught me how to talk to people, how people can tell lies, as well as many personal things, Php Css JavaScript coding languages and professional software such as Adobe Photoshop, WordPress Gimp.
These were my experiences. I’ve seen foreign people in the freelancer community say they also experience many things similar to what I have experienced. I just wanted to convey my experiences to people like me who are at the beginning of the road. I am grateful for your time. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my personal site. We wish you to stay healthy during these difficult days.
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