I keep on finding more and more Filipino freelancers who are willing to get paid with a regular wage each month doing freelance work long term. Usually, there isn’t any written deal – the arrangement is that they get to have fixed payments every month regardless whether the freelancer had performed work or not. There isn’t any defined job scope: the client is free to throw in any work to the hired freelancer.
I am talking about getting jobs directly from clients and not from freelance sites such as oDesk and Elance.
At first glance one visible advantage of being a regular salaried freelancer is that they are given “guaranteed income” for several months to a few years. The “guaranteed income” that I mention here usually does not involve written agreement to bind the freelancer to the client legally. More often, the freelancer usually get freebies, such as several books, licensed software and even a computer from the client – to learn new skills required for the job. continue reading »
I have not been updating my blogs for a while. That was not laziness: like many bloggers my excuse is just I was so busy. I had been hopping into one freelance work after another. In between that I try to manage a few hours finding new jobs for my team members who are doing freelance jobs part time while learning all I can about WordPress blogs.
That freelance experience those past few weeks was a race against time. That had really put my time management skills to test. I had to make the best use of my time. I had finally reached the point where I have a constant stream of clients both old and new ones. When my long term projects runs dry, new opportunities keep coming up. It’s a fact that full time freelancers don’t just work with one client – they have to very good masters of their time to be able to work and earn from different projects coming from different clients.
During that time I was semi-active in social networks, Plurk and Twitter. Since both networks allow only 140 characters, it was easy for me to get interactive without the need to write a full well-researched or well-thought out blog post.
For those very hectic days I just get down to do my freelance work. At the end of the day, I find myself mentally tired to compose a well-researched blog post on any of my blogs.
This next week is yet another busy week for me.
I will not say anymore that I am back to blogging, as other do. I am always here. If you don’t find me on blogs, you could always contact me through other social networks, or through my email. Some of you are even in my chat. If you don’t find my updates here, you can always interact with me in Plurk or Twitter.
In just more than a decade of working with various employers, never did it occur to me that my next job is to be a full time freelancer. During college I was more interested in finishing the degree that I’ve chosen and be successful in that field. I’ve discovered my talent way back in high school but I kept ignoring the fact that I love to work with computers more than building electronic circuits.
Anyway, I ended up working in both fields. I gained four years experience as an IT specialist, and the three years in a semiconductor firm just in time when the awful global financial crisis started. After that stint I became a freelancer.
I didn’t have a plan
Before I quit the last job, I was offered a huge freelance project from a potential client. I was looking forward to working on that after I had submitted my resignation. My plan was to earn income from that and use the funds in some business venture that I like.
That plan A failed and the project did not push through. I did not have a plan B. I was running out of money. I just decided to edit my old dusty resume from my aging hard disk and apply to some job openings in my location. Not long, I got some interviews from big established companies. One of them even gave me a lusty job offer which I eventually declined because I have that gut feeling that there seemed to be something bigger than grabbing that opportunity.
After that, there was silence. I did not new interviews from other companies that I’ve applied to anymore. At one time I regretted making the decision not to accept that job offer. For a while it seemed that I am on a crossroad: I was unable to decide where to go and what to do and how I was going to support myself and my kid. continue reading »
There are these rare talents who really don’t expect that their inborn talents would shoot themselves to fame, such as this former graffiti artist known as KAWS.
KAWS is actually a nickname Brian Donnelly used in all the years that he had been practicing his career as an artist. He started out by being a graffiti artist then moved on to designing simple booth advertisements, billboards and bus shelters but his “X†designs surely made him rose to popularity – you may probably see his artwork already, as it had been used in several products.
This guy was featured on CBS News previously this year, but I was able to know him more through this video I got today. He was not keen at first in getting featured in art galleries, but I think now is the right time for him to get famous (and even rich).
MJ Ces of PinoyCopywriter had taken time to write an interesting comment on this previous post Before You Go on Freelancing, Ask Yourself. All his points are true for any part time freelancer with a day job. I want to add my own personal notes and experiences when I had been in the same similar situation.
Part time freelancing requires long hours. This is true. When I was working in my first job as an instructor I was doing part time coding for another company. I had sleepless nights and tired work days. I could not easily concentrate at work because I worry about so many things.continue reading »
