I will not join the arguments that “Habr is not what it was before...” etc., now about something else. There are a number of holivars there that have been going on since the launch of Habr, and most likely will always be there (it is based on them). These are “Windows vs Linux”, “Apple vs non-Apple”, “PC vs Mac” and, of course, "Freelance vs Office". I recently came across an article “10 reasons why you shouldn’t quit your job and become a freelancer,” which I would rather call “10 misconceptions about freelancing.” And here's why...

Below italics— the position of the author of the article, and highlighted- my “exposure”.

1. Guarantees

An officially employed employee has a minimum fixed monthly salary, which he is guaranteed to receive in the accounting department at the end of the month. Attracting clients and providing you with work is the company's problem. An attentive reader will think about the word “salary” and rightly object: “Isn’t that why I’m going to go on a free voyage, to earn at least no less than in the office?” Absolutely right, many write a statement “of their own free will,” including for the sake of increasing income. But to ensure that you receive your remuneration for an eight-hour working day in a guaranteed and timely manner, the organization has at least a director and an accountant. In the “free bread”, the amount of income and its stability are often unpredictable things.
Don't forget about paid leave and contributions to the pension fund. I've heard a lot of talk about how some freelancers pay taxes and contribute to a pension fund. To be honest, I have never met such people in person.
At the moment of making the decision to quit, we see ourselves in the near future as a successful and wealthy owner of our own business (you’re not going to draw websites until you’re very old?), capable of independently accumulating at least a couple of million by the time you turn sixty. I respect your ambitions, but you should never lose sight of the fact that events sometimes tend to unfold differently than we want.
Before you put your application on the table, you should also think about who will pay for your sick leave.

It makes sense to leave your job when you are already consistently and constantly earning at least as much as your office salary from freelancing. Otherwise, most likely you are simply not yet mature enough to become a professional freelancer. Leaving the office with only a beautifully written plan and imaginary orders and contracts in hand is, to put it mildly, stupid. For many, the history of freelancing began with the fact that work outside the office began to bring them several times more salary in the office, and for a confidently long time. Although even in this case, you need to have a margin of safety in the amount that will last for a month, or better yet, more. There is another significant nuance here - if you are a really good specialist (and there are always not enough of them), you will easily be hired to work in another office if something doesn’t work out with freelancing. Again, if this is not about you, and you are still sitting in the office only out of the kindness of your soul or the narrow-mindedness of your superiors, freelancing will ruin you.

2. Allow yourself this - here and now

Each of us has had moments in our lives when we need a lot of money now, but won’t have enough the day after tomorrow. Whether it’s buying a car or renovating an apartment, for many of us several hundred thousand rubles are an impressive amount. What would an office worker do? He’ll go to the bank, write an application, and a week later he’ll come to work in a new Toyota.
What will a freelancer do? That's right - he will try to borrow from friends or relatives. By the way, they may well not have the required amount.
There is an opinion that getting a loan from a bank without having official employment is easier than ever. I suggest my most meticulous readers check it out - try borrowing one hundred or two hundred thousand from the bank.

A thoughtful freelancer has a work record in a friendly organization or he himself is an individual entrepreneur or other legal entity. Although I question the very idea of ​​buying something on credit. Especially in light of recent events in the economy.

3. A company employee can work with large clients

I sincerely wish you success and fulfill orders for famous Russian and foreign brands. But, you see, you need to try hard and have an impressive portfolio for the guys from Microsoft to commission a “freelance artist” to create the design of a promotional website.
“But the work I performed while working for Company N is the property of Company N!” the reader will object. Of course. But nothing prevents you from claiming that the work for such and such a client was performed by you as part of an official assignment for Company N.

Misconception of scoops and office plankton. If you are truly a professional, you can work with anyone and under any conditions. My friend Maxim Zhestkov is engaged in video design and does orders for Microsoft, MTV UK, MTV USA and many other very large clients. Of course, Bill Gates doesn’t call him on his cell phone, but orders come through studios, after which he meticulously chooses which project to take on. By the way, he is only 23 years old and lives 1000 kilometers from Moscow.

4. Working for a large company in itself is a good line on your track record.

Since you are reading these lines, sooner or later you will quit. I hope none of you will argue that mentioning a position in a large agency in your biography increases your chances of getting a client.

Of course, you can only go freelance if you have a significant amount of knowledge and experience. Where else can you get it if not from leading companies in the region? People often go into freelancing because they have already “outgrown” working in a given office, and there are no cooler companies. The only thing left is to either change the place of residence (usually the country at once) or go freelance.

5. Discipline and deadline control

I know many talented people who show excellent professional results. But only in cases where there is someone who can clearly formulate the task, set deadlines and control execution. If you do not have the minimum leadership skills, you need link between you and the client, you have difficulty organizing your own time and are used to being reminded of deadlines - it’s worth postponing dismissal and working on these skills.

If a person has problems organizing his own time, then he should go back to school or kindergarten. Seriously, freelancing either kills or makes you stronger (makes you organized and more responsible).

6. Teamwork experience

None of the freelancers wants to draw layouts and write articles, sitting within four walls, until a ripe old age. I think I will be objective if I say that the long-term goal of any independent specialist is to create and develop their own business (big or small, it doesn’t matter). The ability to delegate tasks, listen to the advice of colleagues and respond adequately to criticism are things that will definitely come in handy in the future. You are lucky, you work in an office - use this chance and acquire the necessary skills.

You can and should communicate with colleagues and/or competitors at conferences, exhibitions, seminars, etc. Some people still practice communicating with colleagues in bars/restaurants.

7. Learning from colleagues

Working in a team, you have a great opportunity to improve at the expense of your colleagues. Surely there are people in your company who have skills that you do not have. Ask questions, get answers, grow professionally. And all this is completely free.

And again, if you leave the office, then you have already received everything you could here. Additional communication with colleagues can be perfectly transferred to the network, and also see point 6

8. Fixed work schedule

Working in an office for eight hours, five days a week isn't a bad idea. A fixed schedule allows you to plan your free time. If your workday usually ends at 7:00 p.m., you can feel free to make an appointment with friends next week on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
Still want to gain independence and work on your own? Get ready for the fact that the friendly get-together will have to be postponed, and the premiere of the sequel about Agent 007 will have to be abandoned in favor of working on an urgent project.

It’s purely a matter of priorities and self-organization. Many office workers can rarely afford to leave work on time, and it happens that they even work on weekends. Moreover, the authorities take this for granted or make it a condition.

9. Social life

Having decided to gain independence from your employer, get ready for the fact that one day email and icq will replace your live communication. In psychology, this is usually called social deprivation, which, by the way, can lead to serious psychological deformations of the individual. Talking about the weather with a colleague in a smoking room may seem like a useless exercise only at first glance. I bet that after a while you will start to miss this useless chatter.

Without knowing the problems of an office worker from the previous point, a freelancer has a lot of time to communicate with his family, meet with friends and relatives at any time convenient for him.
If a person's social life ends in the office, then something is wrong with him.

10. Your professional reputation is protected by the company

Imagine that the agency you work for has lost a client. It’s even worse if the refusal to cooperate was due to your own fault (missing deadlines or poor-quality results). Not a very pleasant situation, right? But even from it you can draw a positive experience - the client refused to work with the company, but not with you. This is the protection of your professional reputation at the expense of the company. The worst thing that can happen is dismissal. But you were planning to do this yourself, weren’t you?

Negative experience is also experience. By the way, in many companies the result is much more responsibility than any freelancer. It is much more pleasant to deprive yourself than if your boss does it.

In conclusion, I want to state that I do not urge everyone to immediately quit their office work; moreover, I myself have always avoided the word “freelancer” and did not consider myself one of them. I have an office in which I sit alone and am my own director, subordinate, and I don’t know who else. I also participate in some “remote” teams. Freelancing or office is a personal choice. In each case there are always a lot of nuances on which a lot depends. The most important thing is that the work is fun!

Are you all sitting in the office or just woke up with your laptop in your arms? What are your “FOR” or “AGAINST” freelancing?

PS: Don't miss the competition on the Alexnote blog!

« Freelancer (English freelancer - freelance worker). Being outside the permanent staff of any company, a freelancer can simultaneously fulfill orders for different clients. The term freelancer was first used by Walter Scott in his novel Ivanhoe to describe a “medieval mercenary warrior.”

Freelancing— remote, freelance work.

What to choose - freelancing or office work. This is what we will talk about.

In 2013, in Russia it became possible to regulate remote work (in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation - remote work) by concluding an employment contract, which stipulates electronic signatures, or documents are sent by mail.

With the active development of the communications sector and the Internet, the process of obtaining information has become significantly simplified, which has given impetus to the popularization of remote employment options.

“The concept of remote work was developed by the American Jack Nilles. In 1972, he expressed the idea that it was not necessary to keep workers in the office, since modern communications made it possible to maintain contact between employees at a distance. In 1979, the works of Jack Nilles attracted the head of the special Committee on US Economic Development, Frank Skiff. He continues the scientist’s ideas and comes up with a new term “flexiplace” - “flexible workplace" A specialist publishes an article in the Washington Post under the loud headline “Working from home saves gas.”

In the United States, according to the Department of Labor in 2005, just over 10 million people were freelancers, which amounted to 7.4% of the US workforce. Of course, now this figure is many times higher.

In Russia, freelancing has been popular as an alternative to conservative work activity for about 10 years, most actively for 5-7 years. According to experts and futurologists, the field of IT technologies and, accordingly, freelancing will become the most promising areas in the labor market.

At the same time, according to customers and people who know a lot about remote work: 95% of remote workers are low-skilled comrades, superficial knowledge and skills who came from foreign work structures to the field of freelancing in the hope of easy profit. That is, everything is banal and, in general, as in all areas: the majority want to get money and not work. Statistics on the number of remote workers in Russia are difficult, since many work unofficially, but approximately, such specialists are several percent of the country’s total workforce. After all, habitual employment, “social and communicative,” full-time, with a schedule and a 5-6-day work week, occupies the largest niche in Russian market labor.

Freelancing is called as many different names as possible, and they select synonyms for its antonym (office work, permanent work activity). Free flight or “working for an uncle”, prospects of being in charge, freedom or voluntary slavery for the sake of credit, independent development or eternal service to other people’s ideas, etc.

Let's take a closer look at the pros and cons of remote employment and office work.

Freelancing - pros and cons

Pros

For an employee: the ability to choose and regulate working hours, not to come to attention at 8 a.m. in some confectionery shop or in an empty library or office; lack of dependence on the “evil” boss, the possibility of changing the latter if something does not suit you; the opportunity to achieve career heights (even being a bird of free flight) with strict self-discipline, of course; all the conditions and circumstances arising from the listed advantages (such as: combining motherhood and part-time work, a home environment instead of the suffocating and crowded atmosphere of buildings, etc.).

For the customer: no additional costs for servicing the workplace, minimizing document flow due to freelance employees; payment for work performed (and not for time), or an agreement on payment; the ability to terminate cooperation at any time.

However, no matter how many people would like to add broad prospects for choosing both workers and employers to the list of advantages of freelancing, this is a very deceptive action, since in reality it is difficult to find both good employers and good workers (especially considering, according to experts, the latter are no more than 5% of all those calling themselves freelancers).

Cons

For an employee: unstable salary, it all depends on the “cunningness”, perseverance, resourcefulness of the freelancer himself, he must be responsible for himself and look for work as he pleases, interest himself, unlike a boring office: where, perhaps, you don’t need to move much, but you have your own a person receives “three kopecks”; in most cases, the work is unofficial, which entails the absence of records in the employment record (affects pensions, etc.), social package, benefits, it is not easy to take out a loan, prove your financial independence (but you can draw up an agreement if necessary); if a person devotes a lot of time to work, then isolation from the outside world is difficult for extroverts to endure; physical inactivity, health problems due to sitting at the computer for a long time and a sedentary lifestyle.

For the customer: the employee at first is essentially a “pig in a poke”, uncertainty about who promises to complete the task at the other end of the dialogue does not guarantee the completion of the order if it is urgently needed, the employee can let you down and you won’t ask anything from anyone, the conversation is not even about prepayment (after all, most employers pay either 50% of the advance payment, or only for the work done), and about the failure of projects and plans, moreover, the “free bird” can fly away at any time without warning, and again you will not show anything; since 95% of freelancers do not have the proper qualifications, the customer will be forced to sort through the flow of useless people, wasting time and energy, however, with face-to-face cooperation it happens about the same.

“Currently, a stable layer of freelancers has formed on the Internet who earn their living by working remotely. Freelancing is common among journalists, photographers, lawyers, artists, architects and designers, programmers, optimizers, copywriters, translators, participants in affiliate programs, and design engineers. There are many specialized sites designed to help freelancers find their next order" (Wikipedia)

There are a lot of exchanges for freelancers on the Internet, where, if you don’t succeed through friends and word of mouth, you can find both workers and customers, however, as a rule, most of those who visit these exchanges are looking for cheap and standard ones, but if there are orders, that means everyone is happy with everything.

Office work or permanent job

Pros

For an employee: stable salary, payment by the hour, and not for the work performed; social packages, benefits, loans, vacation pay, maternity pay; communication in a team, fulfillment of the need for social activity, the possibility of tangible career growth if the employee has aspirations and a desire to achieve something.

For the employer: the opportunity to personally control the work process, there is someone to ask and someone to hold accountable in case of failure of the project or plan.

Cons office work is described in the advantages of freelancing: all the good things that remote work promises will not be delivered by the office.

Finally, the question that worries everyone: how much do freelancers earn in Russia?

In 2006(survey of sites Kadrof.ru, FreelanceJob.ru) the earnings of freelancers generally ranged from 100 to 600 dollars per month, about 20% of respondents received over 1000 dollars per month.

2007: “The company Webcontent.ru cites “statistics from the life of the average copywriter”: “To eat in a decent cafe [in Moscow], the “average copywriter” needs to write 900-1500 characters of text. If he lives in the region, 400-600 characters will be enough; A metro ride in Moscow will cost 60 marks; A liter of gasoline for “horsepower” is 60-80 characters; To purchase the most popular foreign car in Russia, Ford Focus in the most affordable modification - 625 pages of text or 1,125,000 characters; An inexpensive one-room apartment in a new Moscow building will cost almost 7,500 pages of text or 13,500,000 characters; It’s easier to buy in St. Petersburg - for 4,700 pages or 8,460,000 characters with spaces; If you don’t eat, don’t drink and write 5,000 characters of text every day, you can get the most affordable foreign car in 225 days, and an apartment in 1700-2700 days.”

2011: “Hard work in freelancing can bring a person no less money than he would earn in a regular office. If you believe the results of a study by the website “Free-lance.ru”, the average monthly income of a Russian remote worker reaches 44 thousand rubles. It should be noted that only every third freelancer surveyed is a resident of the capital, and the average salary in the Russian Federation is about 20 thousand rubles.

People who design and develop websites, as well as specialists in public relations, marketing, promotion in social networks and, of course, programmers. These categories of workers can earn 100 thousand rubles per month.”

Today, even the most average, but constantly working freelancer (for example, a copywriter - albeit not very talented, but diligent and hardworking) in the majority earns at least 20-30 thousand rubles (naturally, those who work little and are paid accordingly - even less). on average, as those who have passed the stage of perseverance and achieving the heights of self-discipline assure, it is quite easy to earn 40 thousand. These are ordinary workers (copywriters, designers, etc. - single), you can always get more, the main thing is desire. Those who work in a team or have a subordinate staff, albeit remotely, earn more than 100 thousand rubles per month.

The future of freelancing in Russia

Freelancing is a promising area of ​​both business and employment; in addition, the development of freelancing trends is beneficial for companies: it saves time, resources, and money.

Not everything is so simple: remote workers are not only a relatively new stratum of society, consisting of people who do not want to work “for their uncle” and get up in the morning, this is a whole ideology, a protest of young minds against the mechanism of monotonous activity that has been debugged for decades, deadness of offices, doing work unnecessary to anyone.

“Freelancers, in fact, are the quintessence of the most fluid modernity, those people who destroy the usual order common among most workers. The transition from a unified to an individualized society makes it necessary to analyze not so much the way of life as its styles that develop among different groups. Lifestyle reflects the social conditions in which an individual finds himself and his abilities (resources) to cope with the challenges of our time. In the conditions of an individualized and unstructured employment strategy, issues of personal self-organization become of particular importance: the possession and management of necessary resources, abilities, needs and interests” (from the dissertation “Freelancing as a lifestyle in modern society”).

Even offices can no longer accommodate everyone who wants to sit in them, and employers themselves are beginning to understand that it is unprofitable to keep a lot of useless personnel for support, By 2019, according to experts, the percentage of remote workers will increase significantly:

“The share of office employees who have remote access to business applications and corporate systems, regardless of location and the subscriber device they use, will grow to 52 percent of the state's total by 2019. This is evidenced by the results of a study by the analytical company IDC.

Now this figure in Russian offices is about 30 percent.

According to Elena Semenovskaya, research director at IDC in Russia and the CIS, more than 86 percent of Russian companies have a strategy to support mobile employees who can work outside the office, and the rest plan to develop it within a year” (Lenta.ru)

And yet: what is more profitable and what to choose - freelancing or permanent work?

As a rule, this question is asked by those who are unsettled as specialists in the field of traditional official employment. As we all understand, three higher educations do not guarantee a stable, highly paid position; in addition to intelligence, potential, and acumen, you also need qualities, without which, alas, nothing can be achieved. Among those same freelancers there are many educated people who have not realized themselves for a number of reasons. Often the motto of those who have low qualifications or see a part-time job as their goal in life, but do not want to apply themselves differently to the business, is “we can do everything!” We can do everything, which means we can’t really do anything. It is advisable to go into freelancing, using it as temporary or relatively permanent income, in a specific area in which a person is knowledgeable, for example, he worked as a lawyer, had practice and can write useful texts on this profile. You can’t write great texts about culture, composing them according to the structure of cheap SEO. Also, artists who cannot find work in life go to paint portraits in the web sphere, not realizing that these are completely different niches.

Although you can try everything, it is better to try to do something than to sit idly by and suffer from idleness or despondency.

Advice for beginners and established web designers who are deciding whether to switch to freelancing?:

Freelancing is primarily for those who need irregular free time, these are students, young mothers, people who want to live freely, for those who stoically endure loneliness and are able to single-handedly bring a project to completion.

Sitting at the computer a lot is really harmful, but any freelancer can perfectly plan his time and find a period in it to visit the gym, no one forces a person to stick to a chair and grow sides, this is his personal choice.

Also groundless are the stereotypes that “remote workers” are mostly detached from the world, unsociable individuals. Where else if not in freelancing can you find time to express yourself in the social space, for sports, etc.? It just often happens that programmers and similar figures come from those who spent a lot of time sitting behind computer games and how some Bill Gates suffered from social anxiety. Programmers (from personal experience of dating) are indeed often not people of this world, but there are also enough of those who successfully combine the virtual and real world.

Personally, I, who for personal reasons chose the advantage in my life of freelancing over working “for my uncle,” was always bored because of one thing: lack of communication. I think for some, interaction with people is much more important than many nuances, but when it comes to making money, the priorities are a little different. I will say that you can perfectly combine social activity and work alone, alternating them and organizing your time correctly; it’s great when in the real world you don’t rush and don’t rush to achieve career heights, but just relax.

There are always prospects, it’s just that in freelancing no one is responsible for you except yourself, if you do the work, there is money, if you don’t do it, there is no money, there’s more than enough incentive. Self-discipline, self-organization, motivation, self-tuning, etc., there is you and work, no traffic jams on the way, alarm clocks blaring throughout the house at 6 am, evil bosses, but also when you urgently need to submit an order - it’s worth doing regardless of illness , fatigue, problems.

Freelancing- modern society has not yet understood its essence, people evaluate it fragmentarily, superficially, but do not catch the main thing: this is not just the sphere of work, an alternative to the office, production, this is a new breath in the lifeless rhythm of fuss that no one needs, a red flag of the young who are quietly making their own little revolution.

Leaving the office to go freelance is a common story. Freelancers have the opportunity to wake up later, travel outside of vacation time, and choose what work to do and who to collaborate with. But many people give up flexible schedules and varied projects in order to continue working in the office, which means getting up early, wasting time on the road and even complying with the dress code. Why? We asked former freelancers who now work for companies about this.

Having learned about my liberation from “office slavery”, friends called and offered to do something- business card, logo or website

Anastasia, banking specialist

Moscow

I'm from Stavropol, In my third year I started working as an assistant lawyer. I really liked my job, but after two years a stupor set in: I was not given serious work and had to be content with little, receiving pennies. At some point everything became boring. I decided to quit my job, not having any alternatives at that time.

On the Internet I saw a site about remote work, they offered to take a training course, and I decided to do it. I don’t know what exactly pushed me to take such a step, but I paid and spent a month learning how to earn money remotely. A little later, I began to take orders to write articles and papers for students. I also liked video editing and Photoshop, but I couldn’t master it professionally. Then, sitting at home, I earned 20 thousand rubles - more than I earned at offline work. But something was depressing me.

Then I decided to leave my comfort zone and moved to Moscow in September. In Moscow you can’t live on that kind of money without your own apartment, this is not a provincial town. It became clear that I needed to look for offline work. Yes, it's boring office work again. I tried to find something close to what I did as a freelancer, but after a month of searching I couldn’t find anything.

I recently got a job at a bank as a collections specialist. The salary is twice as much as freelancing. But I’m not going to give up freelancing: I hope that working in a bank is just an intermediate stage in my life. It was very difficult to adjust to the schedule from 09:00 to 21:00. I like to do what I want, when I want. And now it’s hard for me to the point of madness. I understand why people are often depressed and dissatisfied with life. People are driven into boundaries, but many cannot live like this, they simply exist.

You can earn the same amount of money remotely as you do offline. You just need experience. I see only one disadvantage in offline work. I understand that I have a stable salary and I don’t need to worry, but is it worth my freedom...

Elena, copywriter

Tula

I'm from Tula, I've lived here all my life. I started freelancing almost immediately after I got into copywriting. It turned out like this: from 09:00 to 18:00 I wrote texts in the office, and after 18:00 - at home. I began to think about going completely freelance, but I didn’t have the necessary experience and client base.

At the end of 2013, I was lucky - I was laid off. And I began to take the first serious steps together with my best friend. We sent commercial proposals to SEO studios and offered text writing services. A couple of months later we made a website for ourselves, which quickly entered the top of Yandex and Google for search queries. Orders started pouring in almost immediately.

I didn’t have any strict schedule back then. I could start work at eight in the morning, or I could start at two in the afternoon. All this lasted until 18–19 pm, but I always remained in touch at least until midnight in order to quickly respond to force majeure. There was always enough work, as well as money.

We almost immediately began to earn amounts comparable to the average salary of an office plankton in Tula. And after six months of work, the studio was already bringing in about 100 thousand in income per month. To return to the office under such conditions was, to put it mildly, unprofitable and stupid. But then the business relationship with my studio partner fizzled out, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to leave my post.

Now I'm working in the office again. I work with freelance copywriters, supervise their work, and sometimes write myself. Of course, after a free home schedule, getting used to the office again was unbearably difficult. It’s still hard for me to drag myself out of bed at six in the morning, load into the transport and bring my mortal body to work. It’s hard to get used to the notorious open space, but I have no other choice. At least for now. I haven’t worked in the profession for too long, I need to get into copywriting again, remember all the nuances. Now I can only do this in the office.

Office and freelancing have both pros and cons. Freelancing doesn't always feel like a holiday, and the office isn't just gloom and dullness. The advantages of an office are stability, a social package (at least minimal), and a strict daily routine. You don’t have to constantly think about where to look for customers, as this is a headache for the employer. You always know how much money and when you will receive in this and all subsequent months, and this is not bad. Well, plus daily communication with colleagues in the smoking room and in the dining room.

A freelancer is deprived of such benefits. He is, if not constantly, then very often in search of customers, because there is either a shortage of them, or they pay too little, but he wants more. And even when a new client is found, it is always a risk, because not everyone is ready to work on prepayment, and if a freelancer agrees to postpayment, he must understand that they can get scammed. This dilemma is solved by an agreement and work through a legal entity, but not everyone is able to create an individual entrepreneur.

But a freelancer can work in a robe and slippers, without even getting out of bed. And no one will know about it. You can turn off the computer at any time and go for a walk, for example. Or even on vacation. A freelancer is also free to choose projects and even clients. Don't like the way I write? Goodbye! Don’t feel like writing about cables or hypoallergenic prosthetics? What's the problem? We won't! But to do this, of course, you must first reach a certain level, which does not happen immediately and not for everyone. Most often, a freelancer takes on any orders, because you still want to eat every day.

So I can’t say for sure where it’s better - in the office or freelancing. Both have their pros and cons, and in order to finally choose something, you need to try both, see what comes out easier and better. I have made my choice for today, but I know for sure that when the circumstances are right, I will choose freelancing.

Office and freelancing have both pros and cons. Freelancing doesn't always feel like a holiday, and the office is not only despondency and dullness

During interviews I was often asked, why I decided to quit freelancing and work in an office again. Employers had concerns that I'm unaccustomed to office life and I won’t be able to work effectively

Alisa, logistician

Moscow

I've been working since I was about 16 years old. She started as a promoter and model at exhibitions, from the age of 18 she worked as a sales consultant in a lingerie store, when she could not combine work with study, she switched to part-time. While I was writing my diploma, I was an administrator and then a financial consultant at an English language school - I sat in my office, struggling with 1C. In fact, the conditions were quite pleasant: your own office, practically no dress code, average salary, small team, corporate advantages. Everything was fine, but the work was nervous and exhausting. At some point I got tired and disgusted, so I spat and left. I slept and rested for a couple of weeks, and then started looking for options to work from home.

For more than six months I lived on copywriting, SMM and part-time work at various exhibitions. I found orders in specialized communities on VKontakte, but I couldn’t earn enough to earn money from the office. For me, freelancing was like a break from the office environment. If there were orders, I tried to deal with them as quickly as possible in order to free myself up more free time. So I didn’t have the concept of a “working day.” It could be a working night or a working day. What I liked most was managing communities on VKontakte and Facebook. They paid little, but there was no requirement to create my own content, so that suited me.

Now I am a logistician in a gas and oil pipeline repair company. I returned to the office because I am quite lazy and lack self-discipline. Freelancing is harsh: you need to fight for orders, do everything quickly and efficiently, prove that you want and can do everything in the best possible way. Working from home has its own burdens. There is a bookcase, a bed, a refrigerator nearby, and there are so many movies and TV series on the Internet - it’s distracting. In general, I returned to the corporate environment and have been working calmly and without distractions for three years now.

The most difficult thing is to arrive at work on time. I live 20 minutes away by car, but for various reasons - from migraines to choosing clothes in the morning - I am often late. What saves me is that I am a good specialist, so apart from minor delays, there are no complaints against me.

Apart from changing the regime, almost nothing has changed, I dress in whatever I want, I work when there are orders for transportation, I have time to do my business. Now in the office I earn three times more than I did in freelancing then.

I don’t regret returning to the office, given all my problems with discipline, it’s still easier for me to drag myself to my workplace on time than to force myself to work from home. And, of course, pleasant corporate bonuses in the form of insurance, holidays and even coffee are captivating.

Greetings, beginning freelancers!) Today in this article I will share my experience in freelancing - the best, fastest and most correct way to start making money on the Internet.

Why can I advise you something?
I am a freelancer with 2 years of experience, here is my account from the Work-zilla exchange.


I have been registered on it since May 2014, that is, 1.5 years. With more than 10,000 freelancers, I am now in 192nd place and have already completed more than 100 projects. This exchange is just one of the sources where I enter into transactions with clients for my services - I create Landing pages and make websites and online stores on WordPress.

And I started from complete scratch. I didn’t know how to do anything and didn’t know how to communicate with customers at all and how to get them to pay me money!)

In this article I will tell you what steps I would take if I were now a newbie and starting my freelancing career from scratch. Let's get started!

Beginning freelancer. Where to start?

1. Choosing a profession - Try everything first, it’s easier to decide what you like and like best, in which direction you want to develop.

If you have already decided what you will do as a freelancer, then great. If not, then decide :-) As brilliantly said)) But it’s true, without this step you will not move forward.

How to quickly decide on a freelancing profession?
Try everything that interests you at least a little. Before I started doing web design, I studied creating websites using the WordPress, Joomla engines, studied SEO, Infobusiness, MLM, Programming languages ​​and only then web design and landing pages. And I don’t regret anything; the skills I acquired in all areas still help me to this day.
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Don't be afraid to put in the time, even if it ends up not being what you want to do. All the time is spent thinking about whether it’s mine or not. You probably won't know until you try.

Choose a niche you like, you must like it, in order to achieve good results in any niche you will need to develop, it must be interesting to learn new material.

There is a course by my colleague Vasily Blinov and Svetlana Kirilyuk “Start in freelancing”, after completing which you will master the secrets of freelancing, you will understand the algorithm for making money on the Internet - link to course

When you decide, I advise you to engage in only one business, one profession, perhaps even parallel related topics, but nothing more.

If you are doing only one thing, for example: Creating Landing pages, then you will develop as much as possible in this vector and as a result:

• the work performed will be more and more professional each time
• you will understand your customers better
• your work will cost more
• you will be happier seeing your progress.

You need to respond to projects on freelance exchanges, such as work-zilla, as much as possible, offer your services to more people, appear on message boards, etc.

Develop the habit of being polite with your clients, the exception may be people who consider freelancers to be idiots :-(, but that’s a separate conversation. Being polite with people is, in principle, normal :-), but in freelancing it plays a very important role. Customers really love adequate and polite freelancers, because it saves them time and nerves.

And here another important thing comes into play - word of mouth. If you do all of the above correctly, then you are guaranteed a sundress. If you are recommended to their friends, then this is a big plus for you, it means that clients are satisfied with the way you do your work.

Take reviews. The best option is a video review, but if they don’t want to film, let them at least write in the text and give a photo. You can post reviews on your website or in the same Google Docs document.

At this stage: We declare ourselves and our service as confidently as possible, we stop being afraid of customers, we communicate with them more, we improve our communication skills, we identify customer needs.

6. Repeat all this in a circle

— We develop in the chosen niche — we look for orders — we do the work — new project in the portfolio - the client is satisfied - we take feedback - we are recommended to other people - we are building a base of regular customers - we communicate better and more confidently with customers -

Parting words

This is the path I would take if I were a beginner freelancer.

How long would it take? I don't know, and that's not the most important thing. The main thing is to see your progress, never stop developing in your profession, in communicating with clients and in the ability to sell your services at a higher price.

If suddenly this path seems difficult to you, then just remember why you decided to do freelancing in the first place?

I see obvious reasons to work on the Internet:

• Compared to hired work, I earn more than I could earn working for my uncle
• I can work from anywhere in the world where there is Internet
• I am growing personally, developing as a professional in my niche
• There is no fixed salary, but there is also no ceiling, all my earnings depend only on me. I control my life, not someone else, and that’s cool!)

That's all. I hope I answered the question - How to become a freelancer from scratch? I wish you success on your freelancing journey! :-)

Which is better: freelancing or working in an office?

The answer is not simple. Each activity has its pros and cons, and which one is right for you depends entirely on your personality and how you want to work.

So, to help you make the right decision, we decided to compare freelancing to office work on several parameters such as flexibility, control over work, security and much more.

Whether you are sitting in an office and dreaming of freedom, or tired of freelancing and striving for full-time employment, this article will help you make a decision. It will also be useful if you are just starting out in your career and want to know which path to take.

The concepts of freelancers and employees are a bit blurry these days, so for this article, employees mean people who work full-time under a contract for a specific company with a regular salary. And freelancers are “free artists” who work for themselves and collaborate with many clients.

FLEXIBILITY

Many employees work many more hours than the 9 to 5 standard, and even outside of working hours they are expected to be available by phone or email. And while there is part-time work, reduced hours and job-sharing, most forms of employment adhere to inflexible and fixed working hours, with only a few weeks of vacation per year.

Although employers often give their employees the opportunity to take time off for important family and other personal events, research has shown that people who spend more time with their families often do not fare as well in their careers—particularly women who have children.

As a freelancer, you generally have much more flexibility in your work. You can set your own work schedule, choose your own assignments, increase or decrease your work hours, without compromising your family life and social obligations. If you manage to complete the order within the agreed time frame, then you can easily take a whole day off, or even two.

Don't get carried away and think that you will spend all your time playing with your children or spending time with your significant other. Work can pile up, and when deadlines loom, you may have to cancel your plans and work through the night to get the job done.

Without a clear work schedule, colleagues to cover, and a guaranteed paycheck at the end of the month, it can be easy to take on too much. When the question is posed this way, you begin to doubt the flexibility of freelancing.

What does this mean to you?

If you like consistency and feel good about being tied to a daily schedule, then a full-time paid job is probably the way to go. good choice. If you want to manage your own schedule or you have many obligations outside of work that require your time, then freelancing is a great option.

ADVANTAGES

How does this work for office workers?

One of the big benefits of an office job is access to several benefits, such as health insurance, paid vacation, maternity leave, pension or other benefit payments. These things can make a huge difference to your financial well-being and health, and to your family as well.

And in addition to the main benefits, companies often organize various events for employees and provide some benefits. For example, like a free gym membership, meals in the cafeteria, access to a range of discounts. Plus, large firms often provide training budgets so you can develop your skills at the company's expense.

How does this work for freelancers?

In general, as a freelancer, you are on your own. You have to manage your own health insurance, you don't get paid vacation pay, and you have to take care of and plan for your own retirement. When it comes to learning, it is also your responsibility.

What does this mean to you?

This is one of the few options where there is no clear winner. The fringe benefits provided by a good employer are very valuable, but the main disadvantage of freelancing is the need to arrange insurance and retirement accounts yourself. However, there are many opportunities to invest money, providing yourself with everything you need.

CONTROL OVER WORK

How does this work for office workers?

In a company, you have a boss, and this person tells you what to do. You also have to work within the rules of the organization (both written and unwritten), which can be quite extensive. The reality is that you have less control over your work than you would as a freelancer.

If you have a good boss, he or she will probably give you some autonomy, and as you rise in rank, control over your work should increase. However, you will still be dependent on others to achieve your goal, but you can still carve out some independence for yourself.

How does this work for freelancers?

On the surface, you have complete control as a freelancer. You choose what to work on and what not to work on. If a project doesn't interest you, you can simply abandon it.

The trouble is, you have to pay bills at the end of the month. And unless you're in a very good position, you'll probably have to take on some job orders that you won't be as excited about.

And although you may think differently, you also have a “boss” for every task: your client gives you instructions and expects a certain level of work from you. You may gain independence and control over how to do the work, but if you stray too far from the client's requirements, you may run into problems.

What does this mean to you?

It's a myth that remote work gives you more control than working for a company. But, if you notice, there are some mitigating factors.

SECURITY AND STABILITY

How does this work for office workers?

What’s hard to argue with is that working in an office is safer than freelancing. You receive a regular salary, and as long as you do your job well, you can expect to be paid for your work at the end of each month. Even if you are fired, the employer will usually notify you of this and provide some compensation.

How does this work for freelancers?

Freelancing can be very unstable. You can get caught in a feast or famine cycle where one month you're swamped with work and the next you can't find any work to do. This makes planning and managing finances difficult. And even if you have regular customers, you can lose them at any time.

But it's not all bad news for freelancers. Poor office workers have everything in one place, so for them losing their job is a disaster. A freelancer, on the other hand, has multiple clients, so if you lose one, you can simply rely on income from other clients until you find a replacement. It is unlikely that you will lose all your customers at once, unless there is a huge economic downturn and upheaval in your industry. By the way, this also affects office workers.

What does this mean to you?

Are office jobs generally more stable, offering predictable income from month to month? So this is a good option if you don't like the idea of ​​constantly worrying about when your utility bills come due. Freelance work, on the other hand, can go up and down, so you'll need a lot of patience with uncertainty, especially in the beginning. However, keep in mind that having multiple sources of income gives you additional security.

LET'S SUM UP

In conclusion, I would like to summarize and highlight some of the pros and cons of both types of activities.

Benefits of working as a freelancer:

• Greater flexibility and ability to choose your working hours.
• The ability to choose a job at your own discretion.
• Multiple sources of income

Disadvantages of freelancing:

• No benefits.
• Lack of communication.
• Unpredictable income.

Advantages of office work:

• Providing benefits, health insurance, paid leave and pension contributions.
• Stability and predictability.

Disadvantages of office work:

• Fixed working hours and lack of flexibility.
• Limitation of independence.
• Complete loss of income in case of dismissal.

As you can see, there are good and bad points in both ways of working, so it is impossible to say that one is better than the other. It entirely depends on your personality and what you want to get out of your career. The next step is to decide which path is right for you.