THE FUTURE IS FREELANCE

In 2020 I started a recruiting firm. In 2021 I published my instructional manual for freelancers.

Back then I didn’t see how closely intertwined these two things were. I just cared about building teams and advancing careers.

I held a vague prediction that freelance was the future of work, and that our clients would start asking us for freelancers more and more, but I wasn’t sure how long that would take to play out.

Well, it’s playing out. On both sides of the table.

On the hiring side:

A job is a bundle of tasks sold at a premium. But organizations don’t always need the entire bundle, especially when a mandatory part of that bundle is meetings, admin and corporate politics.

Lean businesses want the potency of a high caliber candidate, focused on the highest-value wins, without all the calories that come with putting that person on a W-2.

On the candidate side:

Don’t take this as an insult to full timers, but if I look at my rolodex of Creative Directors, for example, and then single out the top 5% — virtually all of them are exclusively open to consulting / contract work. The best of the best are graduating from full time.

Often, one of our clients will fall in love with a candidate and attempt to hire them full time, only to have the candidate (respectfully) decline. Want to know the #1 reason this happens? The candidate is too happy, too free, and too well compensated as a freelancer.

The factors:

AI, automation, offshoring. Small businesses growing, bloated businesses downsizing. Clock-punchers and task-doers are still valued, but less and less so. Generalists and facilitators who produce results are becoming more and more sought after.

What this means:

Many accomplished full-time creatives are averse to freelancing, because freelancing means selling. They can sell themselves hard every 2-3 years for a new full time role, but they don’t love the idea of selling themselves every day to new clients.

This is understandable. It’s hard. But there’s an instruction manual. And a big reward for following it.

Success as a freelancer means something. It means the ability to organize, balance priorities, manage time and resources, and influence others (selling your work to a client takes the same shape as selling your ideas within an organization.)

It also means more opportunity. A candidate in a full time role has one vehicle for upward mobility. A freelancer has 5 or 10. (Every client is a new connection to a potential future client or employer.)

And lastly, it means no resume gaps. Successful freelancers are never “unemployed.”

What it does not mean:

This is not me imploring anyone to leave W-2 life. Intro Limited places freelance-savvy creative bosses in W-2 roles all day long, because guess what: “Entrepreneurial spirit” is the #1 attribute that employers look for in their best full-time employees.

Being great at freelancing makes you even better at full time internal leadership.

‍Takeaways:

The future is freelance. Not entirely, and not overnight, but the lines are blurring.

If you’re a high performer, the correct answer to “freelance or full time?” is “both.”

If you’re a high caliber organization looking for the best talent, think of it this way:

An elite candidate is a service provider. Their skills are services, which can be broken down into units. And they are increasingly willing to sell them as such.

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If your organization needs elite freelance talent, you can reach us here.

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