One great way to get your career going while you are a student is to explore the opportunities for freelance work. Freelancing while in college has two unique advantages over looking for regular jobs.

One, freelancing is more flexible and so suits a student’s schedule better than a traditional “role-based” job does.

Two, along with actual experience, freelancing results in actual work product that you can point to and say, “I did that.” Because freelancing is usually project-based, it is a clearer demonstration of skills than “seat time” in a role is. Freelance gigs put project-based learning into action.

Naturally, like part-time jobs and internships, freelancing while in college also introduces you to professionals in your field who might be valuable contacts later.

Another advantage to freelancing while in college is that it is a hack to the perennial experience problem: How do you get a job requiring experience if you don’t have the experience to get a job? Freelancing gets the ball rolling so you can tell employers in the future that you do have experience.

Freelancing as a career choice is becoming increasingly popular. Consider these statistics about the freelance workforce:

More than 11 percent of the U.S. workforce is full-time freelance. That means about 1 in 9 of the alums of your school are probably making their living this way.
Another 25 percent of the workforce is freelancing on the side while in traditional jobs. They are often doing that to build skills and gain experience that will let them change jobs, get promoted or go solo. This is an approach that experienced professionals use but that students don’t have to wait to try.
If you have specific skills in technology, software development, writing, marketing, project management, market research or accounting, then you might be ready to take on small freelance projects and begin building your portfolio and your resume.

Many of these can be done and paid for by the end of this weekend. You don’t need to wait until the summer or for some other big block of time the way you would for a job.

A great way to get started is to peruse the large number of freelance job sites and to find one that is in your career niche.

Posted by Robert McGuire | Mar 7, 2018 | Freelance Advice

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