Source
r/personalfinance•
TheMetaLink

Has freelance work helped springboard your career?

Employment

I'm looking to try freelancing to bolster my resume and wanted to get some pointers from the pf community.

Questions

  • Have you used any freelance sites?
  • How was your experience? / Would you recommend it?
  • Did it help you land your next full-time job?

Personal Background

Right now I am studying electrical engineering, but have a small amount of programming experience, java and c++. Most weeks at work I get pulled aside to design excel macros that often involve pulling two or more data sets and comparing them, cross-training lists or sanitizing databases. This was great at first but has been waining recently.

Posted Feb 11, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

33
candleruse•

Can't speak to your particular field, but I make excellent money on the side as a writer and got a great day job two years ago because I started writing for free (or almost free) a few years back as a hobby. I didn't use any of the popular freelance sites, just offered my services to a couple young sites looking for content writers.

I highly recommend freelancing. Even if it doesn't pay much while you learn the ropes, you learn how the business works and add skills to your resume outside your education and previous employers.

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1
tm312•

I have had a great deal of success using freelancing sites to supplement my income. I have found that it is extremely important to have a complete profile with examples of your work (a portfolio). You may need to set a lower hourly rate or fixed fee to begin with as you build your profile.

Don't underestimate Excel macros and VBA programming in general. There is great demand for those skills all around today. Try varying your search terms when searching for these jobs: "Excel Programming," "Excel Automation," "Excel Macro," "Excel VBA" etc. are all good ways to search for the same type of project.

Remember that there are important tax considerations for self-employment income!

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