By Rhonda Campbell
Australian actress, Miranda Otto, is quoted as saying, “Acting is a freelance career… you never stop having to prove yourself and fight for work.” Little may be more accurate when it comes to freelancing. The ups — you can set your own work schedule, wear what you want while you work, run day errands, work for a bounty of clients and negotiate different pay rates.
Resources freelancers frequently turn to
The downs — you may not always get paid for work you do, checks don’t always show up in the mail on time, as quickly as you were hired, you can be released, a freelancer doesn’t get unemployment benefits and you have to look after your own retirement investments and health insurance.
To reduce the stress of the downs and get more ups, freelancers network smartly. They know where to go online and offline to connect with other freelancers to learn about new gigs, stay encouraged and aware of competitive pay rates.
Great resources for a freelancer who’s looking for paying gigs include:
- Media Bistro (Top firms post paying gigs here.) – mediabistro.com
- Morning Coffee (Lately, they haven’t been posting as quality jobs as they once did, but they’re still worth checking out.) – freelancewriting.com
- Stage 32 (Great resource for a freelancer who’s interested in working in live theater and motion pictures. They have more than 150,000 members now. The site’s co-founder, Richard Botto, is a champion! – stage32.com
- Indeed and Monster (Set up job alerts to arrive at your in-box the first time you visit, so you don’t have to spend hours surfing through thousands of job ads every day.)
- Twitter (Firms post gigs at Twitter. It’s worth giving a try.)
- LinkedIn (This is another resource where a freelancer can find jobs that pay competitively.)
- Elance (Be prepared to spend a good bit of time searching through jobs listed at this resource to find quality paying gigs.) – elance.com
- oDesk (Like Elance, there are many low paying jobs here. Be prepared to spend time searching for higher paying gigs at oDesk. They’re here, just take some time to find.) – odesk.com
- Google+ (Employers also post jobs for freelancers at this social media site.)
- Craigslist (Yes, Craigslist! You might be surprised at how many quality gigs you come across here.)
- Journalism jobs (SEO, reporter and journalist types of gigs are here.) – journalismjobs.com
- Sologig (Post IT and engineering freelance jobs.) – sologig.com
- Gorkana Group (Focuses on PR, marketing and journalism.) – gorkana.com
- Talent Zoo (Posts advertising, design, marketing and other creative gigs.) – talentzoo.com
- Freelancers Net (Focuses on jobs for freelancers located in the UK.) – freelancers.net
Several of the above freelancer resources, places like Google+, LinkedIn and Stage 32 are also great networking resources. Creative Circle, Vitamin Talent, Onyx Woman Network and freelance meet ups are other networking resources worth checking out. Work to develop relationships at these sites. You never know who the people you meet know.
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