Industry focus: Pros and Cons of Self-Employment
For a designer or any creatives, financial rewards aren't always the primary motivation. However, profiting from it IS the ultimate goal. During my final year of university, I started getting freelance work and to be honest. It can be highly motivating when you start seeing a financial profit.
For this post, I looked at the pros and cons to help me understand the world of self-employment.
The Pros and the Cons
1.) Setting your own hours -Doing this gives you a lot of flexibility, and with that, you can organise your life on your own terms. (Pro)
Organising your life on your own terms can be more challenging than it sounds. Your business is your baby, after all, and you might have to work more than you expected. (Con)
2.) You make your own rules - This is something that a small business has a massive advantage on. You can create campaigns, do a rebrand whenever you want, and you won't need to wait on approval from someone in a higher position. You can pretty much make decisions as you go along. (Pro)
However, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Being self-employed, there are a lot of risks that you would need to consider yourself when making those decisions. (Con)
3.) You are more than just a designer - Self-employment means you get to wear many hats. One key role is being your own accountant. Managing your own financial aspect of your business is a mandatory dimension of your practice. The other key roles are marketing, public relations, business management- these can be really good as you are learning so much along the way.(Pro)
Sometimes you just want to wear your favourite hat, you won't always want to do two things simultaneously. (Con)
4.) Building personal relationships - This can only be a good thing. It is something that a small business has a massive advantage on. I've learned the past year that it is essential for a small business creative to engage with other creatives/ small business owners. Social media is a powerful tool, especially when meeting clients. As I mentioned before, I've done a little bit of freelancing myself, and I mostly got these clients through Instagram. I've created a bond with my clients, and I made sure that they can easily approach me even after my work with them is done. (Pro)
5.) You determine what your skills are worth - For a self-employed designer, there really is no set salary. You charge your own prices; when people ask you for a commission, they want you and only you. So this is the part where you decide how much your worth is- the sky is your limit.(Pro)
While I was writing this, the impostor syndrome comes to mind—every creative's arch-nemesis. It happens to the best of us! When your self-employed, you might not charge people what you deserve and only ask for the bare minimum.(Con)
More experienced designers I've spoken to strongly advise me to go out and get more experience before working for myself. And I don't entirely disagree, I do want to learn, and there is only so much I can teach myself. But, on the other hand, I've recently spoken to some newer designers who graduated just a few years ago. They said that a lot of agencies hire freelancers now. So, because of this, I haven't entirely crossed-out self-employment on my bucket list.
