61–70 of 171 posts
I send a LinkedIn message to some of my contacts I'd like to work with, telling them it's been a while and that I'd like to get in touch, and offer them to take a cup of coffee with them this week.
During the meeting, tell them about your freelance status and that you're looking for work.
Good luck!
For those who do contract work, what is your policy on code-reuse between clients?
I've never used a website. Reach out to everyone you know. Buy them a coffee, mention you are getting into contracting, ask who else you should talk to, thank them, repeat.
I get my clients primarily through gigster ( http://www.gigster.com ), referrals, and my website.
I'm having issues with Gigster. I did the first interview and passed. The subsequent follow ups (4 already!) have all been either postponed, interviewer no shows (yes really), or setup with the wrong interviewer. I understand there are growing pains, but not one of my emails have been responded to regarding this issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's been over 10 years since I had my own business, but when I did, I tried to use "we" instead of "I" and paint the business as a business offering services rather than one person trying to get work. It became very frustrating dealing with recruiters (the people who typically contact you for work). A typical conversation would go something like this: Me: I see you're looking to fill a position involving a lot of gr…
Recruiters recruit people, so of course they want a resume. If you aren't a person a person that wants to be recruited or wants to recruit someone, a recruiter is the wrong person to talk to.
I've never used a website. Reach out to everyone you know. Buy them a coffee, mention you are getting into contracting, ask who else you should talk to, thank them, repeat.
Have you ever just reached out to someone you don't know this way and had success? Cold calling or knocking on doors? I haven't been in a position to have this need but this whole comment thread made me think about doing it the "old-fashioned" way, rather than browsing the web meat/meet markets.
I found that it wasn't the first degree connections that led to work but the second degree connections. Get your immediate network to introduce you to others and drum up work from them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Avoid marketplaces - it's very hard to compete on quality here. Have an upvote. I don't work in software, but I am a grant writing consultant, and I've never met a successful consultant of any kind who relied on or even used marketplaces. A huge part of many consultants's lives consists of marketing and pitching. I know that we've found email marketing to be our biggest strength in this regard. Consultants who can't…
> I've never met a successful consultant of any kind who relied on or even used marketplaces You have now. I started on PeoplePerHour. Once I had a few good reviews on my profile, I could get jobs more easily; eventually got some big clients off them, which pushed me to PPH's top 5 and I was able to get whichever job I would bid on from then on; I'd always seek the large ones that would last a few months. At the time…
These things are easier said than done. Could you share a bit about what you've learned in the way of avoiding bad clients and estimating your work?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to add a bit to your comment - it's important to try and identify the kind of meetups you'd like to attend that will help you meet your desired customer base, and the kinds that will help you get known in your local community (ie: meetups for web devs to connect). I find that meetups can sometimes become circle-jerks for people in a similar field to just get together and talk/humblebrag. Which is fine, but if…
Good point. Some meetups I went to were the exact circle-jerk/humblebragfests you're talking about. The one I consistently go to (shameless plug [OpenHack Syracuse]( http://www.openhacksyr.com ) is a monthly meetup for developers to talk about what projects they're working on and to spend time together working on projects, ideas, and sharing info. It's really just an organized hangout/hack session. And it's these typ…
What's the context? Which country are you in? What are your skills? If you're in the UK... I've been contracting about 3 years now and started it the simple (and probably dumb) way - stick a resume up on jobsite.co.uk, wait for agents to call. Lots will. Be nice to them on the phone but be firm about what rates and locations you're willing to work. You'll get lots of useless ones who haven't even bothered to read it,…
For those who do contract work, what is your policy on code-reuse between clients?
It depends on my arrangement with a client. Work-for-hire contracts make reuse impossible, and so I tend to price higher, whereas a perpetual, transferable, etc. license to the code I work on has a better chance of being useful down the line and so I may knock a couple bucks off.