

Are you hiring a freelancer or an unemployed designer? - alexu
http://auadesign.com/work/hiring-professional-freelancer-or-an-unemployed-graphic-designer.html

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teaspoon
These "freelancer" heuristics are dubious. Despite that fact that 100% of my
income last year is printed on one 1099 or another, I satisfy less than half
of them. A year ago, I satisfied zero of them.

I use an @gmail.com address because I don't want to worry about getting spam-
foldered when I email a new client. I don't have a business license because
sole proprietorships don't need them in CA or anywhere else I've worked. I've
never furnished my own consulting agreement because every company I work with
already has one they're comfortable with. I only gathered the other
paraphernalia of freelancerhood after a long period of being too busy with
freelance work to do so.

Notwithstanding false negatives like myself, these heuristics might help you
identify who among your consultants cannot be persuaded to become an employee.
But they're a poor proxy for judging diligence, reliability, or any of the
other qualities you should be measuring by portfolio work and references.

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sidmitra
You're not an out-lier actually. I think you're among the hundreds of
freelancers who're just quietly doing their jobs. Some good, some not so good.
Their rates tend to separate the chaff from the wheat pretty quickly, even if
they're from a third world country(like myself).

This article is mainly to satisfy the authors whim, that what he's doing is
what everyone else is doing, based on reading so many freelance/productivity
blogs.

All that matter is how communicative he is, in clarifying things and what he
delivers with each iteration. Even good freelancers, won't satisfy you
sometimes, depending on how their workload is.

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simonsarris
Just fyi, your agreement says 2011 in the url but 2010 in the document itself.

I feel like you're edging a bit into not-true-scotsman territory. A hotmail
address does not make a freelancer suddenly unprofessional, and completion of
the 5 items certainly doesn't necessarily make one a professional.

 _And what's wrong with hiring an unemployed designer, anyway?_ I don't see
why it would be a minus and you don't really give any reasons not to. You even
mention one reason why we should consider unemployed designers a plus: If we
like their work, we can offer them a full-time job!

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mgkimsal
I've got 'real' email addresses, but still use my gmail address with some
clients, partially because it's one of the few things that I can be guaranteed
to use at a client's office - I'm often blocked from anything except port 80
when I'm onsite. Yes yes, I can set up my own webmail, but I don't. And I'm
not comfortable using google domains stuff, so I split. Probably 50% of my
mail with some clients is over gmail, but I have multiple real domains, and
much correspondance happens from there as well. I find some clients bounce
around - they've got their 'work' email, but they exchange emails from 'home'
accounts sometimes too. I don't consider them 'unprofessional' for doing so.

As someone else mentioned too, the 'have your own agreement' thing - well,
I've got one, but have only used it a handful of times. More than half my
projects have been with mid to larger orgs that already have their standard
procedures in place. To use my own contracts either means I don't get the gig,
or things will take a few extra weeks while "their people" review things, and
they'll inevitably find something to complain about. They are _not_ going to
agree to resolve legal issues in my state if they're out of state, so, do I
bend, or hold firm? There's no right or wrong answer - each person has
different tolerance for this, and it'll probably change over time.

I understand the frustration with people just using the term 'freelancer'
without really being a fulltimer - I started indieconf.com last year to
address some of these issues that we all deal with, and avoided the term
'freelance' because I think it has a bad connotation. It conjures up images of
the unemployed designer between fulltime jobs. Undeservedly so, perhaps, but
that's what I was finding. "Independent web professional" is a bit of a
mouthful, but conveys a stronger image (and encompasses more than just
designers or developers).

The big danger anyone faces in hiring a 'freelancer' is that they won't
necessarily stick around for the whole project, or may not be available later
to provide followup support. Yes, you face the same with employees, but it's
somewhat less of a threat in most cases. That was something I was surprised
that the blog post didn't address (or did I miss it?).

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jeffreymcmanus
The notion that the domain name of your email is somehow indicative of your
value as a professional is pretty dumb. It's mindless tribalism at best.

Having your own consulting agreement is a good idea (it enables you to take on
clients who don't have their own agreements and can give you a head start in
contract negotiations), and being incorporated can be very useful for
liability purposes. But those things certainly aren't required.

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karolisd
This is the wrong question.

Ask "Are you hiring a good designer?"

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xyzzyb
Neither: we bought themes off themeforest.

