The popular image of freelancing jobs is that they revolve around admin, sales, writing, and the related types of roles that can be performed sitting at a laptop in your front room. It might be true that the majority of freelancing jobs are of this type, but there are also many other roles that can be taken on working for yourself from home. If you’re considering the advantages of working from home, but it’s not clear how you could use your skills in that environment, then it’s time to shake off your preconceptions and start carrying out some research.
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Making freelancing work for you
If you want to work from home, then you could look at telecommuting roles rather than going into self-employment. That will give you the security and structure of employment, but still, allow you to enjoy the benefits of working from home. For many people, a significant part of the appeal of freelancing is the autonomy, so self-employment suits them better. You need to decide which is right for you, weighing up the pros and cons of each in your particular situation. If you’re not sure, you can try telecommuting to start with and see how you manage before making the switch to freelancing; or set up a freelancing side business that you run in addition to your day job. That way you can hedge your bets and make sure your decision is the best one for you.
Using your specialist skills
Finding ways to use your expert knowledge in a home-working setting is becoming easier by the day, with technology opening up new opportunities for specialized work. For instance, if you work in healthcare, you might not see how such a hands-on role could tally with being at home. However, there are growing numbers of websites and apps that use medical professionals to provide specialist healthcare advice and support online or over the phone. These roles can be easily carried out from home, as can contributing to niche websites and other examples of using specialist medical knowledge. As a completely different example, say you are an electronics engineer specializing in PCB design. You could operate a niche consultancy business from home, or use specialist Altium software to enable you to design your circuits professionally as a freelancer.
Making your own opportunities
Just because a role doesn’t exist in your area of expertise right now, doesn’t mean that you can’t carve out your own niche. As long as you can find the means to operate your business effectively from home, there aren’t any limits to how you utilize your knowledge. If you can’t find any examples of established home-working avenues in your field, try getting creative and working out how you could fill a gap in the market. There aren’t many specialties that can’t have some form of online application, so it’s well worth figuring out how you could adapt what you know to provide a new and valuable service.
Freelancing isn’t for everyone, but if you have the determination and skills to offer a high-quality service, you could find your own place and make a great success of your venture.
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