Freelancing: The New Career Aspiration Of College Grads

Under30Careers | November 28, 2012 | 2 Comments

In the past, college students primarily looked forward to locking their careers in with top corporations. Suddenly, our internet exploded into some self-purported permission slip to work at home after departing college with degree in hand. What’s even more exciting for these sub-30 year old’s is how well they’re jumping into solid blogging careers, contingency-based programmers and even editors from afar, all while avoiding the cataclysmic career fields which have even longer unemployment lines than ten years ago. Why, then, is freelancing the new aspiring career selection after Bachelor’s degrees are obtained?

New Found Security

Recent announcements have decorated how important companies offering top spots to freelancers has become to saving money for businesses wanting to extend their bottom lines slightly further. What makes the college grad take the contingency route, however, is the freedom that is offered within the realm of their basements, living rooms, or kitchen tables. Being liberated from cubicle duty allows for newfound job security, even if the company simply asks the newly hired professional to work sans commute.

Job Hunting Can Be Intimidating

Regardless of how prestigious your shiny degree emanates from your bedroom wall, the workforce is an unkind, scary, and perhaps slightly more selective beast than days of old. Whereas many of our current Baby Boomers walked out of high school into Delco, Ford or GM, today’s job world offers much more excruciating interviews, tests, and possibly even several rejection letters. The mighty world of freelance, however, makes perfect sense for many young professionals since there are countless platforms, millions of job postings, and only phone, Skype, or webinar interviews. This makes the entire process much simpler than putting on Armani suits or expensive skirts and beating the streets ten or more hours a day.

Too Many Perks Of Freelancing

Simply put, there are too many great benefits of writing, programming, selling, designing, or editing from your home, where you don’t have to worry about what you wear each day. The client interactions remain the same, yet the joys of freelancing are too immeasurable not to consider. While many people still prefer their paychecks, tax deductions itemized, and beating their mailroom clerk to the water cooler, many people are flocking towards home based full-time employment as opposed to wasting gas on a commute to physical locations where, seemingly, they cannot seem to fit in or advance.

There Are Pitfalls, However

As with any potentially lucrative contingency work, there are pitfalls which many ignore simply to have the luxury of working at home.

For starters, you’ll make few friends (aside from your cat) working from your dining room table. Since many people still use social media for daily catching up, however, this shouldn’t be too menacing or depressing. Also, there are issues with receiving health care benefits, most often offered at physical job locations for far less than freelancing pros get on their own accord. Finally, once you decide to freelance, expect the hours to increase without much increase in pay, initially, until you’ve obtained enough work experience to merit increases.

Choose Wisely

Sure, our downtrodden economy merits getting work any way possible and for whatever non-slanderous pay we could accept while still having the means to pay bills. When you choose between commuting to work or simply drifting towards your laptop, keep in mind all of the variables which make both positive routes to take. While nobody is simply suggesting you’d be better off freelancing instead of getting off your duff and finding that paystub-based, minimize-my-eHarmony-chat-while-doing-P&E-reports-based egregious cubicle position, you will find solace when hiding at home yet making potential $50k-yearly salaries. Put that in your Dropbox and Mash It.

Dave, the walking freelance writing zombie floating cyberspace in hopes of making valuable connections, thrives off living each day in hopes of bettering someone else’s life through his writings. Devout Cubs fan, pasta aficionado, and freelancing junkie are some commonly held titles he releases in small doses.

Image credit:Shutterstock.com

Tags: Bachelor's degree, college graduate, Dropbox, Freelancing, job search