Jen Stevens looks at the rise in female freelancers and what we need to do to make it a success.

The last number of years have seen a boom in the freelancer economy. More people than ever are turning away from full-time roles in preference of multiple clients and business hours that suit them. Being freelance is now seen as a viable career option and not just a steppingstone to the job you actually want. It has worked particularly well over the last two years as people worked from home and realised all the benefits that come with that.  

But deciding to ditch the traditional employment route and work for yourself comes with many extras that lots of people don’t necessarily consider. You suddenly need to be an accountant, a PA, an account manager and CEO alongside your actual job.  

Úna Herlihy is co-founder and curator of The Indie List, an online talent-management company representing the best freelance experts in the marketing communications and e-commerce sectors. Only 20 months old,The Indie List already has over 900 freelancers signed up and has matched talent with companies like KBC, Javelin, core and the National Lottery.  

Úna says that you need a particular mind frame to adapt to freelance life: “I think you have to be wired in a certain way to stick with it. Freelancing is great in that it gives great freedom and flexibility, but it's not without its challenges. Some aspects of it can be difficult for people like having to be a master of all trades, managing the finances, pricing yourself, how to make sure you’re okay with being okay with not having a pipeline and not having that full-time job security. Some people are not wired that way and I can totally understand that.”

There are different types of freelancers too. Some are doing it because it’s the perfect way to work for them while others dip in and out as their circumstances require. Úna says that a lot of people are interested in returning to full time roles but only in positions that suit their requirements which now might include being fully remote. 

“Probably about 80% of our membership, are interested in a full-time job. They're freelancing at the moment because it suits them and there's freedom of choice. There are a group of freelancers who are freelance by circumstance and those circumstances might be: I want to take a bit of a break, I've been made redundant, or I want to spend more time with my kids. When we onboard new members we ask a question about their interest in a full-time role but we recently changed how we structured and we introduced a third option which was ‘open to the right offer’ which absolutely increased the amount of people who said yes.” 

Freelance life can be particularly good for those in a creative industry but while the work may be flooding in, creatives are notoriously bad at the business side of things, something Úna has seen first-hand.  

“Creatives don't actually see themselves as being entrepreneurial, or they don't consider themselves as solopreneurs or they haven't set up as a limited company, which of course they should do from a tax point of view. They're operating as sole traders and when we ask them about rates, they’ll charge X because that’s what their colleague charges or Y because that’s what they got for the last job. Instead, they should be looking at the cost of running themselves as a business, seeing what that is and deciding then what their price out is going to be. I think if you are in a creative industry and particularly if you’ve come from working in an agency, you’re never trained how to put a value on the service that you deliver.We're really trying to encourage them to professionalise themselves, to look at themselves as running a business rather than just being gun for hire. Because we believe that freelancing is here to stay and for people to stay at it needs to be a much more sustainable a choice for them.” 

It is a good time to be freelance or a contractor. IrishJobs.ie calls this year “The War on Talent” and in a recent statement said that “Employers are preparing to battle for talent in 2022 with the latest IrishJobs Jobs Index revealing a 420% jump in jobs in HR and Talent Acquisition in the last three months of 2021.It is perhaps telling that some of the most pronounced growth is in the recruitment, retention, and HR space. This suggests that employers are acutely aware of how competitive the talent market is and are moving quickly to put the necessary internal resources in place to support and advance their recruitment and retention ambitions in 2022.” 

Úna describes the current situation as a “sellers’ market” and says that some recruiters are now just asking what people want in order to secure them.  

Lorna Conn, CEO of recruiters Cpl, said that as companies have emerged from the pandemic “we can see there’s a shortage of skills in Ireland across every sector — and this skills shortage on the island of Ireland is contributing to wage inflation across the board".  

In the US, the Freelancer Income Report showed that though there was near parity in the numbers of men and women operating in the freelance market, the wage gap was still very much there. It found that “While there has been an increased number of women entering the world of freelancing, women freelancers’ pay remains behind their male counterparts, with that gap growing over the last two years. The gender pay gap amongst survey respondents is most pronounced in North America, with women reporting earnings of $37 per hour on average, compared to men who reported an average of $52 an hour.” 

In order to prepare freelancers for this new market place The Indie List has been providing training courses to members on things like taxation and pricing, something Irish women are particularly bad at. Úna has lots of examples of this but remembers one woman in particular: “I had a really funny conversation with a woman about a role recently. Her CV was off the charts and when I was going through the list of requirements for this job, which quite frankly, was probably lower grade than her experience, she was hesitant about some of them. I could see a pattern forming and we concluded that the fact that she was Irish, a woman and went to a Catholic school meant that she has the holy trinity of imposter syndrome going on!” 

If you enjoyed this read, you'll love this event: How to Identify And Define Your Core Brand Values. If you're an AllBright Plus member, you can watch it back on demand again and again!