Freelance recruiters vs go it alone
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- ********
Ive been wondering, do most freelancers get their work through direct contact with the client/design agency or do you often rely on a recruitment agent to be the middle man? Ive only been freelancing seriously since around december and had a pretty fruitful few months. Ive been involved in some very exciting high profile work for agencies that ive got by contacting them directly but I am having trouble keeping this momentum going. I dont want to have to fall back into the trap of working for music industry plonkers, ive been enjoying being able to work with people who have a clue what they are talking about. Would a recruitment agent actually be any help to keep the work coming in or will it just drive down my day rate and complicate matters? Im quite new to this all so id appreciate any opinions.
- identity0
funny enough, I just joined a creative recruiting agency yesterday after being let go on Friday of last week. I woke up today to find that I have 4 agencies wanting to take me on for freelance for no less than two weeks, at no less then 400-500/day...
Get with a recruiter man, and as many as you can for that matter, best decision I ever did...
- jazmine0
they've never done much for me. tho it's nice to have as a safety.
- bored2death0
Depends how many hands you want in your pockets.
- noob123450
Recruiters can get you in the door at a lot of places. Once you're in you'll meet some people and in a few months one of them will quit for another agency then call to get you to go there.
I like to think of recruiters as doing the leg work to get me a check, for which they take 30%-50%. Half your check is a little excessive IMHO, but if they only take 30% they save a lot of the time you'd spend cold calling or networking to get work.
- gramme0
OK for strictly freelance. Not OK if you want to build your own business. As a business owner, you need to learn how to sell your services directly to clients anyway, even if it means less income in the salad days. I'm still figuring all this stuff out for myself.
But if you only want to freelance, the recruiter route seems fine.
- ********0
The cold calling is what i find the hardest, I tend to buckle when attempting a sales pitch. Building a brand is reasonably important to me but i am more interested in some decent regular paychecks at the minute. I think I have enough music/arts contacts where I can do what I want on briefs to beef my portfolio. Has anyone had good experience from any particular agencies (im London based)? I sent stuff off to a few already and waiting to hear from them.