Freelancers look at work from a fresh perspective
"You don't have to
belong to a major agency to be creative," said Vinh, who graduated from
the University of Central Lancashire in Britain in 2007, majoring in
creative advertising. "I can do my job without getting involved in
so-called ‘office politics' or set working hours."
With about
four years as a freelancer under his belt, the 30-year-old has done
creative ads, websites, promotional materials, newsletters and graphic
designs for about 30 clients ranging from non-profit organisations to
health and fitness centres.
"The great thing about being a
freelancer is that you get to choose your clients, decide on the quality
of your work and pitch your ideas directly," he said.
Vinh is a
member of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City's growing number of freelancers,
who are carving out a new way of working in the nation's traditional
nine-to-five economy and in a country where most young professionals
prefer stability to flexibility.
But the challenges facing
freelancers are also abundant: gaining the trust of clients, having
on-time payments, meeting deadlines or dealing with projects that could
turn upside-down.
Seeing such demand to connect freelancers with
potential clients, in mid-2013, Tran Ngoc Tuan, an IT freelancer from
Hanoi, launched Vlance.vn, one of the few Vietnamese sites targeting the
growing freelancing community in the capital.
Tuan now employs a
team of seven people to run the site, where freelancers can create
their profile and clients can find those with suitable skills. Tuan said
the site does not charge anyone and he claims already there are about
7,000 users.
"Most freelancers were previously skilled
professionals, not untrained hopefuls," he said. "I think this
generation is looking for something newer and more challenging rather
than just working at a company and waiting for promotion."
According
to Tuan, freelancing mostly appeals to those who previously worked as
writers, photographers, consultants, website developers, programmers or
copywriters, because basically these kind of works allow you to work on
your own.
"The financial stress and lack of networking skills are
the two biggest hurdles for those who take on the risks of
freelancing," Tuan added.
At the same time that youngsters in
many countries are facing tighter job markets, freelancing could be a
sustainable and profitable career, said Evan Tan, regional director for
Southeast Asia of freelancer.com, a global site for freelancing,
outsourcing and crowd-sourcing marketplace.
"The young grew up
with the Internet and see the vast potential of not just networking with
people but also looking for niches where they can earn money," Tan
said. "This is a growing market with a lot of potential."
A
recent report released last week by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and
Social Affairs and the General Statistics Office suggests that, at the
end of last year, there were about 72,000 people with some kind of
college degree out of work.
Therefore, "those who have the guts
to drop full-time jobs must prove they have something special to offer,"
said Pham Xuan Quy, a 25-year-old freelancer who specialises in
organising events.
"Working as a freelancer does not mean you can
sleep until noon. That is not what this is about. You have to wake up
at the same time as your client and work to build up your skills and
brand."
He is also part of a network that is called
freelancerviet.vn, which connects freelancers with clients. Since being
launched in September 2013, founder Pham Lan Khanh from Ho Chi Minh City
said the total value of freelancing projects on the site had reached
1.5 billion VND (70,500 USD).
Khanh said some freelancers could
not handle the financial stress and instability of working on their own
and eventually returned to work as full-time office workers. So she and
other co-founders frequently organise meetings in both Hanoi and Ho Chi
Minh City to talk about networking skills, individual branding, and
techniques for negotiating.
"I believe that in the next two or
three years more people will become engaged in freelance work due to the
development of technology - and an economy that is becoming more
digitalised as more businesses learn more about cost-cutting."
Jason
Lusk, co-founder of ClickSpace, a community centre for freelancers in
the West Lake area set up in March last year, agrees that the trend is
taking off in Vietnam. Many foreign freelancers are also coming here and
they need to find Vietnamese collaborators.
ClickSpace holds a
monthly meeting called Hanoi Freelancers Meet-up, which attracts on
average about 40 people per session, according to Lusk.
Quy
admitted that in Vietnam, some people mistook freelancing as another way
of saying one was unemployed. "On the contrary, you really have to be
an expert on the services you offer. Otherwise, you won't survive," he
said.-VNA