Difference Between A Freelancer And A Consultant

Today, there is a growing trend among professionals and non-professionals alike to get into the non-tenure line of work such as freelancing and consultancy. These two categories of employment or source of income has become so popular because more and more individual workers do not want to be tied up on a straight 9-5 desk job. They want more freedom from time constraint and want to work at their own phase. And freelancing and consultancy is the way to go for them.

But what is the difference between freelance and consultant? Can a consultant be a freelancer at the same time or vice versa? The difference can actually be viewed from two perspectives.

From the point of view of the end-user

From an end-user’s point of view, a freelance job or work means hiring individuals to perform a work for them or to complete a certain task for the company. This work is on a short-term basis and ends at a specific period of time. Usually, the kind of work involves actual hands-on work to complete a specific task and most of the time includes task which are too simple to be done by high-level staff of the company. As compared to consultancy where the work to be done usually belongs to the managerial level. This type of job includes auditing, accounting, systems advisory and development, systems planning and development among other strategic type of work.

From the point of view of the person doing freelance or consultancy work

Being a freelance means accepting specific tasks related to one’s field of specialization on a term basis. Once the work is completed the freelance job is done. The freelancer is not in any related to the company and could not influence company policy. Freelance job is a part-time job on a term basis. While being a consultant means having the power to influence company systems or policies without the right to claim for intellectual property. A consultant doing a company a certain consultant work works for the company on a fixed term or until a major project is completed. He goes to the office and attends managerial meeting and is treated like a regular employee with fixed term of tenure but higher remuneration.

To put it simply

Freelance job refers more to providing services to a company to do a certain task that can not be done by regular employees. The company doesn’t want to go into the trouble of hiring a new staff, so it decided to hire a freelancer to do the job instead. Freelancer has less responsibility for what he’s done to a company.

On the other hand, a consultancy work refers to giving advice or expert opinion on systems, development plan, strategic policy and all that stuff that pertains to higher level management. Consultancy is a higher profile job than freelance and involves more responsibility for individual consultants.

Freelance job are usually home based and work can be done online via email or other means. It could transcend demographic barriers especially today where more and more freelance content writers are being hired to do freelance job from different countries. And these companies hire the services of freelance writer regardless of their location. There are also individual clients who are on the lookout for various freelance services in several freelance sites such as rentacoder, scriptlance, and getafreelancer.

This is not the same with consultants. They are required to visit the particular company to evaluate the actual conditions and even conduct interviews among its staff to work on their consultancy work. They also need to meet up with the corporate management to discuss agreements and terms of reference before doing their consultancy work.

Some examples of freelance job includes writing a computer program, or designing a web site, or writing content articles to designing corporate logos or emblems. While consultancy job usually includes, auditing a financial report, providing legal advices on certain issues, developing systems design and strategic planning. 

There is a clear difference between consultancy and freelance work. Both types of work may either work for individual workers wanting to be free from the corporate environment or not. A consultant can opt to become a freelancer but a freelancer would need to attain a higher degree of specialization in his field before he can become a consultant.
 
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