What’s In A Name? And Does It Matter?

While catching up on the archive of one of my favourite podcasts, FreelanceRadio from FreelanceSwitch, during my daily commute recently, the panel of speakers talked about how they refer to themselves when speaking with current and potential customers. It was in the context of whether there a single preferred label for the concept of a freelancer, or whether it depends upon with whom you’re speaking. It got me thinking about how it might differ between industries, business sectors, cultures and even continents.

In Australia, where I grew up and lived until my late 20s, there are different terms for different modes of non-full-time employment. That is, for those other than the majority who commute to the same place — or on behalf of the same organisation — every working day. As I understand it, this breakdown in Australia is typically as follows:

• Temp: A person who fills in for an absent employee (e.g. illness, maternity, jury duty) and, while their role may be skilled, their tasks do not normally require in-depth knowledge of the company. Duration of employment is typically measured in days or weeks.
• Consultant: A person who is onsite for hours to weeks, who has a specific task, and whose deliverables often take the form of written reports or advice.
• Contractor: A person who is onsite for weeks to months (occasionally years), and who serves as an additional employee — often providing a unique skillset — and whose deliverables are typically more tangible or practical than that of a consultant. They may include roles such as web designer, database administrator or book-keeper.

The term freelancer was not something I encountered often in the Australian workplace. From a corporate perspective, it seemed to contain connotations of “fly by night” behaviour and lack of commitment — someone who followed the money and flew the coop as soon as the winds began to blow. Of course that perception might have been limited to the environment in which I worked, or it could have been a product of the time. The popularity of freelancing seems to wax and wane, after all.

Now that I live in the UK and have first worked for a consultancy — where my services were charged out at ~£2,000 per day (if only I’d seen even a quarter of that daily rate) — and now working for an IT software vendor, it is clear that the same definitions do not necessarily apply to those labels. Consultant, contractor and freelancer appear to be reasonably interchangeable, though the latter does seem more informal and implies a more  “up to the elbows” kind of person, and the others conjure images of people in suits.

My role sees me dealing with a number of UK, American and European colleagues and customers, and it’s fair to say that some of those definitions apply and others do not. In some cases, it’s apparent that consultants and contractors refer to themselves as freelancers when among peers but never with clients, and in some cases they will use the term freely with anyone.

How do these terms apply where you live or work? Do they differ between industries or even cultures? Does this selective terminology help or hinder customer perception of you, or does it affect the likelihood of you being hired for a job for a specific industry or sector?

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