THE BUSINESS OF CREATIVES: CORPORATE VS FREELANCE | cathhalim.com

THE BUSINESS OF CREATIVES: CORPORATE VS FREELANCE


Last year, I was invited to speak at Binus Northumbria School of Design where I touched on the topic "Being a Blogger in a Millenial World". The feedback of the 1-hour long presentation will become the several topics covered over the next month on CathHalim.com.

Topics that received an enthusiastic feedback surrounds networking in the creative industry, cultivating your career path in the industry and so on. As the audience comprises of young adults aged around 19 to 21; it is essential that we cover the process upon graduating from school, especially within the local creative industry. Upon coming back and joining the creative industry in Indonesia, I've realized that there is a huge gap that needs to be filled within the creative sector. One of these gap is employment opportunities for young creatives graduating from school. Unfortunately in the local industry, many young creatives prefer to pursue a freelance career instead of joining a conventional and traditional career path. What I refer to as the conventional and traditional career path is to join bigger companies with a larger structure (typically speaking, has many employees).

I am a huge advocate of fresh graduates joining a corporate system for its learning experience and will further touch on this topic. This post weighs out why joining a corporate system will help to benefit your future career path; be it in management of human resources, structured learning experiences and so on. For someone who has just come out of school, this post is especially useful for you to consider before jumping into the bandwagon of working for your own.

1. The Importance of System
I never knew the importance of structure and systems until I left my professional career in a conventional industry. Orders and systems are important — they shape you to become who you are. Systems and orders help you become a better team player. Let's face it, you can't survive far alone in this universe. In order to go far, you need the help of another person. Systems teaches you an important skill; that is toleration for another being even if you don't like that person.

2. Professionalism Through Experience
Let's be real — professionalism is learnt through life experiences. You can't pick these things up from textbooks. Professionalism covers a variety of issues — work accountability, punctuality, behaving respectfully in your workplace, and so on. There are so many soft skills that you pick up when you work for someone. When you're held accountable to a team of workers with deadlines, you learn to work professionally.

3. Resources For Growth
When you join a company, they have resources that you can use in your future career path. The resources and benefits that we are describing here goes beyond your standard health insurance. Big companies pour money into providing you with resources to help you grow and learn constantly. You need data for your research? The company probably has a weekly market update. Do you need to learn skills on how to be a better at your role? The company probably has training for you to become better at your job. Big companies have resources in place to help you grow. The best part of these resources is that it probably comes as a benefit in your job.

4. All Around Skill Sets 
How do you become equipped with skills you need to become a CEO? You work from the bottom, from the most minuscule role in the company. This is that role in life where you go "I didn't go to school for this". The most minuscule role in a company teaches you soft skills in life like humility and empathy amongst others. It teaches you patience and dedication. Go to a corporate to feel unimportant because that teaches you something about life that a freelance role doesn't.


Corporates have a good system in place, and is a great place to start your career especially if you're a fresh graduate. They provide a good training ground for anyone to develop their soft and hard skills. Understand that there's glitz and glamour in joining the startup scene, or becoming a freelancer especially within the creative industry but really, corporates do know what they're doing because they've been around for quite some time. For what it's worth, good luck to you in embarking on this life-long learning journey!

* Please note that the above post is solely based on my personal opinion and is solely for the purpose of discussion. 





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