Had an interesting call from a recruiter this morning. I don’t really hold much faith in recruiters or personnel agencies or any of that sort, and even though I am registered as a freelancer on several major job boards, I don’t really get much if any business out of them.

Usually I’m short and very to the point with these people because they are calling to bulk up their registered job looker rolls and they are taking up my time away from my businesses and my clients. They also don’t usually respect the fact that they are calling someone unsolicited and that they are in fact infringing on another professional persons time. However this morning, I don’t know why, I actually went through with the phone call and listened to the man on the other end.

Long and short of it we agreed to exchange contact details and that’s about as far as it went. The “meat” of the conversation was interesting though, and it focused on the fact that mainstream corporate America is still operating in The Dark Ages.

Mainstream corporate America still does not really recognize the freelancer or the telecommuter who is the professional / consultant who can work from the comfort of their home office and produce results for the company that are as good or better than the in-house consultant. Is it because the corporate structure does not know how to handle the outsourced consultant who works from home? I think so.

The first thing you’ll be told is that your presence is required in-house so they can be sure that you are “working”. How many people do you know that go to work every day and don’t produce results or produce minimal results?

Somehow there is this concept that those of us who work at home don’t really “work”. We are pictured as having a good time, working in PJ’s, watching TV, not keeping the nose to the grindstone and doing “work”.

Define “work” for me. Work is being contracted to do a certain job or perform a range of tasks, with the express purpose of achieving some range of expected, desired results. Work may mean working during the same hours as the corporate home office, or it may not. It may mean do it on your own time, but just make sure it gets done.

Corporate America has laid off and downsized thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. These people have moved on with their lives after collecting unemployment. They have either gone on to other jobs, usually lower paying and perhaps more menial than what they are qualified for or experienced in. They have gone on to become self employed entrepreneurs, consultants, designers, you name it.

Corporate America now has the chance to take advantage of some of these skills they got rid of in prior years, without having to pay high agency / head hunter fees, without having to pay for health insurance, without having to burden the corporate budget with the additional employee burden that they culled years before, allocate work space and supplies to, and what do they do? They insist that the consultant come in house and work for them employee style!

What is so difficult to understand about telecommuting or freelancing? You hire someone based upon their portfolio, work, references, or that all too familiar gut feeling that says “go with that person”. You establish a list of tasks to be done, the ultimate goal of what the desired / necessary results need to be, keep the lines of communication open and clear, establish milestone points at which said consultant needs to submit completed tasks, establish the pay period based upon the milestone points, and life goes on. Company gets what they want, and if consultant doesn’t perform as agreed upon, guess who doesn’t get paid?

It’s simple because I do it. I require milestones in 3rds or 4ths from the client, which determines payment. 25% or 33% up front. Upon completion of first milestone, I get the next payment. Upon completion of that milestone, I get the next payment. Client gets what they want plus the results they want.

Corporate America really cannot in all fairness say that an in-house employee works any better than an outsourced home based consultant. Not only do we save them money, as mentioned above, but we don’t need to be trained, we don’t cause political messes if we don’t “fit in” with the other employees, we are already experienced and proven.

Time for you corporate types to wake up and start living in the 21st century and appreciate the outsourced telecommuting professional or consultant!

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New Jersey Web Design by Jewelry Collectibles Design, conveniently located in Hackensack, Bergen County New Jersey, is owned and operated by Maureen McCullough. In business since 2000 as a freelance professional and now also an eBay Stores Certified Designer. Our clients receive professional, creative designs put together outside of the typical corporate genre, fully carrying your small business identity through your entire venue ~ website, blog, forum, links management, eBay store and other online venues. Happy to be a woman owned small business.