This article looks at some of the advantages and disadvantages of being either a freelancer or a full-time employee when you first graduate from university.

There are some major advantages of being a freelancer in comparison to being a full-time employee. Freelancers tend to get a higher rate of pay; however, a disadvantage could be that freelancers do not get holiday pay, sick pay and employment benefits. These disadvantages can persuade freelancers to become full time employees, however it must be beneficial for the business to do so.

Below are some additional advantages of being a full-time employee, rather than starting out as a freelancer when you first graduate from university:

Getting a Mortgage
A frustrating thing about being a freelancer is that you need 2-3 years of accounting to be completed before you can get a mortgage provider to lend to you (depending on the provider). However, if you are in full time employment, you only must be employed for 3 months (typically) before you can get a mortgage based on your annual salary. This can be a deal breaker when it comes to deciding whether or not you wish to start your working career as a freelancer or a full-time employee.

Advantages of being an employee
One of the most powerful reasons to take up employment with a business is to benefit from a host of unique job benefits. Employees should be aware of the relative security that working full time can offer them, in comparison to having to find clients for yourself. Job benefits come in so many more different forms.

Here are some unique job benefits that you can could be offered as a freelancer to make working for a company full-time an even more appealing proposition than it already is. Receiving these benefits can be a really exciting prospect for students entering employment for the first time and there’s a way for you to do that very thing, by using an employee benefits platform!

Starting your own business? Managing SME Growth
If you start a business after graduating and you find yourself in the lucky position where your business is growing, then make sure you take the right steps to managing growth. For example, you might want to find an office space, hire an accountant and start to manage your employees online. As a graduate, it is unlikely that you will have had too much experience in this area. However, there is a range of software for managing employees remotely as a business owner, and companies like Zest offer a flexible benefits solution for businesses and allow businesses to personalise the way they engage with their employees. They are able to completely personalise an individual’s employee benefits program to meet their unique requirements. Your company can then easily track employee progression towards those goals.

Employee engagement can be one of the biggest struggles a small growing business faces, and an employee benefits platform offers businesses a way to improve it by providing an intuitive online platform that employees can use. Key administrative elements are automated to allow making the use of these kind of platforms as effortless as possible. Establishing a presence with these kinds of software services is easy, fast, and affordable and your employees can benefit hugely. Managing your employees well will help you to continue growing as a business and hopefully attract a higher level of talent.

Benefits of being a freelancer
There are also a few benefits of being a freelancer which may sway you when you come to making the decision.

Flexibility
When working as a freelancer you can decide what hours you would like to work, and you can also decide which clients you would like to work for. You can set your own working schedule and do not always have a boss to answer to in the same way you would with full-time employment. As a recent graduate this could seem like the promised land, but it is a reality.

Higher Rate of Pay
Another great reason to become a freelancer is that typically you can charge a little more per day or per hour than if you were employed. This is because you do not get holiday or sick pay, nor get any of the employment benefits outlined above.

Diversity
Something you can also do as a freelancer is work for multiple companies at the same time. If you like, you could work with a selection of clients or businesses in different niches so that you have a diverse range of experience. This could even kick start your career quicker than usual as you would have a wider range of experience.