Is it possible (and if so, how) to convert a freelancer's experience into years of work?

Question

Freelance

The question sounds a bit confusing, but the gist is this:
Job openings often say "n years of work experience required as...". The same question is often asked at interviews - "how many years of experience do you have with such and such a framework / technology / etc"? Which, of course, is meant as a full-time experience in the office.
And how to answer this question to freelancers whose working hours were irregular? Let's say I work as a developer for 3 years, but I am convinced that my working week rarely exceeded 20 hours of direct coding - I should divide my experience by 2 to get the number of years of experience? But what if for half a year I worked 60 hours a week, and for half a year I did not work at all, and so all 3 years? And should this include hours spent on your own projects? I just don’t really know how many hours, working weeks, years, in terms of a standard 40-hour work week, I worked for the entire period of my freelance activity + this is not documented anywhere.
Some other formula (evidence) is needed if you worked as a freelancer and life prompted such questions. That is, how to formalize the experience of a freelancer during standard hours, if at all possible? And if this is not possible, then it turns out that my experience is zero, which is not true at all. And of course, I understand that in fact, when applying for a job, as a rule everything is decided by skills and the number of actually completed projects, preferably commercial, and not home-made, but the notorious question over the years of experience quite often appears in vacancies / interviews and many people have to deal with it respond.
If there are HR specialists here, your advice on how to act in such a situation would be very helpful.
Thank you.

Answer 1

And how to answer this question to freelancers whose working hours were irregular? Let's say I've been working as a developer for 3 years, but I'm convinced that my working week rarely exceeded 20 hours of direct coding - should I divide my experience by 2 to get the number of years of experience?

What if the work week is 80 hours? Multiply by two? Without days off, holidays? On three? "Hi, I'm 25 years old and I have 15 years of experience with angular 4"? Lol. In addition, do not forget that in the office, the efficiency is also by no means 100% and even far from 70% - tea, coffee, smoke, discuss something with colleagues, help a colleague, go out for cleaning time with a stern aunt Masha, report to the boss, make a weekly/daily report, etc. - split in half? On three? Time in work experience is just an approximate characteristic and far from being a priority. His experience can be different: 10 years of web development in one position in one company in corporate internal CRM and 10 years of riveting websites, programs for servers, desktops, phones, mk, and other freelance / part-time jobs - these are very, very different 10 years. So let's not forget about the contest.

Answer 2

better not to bother.
by the number of years they want to evaluate your skills and abilities. if there are skills and experience, then what difference does it make in years? but, hr wants the number of years, so just tell them some number that suits them.

Answer 3

> If there are HR specialists here, your advice on how to act in such a situation would be very helpful.
Yes, go to the interview already and stop torturing everyone.
HR specialists often contradict themselves in the same company, what do they really advise you here?

Answer 4

It is better to report specific experience in freelancing, without counting. The essence of the required experience is in knowledge and skills, and not in ass hours.
As mentioned above, it is worth going to the interview.

Answer 5

Freelancing is no different from an office computer that you don’t go to it.
That is, ten years of freelancing is ten years of experience.

Answer 6

Which, of course, is meant as a full-time experience in the office.

In normal offices, this has not been implied for a long time. Usually - they look at real skills, abilities and experience.

Answer 7

The majority also study at school for 10 years, and then someone continues to study further, someone works at a factory, someone joins the army, someone freelances, etc.

Answer 8

As I understand it, for example, you started solving a problem using certain technologies, started to google, mark some solutions, insights, features for yourself on third-party sites, read news on thematic forums, etc. "This is how many years you are spinning in the environment." But the indicator is very conditional.
There is another lol example: people who have been working in the site building environment since at least 2008 will smile at the name Popov. And it doesn't mean anything to young people. And vice versa, young people will smile from Fimushkin, and old people will not understand what's going on.
But the essence is the same: the correlation with real knowledge is weak. (Just a real case from life, one owner of a web studio posed one of the questions at the interview: attitude towards Popov and Lukyanova and dismissed those who were in favor)))
I would put the question this way: - experience of working with a team, customers, with deadlines, with a rework of fucked up, easy to climb. And skill tests.

Answer 9

I would do this: how many years have I really been freelancing, while evaluating my knowledge for this experience. Those. if I say that I have 7 years of freelancing experience, while I am interviewing for the position of a Middle-developer (for example, a front-end) and I know how to make a page as much as possible, then. such 7 years can be converted into half a year, because for the real 7 years of experience a completely different list of skills should have been developed (and not just HTML + CSS + JQUERY, in our case).
Those. To sum up: adjust your real qualifications and experience to the market. Do you really fit under middev and work (how much is needed there?) 3-5 years? Then feel free to say\write: experience 5 years. Because these 5 years are supported by real knowledge and skills for the position of interest.

Answer 10

Yes, in any case, in the resume and at the interview, you must indicate / say that you were freelancing at that time. If you don’t indicate some years in your resume, then you will have questions - what did you do at that time. Fig knows, maybe you kicked the bastard, and didn’t do anything, which means you’re a fig worker. So it’s better to paint the experience as much as possible (if it really was), and you can even throw it on a little (about six months, for example), but of course, so that this does not contradict common sense.

Answer 11

In vacancies it is often written "n years of experience required as...". The same question is often asked at interviews - "how many years of experience do you have with such and such a framework / technology / etc"? Which, of course, is meant as a full-time experience in the office.

But my personal practice of communicating with freelancers shows otherwise.
I've met different freelancers with experience at 5, 7, and 9 years old.
So, in terms of level, all of them roughly correspond to juniors with two years of experience, which I personally trained.
That is, a ratio of 1:5 or 1:10 is not uncommon. And not in favor of freelancing.
On freelancing, due to the peculiarities of the organization of work, you do not have the opportunity to discuss your task with experienced colleagues, and this seriously hinders professional development. Exceptions are very rare.
Forums are of little help here, since they deal with individual aspects. No one will and can not delve into all your nuances on the forums. Read at least on the Toaster: as soon as a primitive question, millions of "wise men" were immediately noted. As something serious - so few answers in the style of "fortune telling on coffee grounds."
However, if you work in a small office, where only you are in your field, colleagues are specialists in other fields, the situation is a little better. But at least you can catch up with your colleagues in other areas.
Ideally, a large office, where there are at least one, two or three people in your field, but with much higher qualifications - this is what you need. Here, in fact, a year of experience can be counted as five.