Sunday, June 8, 2008

What is the difference between a Freelance and a Consultant

What is the difference between a Freelance and a Consultant?
I want to know what is the real difference between providing consulting services and just being a freelance? What is the difference if any in terms of skills, salary, responsabilities? Does any one knows where to look for consultant jobs?
Careers & Employment - 5 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Freelancer is the general term for someone who is self-employed (and gets 1099s instead of W2s). A consultant is a specific type of freelancer.
2 :
a freelance consultant is just someone who does the job independantly not as an employee of a company. What kind of consulting do you want to do ? There are people who consult on manufacturing processes, finances, IT, efficiency, advertising and almost every other business discipline that exists.
3 :
Freelancing is one way of being a consultant. The other way is to be employed with a consulting company. For eg, you may be employed full time by Accenture or Deloitte or any other consulting firm. You are paid like any other employee, so you get vacation, benefits and all the other normal perks The one major difference is that you have to travel extensively. Freelancing is more like self employment. You can form your own company, usually S corp (if only husband and wife are the employees) and provide services to companies just like any other consulting company and but you get paid directly the client. Freelancing is usually done by people who have more experience and/ or contacts. Its pretty hard to get gigs with less experience. You make more money freelancing simply because you are eliminating the middle man ( the consulting company). Also, there is more flexibility when you are a freelancer. What kind of consultant job are you looking for, there are many areas in consulting like IT services, Financial services, Supply chain management to name a few.
4 :
I thought a consultant was under contract, and a freelance dude sold his stuff.
5 :
Not much. Both take the watch from your wrist, tell you what time it is, and call it a 'concept

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