Hiring a freelance communications consultant

Finding the right permanent communications staff can be a huge challenge for public sector organisations, especially when private sector PR and communications roles often attract higher salaries and greater opportunities for promotion.

If you have ever been involved in the recruitment process, you will be only too aware of how long it can take to find the right person for the job. And even when you've found them, they will invariably have to work out a notice period before they can join you.

Using a freelance communications consultant can give you the expertise you're looking for almost immediately.

Communications expertise on tap

A freelance communications consultant can be available to you at very short notice, usually within a week, if not the next day.

If you don't have the necessary resource in-house for a particular communications project or challenge, or the time needed to embark on a permanent recruitment campaign, a freelancer with the appropriate mix of skills, knowledge and experience could be just what you need to pick up a brief at short notice.

Freelance communicators can slot quickly and effortlessly into existing teams or work independently on specific tasks, depending on your needs.

Quick thinking

'Hit the ground running' is a prerequisite for a freelancer. Freelance consultants are very adept at quickly assimilating new information and adjusting to different working environments, so you won't have to worry about organising lengthy inductions.

As long as you have a clear brief of the work you want a freelancer to complete, a quick set of introductions and an orientation (if the consultant is working from your offices) should be all that is necessary for the freelancer to get started.

Comparable costs

Hiring a freelancer isn't as expensive as you might think. A common mistake people make when calculating the cost of a freelancer is to directly compare the consultant's day rate with the gross salary of a permanent employee. This is an over-simplistic view; the direct costs to an organisation for employing someone are approximately one and a half times annual gross salary.

That said, if you are not clear about the work you want a freelancer to carry out, you might as well pour your communications budget down the drain.

Protecting your investment

The key to a successful relationship between an organisation and a freelance consultant is a clear and well-defined brief.

Think carefully about the different elements of work involved in the brief and whether these can all be covered by one individual or if you need different levels of support or can cover some work from in-house resources – freelance solutions will be expensive if you end up paying a director-level freelancer to complete administrative tasks!

Speak to potential freelancers about their methods and patterns of work and how you can exploit technology to drive down peripheral costs. As an example, you may be able to take advantage of instant messaging or conference calling rather than having the freelancer travel to your offices for a meeting.

It pays to think ahead

Although freelancers can be available to you at very short notice, it is still worth planning ahead as far as possible. The mistake many people make is thinking of communications and PR as a 'bolt-on' activity to be carried out once everything else is done. This really isn't the most effective way of working!

Get communications involved from the start – it can be in an advisory capacity to begin with as you can always increase involvement to a more 'hands-on' level as the project takes shape.