Freelancing, by definition, involves offering your skills to a variety of clients. You are claiming some specialist expertise, be it in management consultancy, journalism, graphic design or vehicle repair. But whatever it is, in order to make that claim, you must either have done the job before, or be trained in it in some convincingly applied way. It is possible to become a freelance designer, for instance, on the basis of having done a degree course because such courses are generally practically oriented. Or you could become a translator having taken a language degree. Your credentials would be less impressive if you tried to set up as a management consultant, having had no experience other than a business studies qualification, or if you tried to become a journalist on the basis of an English degree. The first thing you will have to do as a freelancer, therefore, is to see that your level of expertise is appropriate to the area where you want to apply it as a freelancer. In many cases, freelancers are ex-employees and they generally begin by working for their ex-employers. A common situation, for instance, is that a company closes down a functional area like in-house PR or building maintenance and asks the people who were doing it before to take it on as freelancers. This means that the freelancers can offer the same service to a variety of clients without incurring the