Vital started his freelancing career shortly after he left high school, when he was only 21 years old. Back then the Portuguese government invited him to do some freelance work for the Statistic Department and Vital has been receiving new freelancing offers ever since. He swears on the power of word of mouth and focuses on providing the best quality for his clients…
1) Firstly, can you tell us bit about yourself!
Well, I’m 47 years old, I’m from Lisbon, Portugal and I´ve been working in IT since I was 21 years old. I didn’t go to university at the end of my high school degree because at that time unemployment was a big issue in Portugal so I decided to take a 5 month long COBOL programming course in NCR Corporation, which was actually part of AT&T at that time.
My final course classification was an A and because of that I received an invitation to work with NCR. It was my first step into IT world. I learned a lot with the experienced team I’ve joined, did a great job with a stock management application and 4 months later, the Portuguese Government sent me an invitation to work in the Statistic Department and I said yes.
While changing all the structure of the Department with just 21 years, I was beginning to realise all the communication difficulties between the several departments within the same company. It was one of the first obstacles that I was faced with. With more experience freelancing work started to come up and I’ve never stopped doing it since then.
2) What was the source of inspiration behind entering into this field? How did you start your career? What was your academic background?
As I said, it all started with invitations. I never had to look for something. The best publicity for your work is a satisfied client. He does the publicity for you as he talks about your work and how much it has satisfied him and his needs.
At the age of 30 I decided to go to University to start a part-time degree in IT Management.
If I had to name 3 skills to describe myself I would list Pro-Cobol, PL/SQL and IBM DB2 or Oracle Databases as they have made me what I am today because my work experience goes with those technologies.
3) What exactly made you actually decide to become a freelancer? How long have you been freelancing?
It all started when I was just 21 years old. The opportunity came up by an invitation to make a stock management application for a video club in my home town. I guess after that, about 20 or 30 opportunities followed and I never stopped freelancing in part-time.
4) What kind of services have your clients asked you to provide?
Custom made applications for stock managements, Pro-Cobol with Databases access (Oracle or IBM DB2) and some Websites.
5) Do you use other freelancers or companies to provide skills that you don’t possess?
I just started building some websites, even though I didn’t know that much about it. But I knew someone who did, so we built the website together and I’ve learned some tricks and some skills on how to do it.
In this career you have to be willing to learn almost every day.
6) Now tell us, how do you find new clients that are interested in your services?
I don’t advertise. I completely rely on word of mouth. New clients come to me by referrals of other clients that I had.
7) What about freelancermap.com? Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with our IT-network?
I’ve signed in a few weeks ago, it looks like a great platform with lots of potential and it could make it easier for freelancers and clients to meet their needs and of course, find each other.
8) How do you set yourself apart from your competitors? What makes you special?
I’m not special, I’m just a guy who loves IT and what I’m doing, so I always try to make my product the best that I possibly can. Since the beginning of my career I can proudly say that I’ve never sent an application to production that wasn’t perfect and not 100% as what the client had specified before. So, I think what differentiates me from the others is the quality I always offer to my clients.
9) What are you most excited about for your business in the future? Do you have any interesting projects coming up soon?
I’m still in negotiations but I can say that I have a great project for the web coming up. New technologies are now the base of my freelance work.
10) What are the top three books, blogs or magazines you read to stay up to date in the IT-market?
I don´t just focus on one or two blogs/magazines. I’m focused on IT in general, so whenever I see an interesting IT book I buy it. Maybe I can also add that most of the reading that I do in my summer vacations is about IT and the new tendencies that are coming up.
Freestyle! Is there anything you would like to tell our readers?
Never stop believing in yourself and in what you’re doing. Make it the best you possibly can and be proud of it. The rest follows not as a result, but as a consequence.
Where to find Vital:
Link to freelancermap.com profile: http://www.freelancermap.com/vital-carvalho
Skype: vitalcarvalho1970
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