What Companies Get Wrong About Hiring Freelancers – Episode 34 with Elina Jutelyte

Listen now on:

For many companies, hiring freelancers still feels like opening a Pandora’s box.

There is excitement in the idea of getting access to external expertise quickly. But there is also hesitation. Can we trust them? Will they deliver? Are they too expensive? Will they understand how we work? Will they disappear after taking the project?

In this conversation, Elina Jutelyte makes one thing clear: the problem is often not freelancing itself. The problem is that many companies try to work with freelancers without changing the way they think about work.

They bring in an independent expert, but treat them like a temporary employee. Or worse, like an outsider who should somehow deliver excellent work without context, onboarding, or proper access to information.

Elina is the founder of a freelance business community and academy, helping freelancers build their work as a real business system after 400+ conversations with freelance business owners and events for 5,000+ freelance attendees.

Key takeaways

1. Companies often misunderstand freelance pricing because they compare day rates to salaries instead of total employment cost, risk, benefits, hiring time, and flexibility.
2. Freelance collaboration usually fails before the work starts: unclear scope, poor onboarding, missing context, slow procurement, and weak communication create most of the problems.
3. The best freelancers do not want to be treated like temporary extra hands. They want to work as business partners who bring expertise, structure, and ownership.
4. Companies that want better freelance outcomes need to build a simple system: define the problem, onboard properly, share context, agree on deliverables, and make payment processes clear.
5. Exceptional freelance talent is usually found through networks, recommendations, and trusted platforms, not by looking for the cheapest available person.

Freelancers are not a shortcut. They are a different way of building capacity

That is where the collaboration starts to break.

Elina has seen this from many sides. She has worked in the event industry for 20 years, built large-scale projects with million-plus budgets, hired freelancers herself, and now helps independent professionals build stronger freelance businesses. Her view is practical: freelancers can be powerful partners for companies, but only when both sides know how to work together.

As she puts it, companies should think about “how can you treat those people as part of your team, as humans, not as furniture.”

That one sentence captures a lot.

A freelancer does not need to be employed by the company to be treated seriously. They still need context. They still need clarity. They still need a proper starting point. And if companies want high-quality results, they cannot simply “drop” a freelancer into the project and expect them to figure out everything alone.

👉 Browse 70,000+ freelancers on freelancermap — find your next expert in days, not months

The freelance rate is not the real cost conversation

One of the most common objections Elina hears from companies is simple: freelancers are expensive.

But that objection often comes from comparing the wrong things.

A company sees a freelance hourly or daily rate and compares it directly to an employee salary. But a freelancer’s rate includes much more than working time. It covers their own pension, insurance, holidays, unpaid sales time, business risk, tools, taxes, and periods between projects.

Elina shared a story of a company that wanted to hire her as an employee. She offered to work part-time as a freelancer instead, and they were shocked by the rate. The conversation even reached the HR department because they did not understand how freelance pricing was calculated.

Her response was simple: this is not expensive. This is how the calculation works.

For hiring teams, this is an important lesson. Freelance cost should not be compared only to salary. It should be compared to the full cost of employment, recruitment, benefits, onboarding, management time, and the speed of accessing expertise.

A freelancer may cost more per day. But they may also solve a problem faster, avoid long hiring cycles, and bring expertise the company does not need permanently.

That changes the equation.

Most freelance problems start before the project starts

When Elina talks about misalignment between companies and freelancers, she keeps coming back to two areas: quality and pay.

Companies hire freelancers expecting work to be done well, on time, and with little friction. That expectation is fair.

But quality problems often appear when the scope is unclear, the deliverables are not defined, or the company itself does not know exactly what it wants. In that situation, even a strong freelancer can struggle.

There is another hidden problem: onboarding.

Elina shared an example of being brought into a short assignment with almost no background or explanation. She had to pull the information out of the company herself. Luckily, she had her own onboarding documents and checklist. But the experience was still painful.

This is where many companies underestimate their role.

A freelancer is external, but the work is not happening in a vacuum. If the freelancer does not understand the company, the team, the goals, the constraints, the stakeholders, and the internal process, they cannot serve the company properly.

Good freelance work starts with good onboarding.

That does not mean companies need a complicated system. But they do need a simple one.

What is the problem? What does success look like? Who owns decisions? What background should the freelancer know? How will feedback work? How will payment work? What does “done” mean?

Without those answers, the project becomes messy.

Freelancers are also responsible for guiding the process

One of the strongest points in the conversation is that responsibility does not sit only with the company.

Elina is clear that freelancers also need to act like business owners.

She says, “I always say freelancer is the one who has to guide.”

That may sound surprising, especially when the company is the client. But it is also the reason strong freelancers are valuable. They do not just wait for perfect instructions. They help the client understand what needs to happen.

They qualify the customer. They ask better questions. They clarify the problem. They identify red flags. They explain how they work. They request feedback. They set expectations.

This is also where companies can learn to recognize better freelance partners.

A strong freelancer will not simply say yes to everything. They will want to understand the business problem. They will want to know whether there is a fit. They may push for clarity before starting. They may suggest a better process.

That is not difficult behaviour. That is professionalism.

For companies, this means the best freelancers may feel less like “order takers” and more like partners. They might challenge the brief. They might ask for missing context. They might say when something is unrealistic.

That is often exactly why you hired them.

👉 Sign up and post a project on freelancermap to start receiving proposals from IT experts and specialists

The future belongs to companies that build freelance relationships before they need them

Elina also looks at freelancing as part of a much bigger shift.

The freelance economy is growing. More senior experts are moving into consulting, fractional work, and independent business models. Younger professionals are entering the market with more tools, more access to knowledge, and less attachment to the old idea of a 40-year career inside one company.

But the future will not only be about more freelancers.

It will also be about better systems for working with them.

Today, many companies still build their talent networks around full-time employees. They invest in sourcing, recruiting, and nurturing permanent candidates, but they do not build the same relationships with independent experts.

That is a missed opportunity.

Freelancers, contractors, and fractional experts move between projects more often. They can be brought in for specific needs. They can refer other experts. They can become long-term strategic partners across multiple stages of company growth.

And often, the best ones come through recommendations.

Elina says word of mouth is still one of the most common ways to find talent. That means companies should not only search for freelancers when they urgently need someone. They should build relationships with independent experts before the need becomes urgent.

Because by the time the problem appears, the companies with existing freelance networks will move faster.

The real shift: from hiring freelancers to working with independent businesses

Perhaps the most important theme in the conversation is language.

Freelancer. Contractor. Consultant. Fractional expert. Solopreneur. Independent professional.

The words matter because they shape expectations.

Many experienced freelancers no longer see themselves as “just freelancers.” They see themselves as running a business. They are not selling spare hours. They are offering expertise, process, judgment, and outcomes.

Companies that understand this will get better results.

They will stop looking for the cheapest person and start looking for the right partner. They will stop treating freelancers as outsiders and start giving them the context needed to succeed. They will stop seeing freelance work as a backup plan and start seeing it as a strategic way to access talent.

The future of work is not only about remote work, AI, or flexibility.

It is also about whether companies can learn to collaborate with independent professionals in a way that is clear, respectful, and effective.

Freelancers are not furniture.
They are not cheap employees.
They are not a last resort.

Handled well, they are one of the fastest ways for companies to bring in expertise, move projects forward, and build a more flexible workforce.

Tips for success

1. Create a freelancer onboarding checklist.
   Before the project starts, prepare the company background, project goals, key stakeholders, access needs, communication rules, and success criteria.
2. Define the outcome before hiring.
   Do not hire a freelancer just because “there is too much work.” First clarify the exact problem, deliverable, timeline, and level of expertise needed.
3. Treat freelance talent as part of the working system.
   Invite them into the right conversations, give them context, and make sure internal processes do not block their ability to deliver.