Rant: The "free consultation" trap - I just ran the numbers and it's worse than I thought

I was going through 6 months of old invoices last night and realized I gave away about 40 hours of free consults during the slow season, which is basically a whole week of unpaid work. On one hand, free consults might build trust and get your foot in the door. On the other hand, I could have charged a flat rate for those same calls and maybe weeded out time wasters. So which side are you on - do you give away free time to land gigs or do you charge for the first chat?

3 comments

3 Comments

oliver_baker4913d ago

Maybe charge a small fee but waive it if they actually hire you.

mason.drew13d ago

Depends on the job. If I'm applying for some entry level retail gig and you wanna charge me $5 just to submit an application, I'm walking. But for higher end professional roles where people are flying you out and putting you up in hotels, the fee could actually help separate the serious people from the ones who are just throwing resumes at everything. Though I guess the problem is companies could abuse it even with the waiver thing.

charlieh7413d ago

Saw a piece on NPR a while back about this exact thing... some companies in tech were trying application fees as a "commitment signal" but it ended up just filtering out people who couldn't afford the risk. The thing is, even with a refund-if-hired policy, that cash is sitting in the company's account for weeks or months while you're waiting to hear back. For someone living paycheck to paycheck, that five bucks could be their lunch money or bus fare for a day. And let's be real, most of the people "throwing resumes at everything" are just desperate because they've been job hunting for months already. It feels like another way to punish people for being unemployed rather than actually solving the matching problem between candidates and roles.

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