Career Advancement: How to Work for Free to Achieve Your Career Advancement Goals Faster and More Successfully

Career Advancement: Do you ever find yourself thinking, “If only I could have a chance to prove that I can succeed in the role I want.” This is a popular wish among career-advancement driven professionals. Ah, but finding an opportunity to prove yourself worthy of career advancement can be one of those chicken-and-egg challenges: you can’t get hired or achieve your career advancement goals until you have a demonstrated track record for success, yet you can’t develop that success record until you’ve had a chance to try your hand in the new role. It’s a frustrating dilemma!

One of the most effective solutions I’ve found to this career advancement quandary is to work for free—to take on the career advancement task you long to do, without expecting any compensation other than the chance to gain some valuable experience. This takes much of the pressure off of both you and the decision maker as you demonstrate your ability to succeed with your true career advancement goal. Work-for-free opportunities can be structured as a-few-hours per week arrangements, or more intense 20-40 hours per week commitments, depending on your career advancement interests and availability. Following are how-to’s for finding, and landing, a productive career advancement work-for-free opportunity.

1. Prepare & present your work for free proposal

Following is a step-by-step approach for creating and proposing a powerful and career advancing work-for-free proposal (for even more detail on this proposal process, read Chapter 8 in “The Career Coward’s Guide to Career Advancement”).

Create a list of the career advancement activities in which you hope gain experience. These might include specific processes, skills, and knowledge you want to obtain to support your career advancement.
Create a list of ways that the employer will benefit from your career advancement activities. Possibilities include an extra set of hands working toward their business goals, additional help in areas where you already possess expertise, and a fresh perspective for solving problems or creating solutions.

Panic Point! Do you have a rough idea of the career advancement experience you want to gain, but don’t feel as though you have enough details to put together a solid career advancement work for free proposal? If you’re struggling to list the details, this may mean that you need to do a little more research to better define your career advancement goals. Consider researching specific learning opportunities by becoming active with professional associations, as well as by having information-gathering conversations with helpful networking. Once you’ve more clearly defined your career advancement objectives for a work-for-free proposal will be much easier.

Aim to split your proposed career advancement work-for-free time and activities equally between gaining experience in your desired areas, and providing them assistance in areas that will be beneficial to their organization. This will increase your chances for having your career advancement work-for-free proposal successfully received. Finally, in the moving-forward section, provide details about how your work-for-free offer would work. Here’s an example:

“In exchange for the opportunity to gain experience in these areas, I propose that I work for you, at no charge, for 8 hours per week (one full day, preferably Wednesdays), over a period of two months. This would allow me to build my skills without putting any economic pressure on your organization. My aim would be to devote 50% of my time to gaining experience in the areas detailed in this proposal, and 50% of my time providing direct, useful support to your business.”

2. Be ready to handle questions & objections

When you offer something for free, it can seem too good to be true, and some people will be wary of your intentions. They may bring up questions about your true career advancement motivations, as well as concerns about how they can protect their company information and processes. Following are some of the most popular objections and questions, as well as some possible responses:

“Why would you want to work for free?”

“One of my top career advancement priorities at this stage in my career is to learn how to X. I see working for free as a win-win opportunity for the right company…I gain the career advancement experience I need, while supporting the business with useful skills that will benefit their business. Your business is my top choice for this opportunity, and I am hopeful we can work out an arrangement.”

“Our liability insurance won’t cover a non-employee working on site.”

“Yes, I understand that is a limitation. I would be happy to sign an agreement releasing each other from any liabilities, if that would help.”

Note: Some businesses, especially larger organizations, won’t be able to accommodate a work-for-free worker, due to insurance restrictions. Typically smaller organizations, those with fewer than 25 employees, are your best bets for setting up work-for-free arrangements, because they have less red tape and boundaries. Another way to overcome this obstacle is to set up your work-for-free agreement through an educational institution, in the form of an internship. You may need to pay an internship class fee, yet many larger organizations already have procedures already established for bringing on an intern, making it easier for you to have your proposal approved.

“I don’t want you stealing our formula for success.”

“This is a valid concern, and I would be happy to sign a non-compete contract that would prevent me from using your specific processes with another employer.”

Note: If you do end up signing some form of a non-compete agreement, consult with an attorney so that your agreement would be written to allow you enough flexibility to find employment in your desired area in the future, although not duplicating the exact processes you learned in your work-for-free arrangement.

“I’m not so sure…”

“Fair enough. I know this is a big decision. Would you be willing to try it for a month or so, to see how it’s going? We can agree to end it at any time if it’s not working for one or both of us.”

“This just won’t work for us.”

“That’s okay. I truly appreciate you considering my request. Now that you know what I’m aiming to accomplish, would you be able to suggest any other people or companies I might talk with to set something like this up with them? I’m very motivated to make progress toward my career goals.”

Excerpted and adapted from “Career Coward’s Guide to Career Advancement” by Katy Piotrowski, M.Ed.