Really?

It’s one week into a new year and I’ve had three requests to do unpaid work. I’m not saying it would be right if I was straight out of uni or at the beginning of my career, but it feels that bit more frustrating ( to put it mildly) as someone who has been navigating these industries for so long.?

Most of us who are well over a decade in will feel that they’ve more than paid their dues. I’m not suggesting that they should all be aware of journey we have all been on and the amount of unpaid/low paid work we’ve likely done to get here. And I’m sure many are stressed and overworked and having to play numbers game to a degree, hoping that out of the 100 they email a few will reply willing to do the work in return for exposure, a free subscription or gift etc. But a bit of awareness at least in regards to the cost of living crisis wouldn’t go amiss.?

Back when I started after graduating from Uni it was quite the norm to go from internship to internship, working unpaid for months, then if you were lucky graduate to a very low paid job or experiences that would be ‘great for the CV’ or ‘fantastic for contacts and networking’ might follow. You’d often miss out on the job positions that would eventually open at the places you were interning because you couldn’t afford to stay on as long as the well connected girl who was there at the same time. In my case I was so burned out by the experiences I was too ill to work.

Working in creative industries in particular you are always aware of how saturated they are with people like you all scrambling to get those positions, hesitant to challenge the less than desirable roles or pay on offer because you knew there’s a queue of people eager to take your place. You’re also wary of garnering any sort of attention for being tricky or difficult. This means it can become habit to accept unpaid or poorly paid jobs - naive hope of youth would create some buoyancy that it would lead to the eventual golden ticket to career stability and fair pay. But it could become so difficult to decipher when you actually reached that point where you had done enough. It was so unclear what ‘enough’ was and with self doubt and imposter syndrome so intertwined with creative work it was muddied even more. Not to mention that fact that these industries are evolving constantly - you always feel you’re a new skill behind

Throw in being a natural people pleaser too - which I now know thanks to my very in depth ADHD assessment is heavily influenced by my Neurodivergent brain - and you’ll find yourself with an exhausting work schedule minus the fiscal reward or personal enrichment, with the added bonus of self loathing - annoyed that you’ve let people take advantage over and over again.

I use ‘take advantage’ in a few ways. Some will notice that your following on social media isn’t as high as others, so will see that as an opportunity to suggest that you could be willing and eager to do the work, as it could be beneficial ‘considering your size’. There will be others that know you and your nature, and how you tend to want to be helpful to others, and use that to their gain. There will be others who will have approached you before and achieved some free effort from you, who are trying their luck again, completely oblivious to the fact that you presumed you'd actually be rewarded for previous work rather than be pressed for more. There will be others that will use that element of the competition to encourage you to lower your quote, sometimes even naming peers in the industry who were willing to or have previously accepting the work for cheaper.?

It’s a tough time for businesses, and it’s obvious to me that Covid had a huge impact on budgets when it comes to content creation, marketing, influencer outreach etc. But it’s so strange to me that businesses can’t make the connection that if things for them are tight, or tighter, that it’s likely to be the same story for the people they are approaching for this free labour.?

I am sympathetic to new and merging businesses that can’t afford to invest in the same way established ones can who have enough experience to know their money is being spent well and will reap results, but it doesn’t change how that email request makes the recipient feel in regards to their own self worth and career journey. Not to mention the time it wastes when we have to email back and forth only to realise there is no budget at the end of it.?

Transparency....

People didn’t used to talk as openly about pay as they do now. We have so many brave people speaking out on here and other apps so transparently about fair pay and businesses ethics that is much easier to have a handle on what we should be accepting and what we should be pushing back on.?

I genuinely felt more empowered to turn down work that didn’t sit right with me once our community started to be more vocal about how impactful it can be for the industry as a whole when you agree to unpaid/badly paid work or unrealistic expectations.?

If I’m honest part of that was people-pleasing too, I didn’t want to let the side down by contributing to this systemic problem. It should have been about knowing my self-worth and advocating for myself, but as I’m taking about transparency, initially it was more about trying to be a good ally in the industry. They’d often say that this issue would never improve if people were constantly agreeing to do the unpaid work.?I'd feel personally attached whenever I saw these posts.

Plus some people would know that I was likely doing to work unpaid if they saw me post about a brand that their manager had just declined on their behalf, so I guess shame was also part of that decision making too.?

So, how have I handled these recent requests? Not perfectly is the answer.?

As I’ve said in previous articles about those with ADHD - we can be impulsive. So I do try to sit with the email for a bit knowing that an immediate response could be emotional. That inherent people-pleasing nature hasn’t really subsided so I do tend to overcompensate - I really don’t want them to think bad of me for declining their offer, one which might have felt completely reasonable or appealing. I still find myself over-sharing too, I guess in a way to eradicate any guilt I still feel about saying no. I’m so aware that the some people emailing are having to ask things they’d rather not, and simply being messengers for their bosses.?

In one over explaining reply I shared that as a Disabled woman with mounting medical costs already juggling several jobs that I really couldn’t take on unpaid work, not to mention it would be unfair to the brands who pay me money for the services they are requesting from me. In part I think it’s important to remind clients that approach for this work, that we too have budgets/personal stresses to keep in mind, and have to be mindful of where we use our energy. But then my overthinking brain worries that they might have found that 'too much info', and perhaps emotionally manipulative. But I was just being completely honest.?

So the reality is that I’ve gotten much better at politely pushing back to these emails. Sometimes this changes nothing, other times the brand will be gracious and accepting and say they’ll be in touch once there is budget, AND actually follow through with that. There will be others that will email the exact same request a week later, which makes me realise how impersonal it is and that they’re just playing the aforementioned numbers game. I’m sure there will be others who will talk badly about you in the office because they think that you are being unrealistic about your worth - it’s these ones we’ve got to learn to let to let go of…..again, difficult if you’re a people pleaser.

I have said yes to a couple of unpaid but purely gifted collaborations this year. I am currently undergoing a home renovation and these were items I would have genuinely been buying and documenting anyway, so they were genuinely needed and I wasn’t adding any extra work to my schedule, and I saved a helpful amount of money as a result. So I think that’s my boundary really, but I still think there’s room for me to push back a bit harder too. I have a rule that I never share insights if they’ve not paid for the privilege of that, I'm at least very firm on that one. ?

Unless its a passion project you’re all equally invested in, I believe EVERYONE should be paid for their time, effort and expertise and if you’ve chosen to approach someone you obviously believe that have something to offer your brand/business. Hopefully most people are aware that certain elements will impact their pay of course - I wouldn’t expect to earn the same amount as a content created with 1million followers. But if I’m spending hours creating work for you I would expect to be rewarded in a tangible that will enable me to stay afloat during this tricky financial period, particularly when I know my effort are saving your business hundreds if not thousands of pounds in shoot costs.?

While I back up everything I’m saying and would say to any brand or business that if you can’t afford it you should’t ask for it, this isn’t going to be terribly helpful for those new business who are trying to spread the word on social media or trying to gain some momentum and awareness.?

So in the comments let’s share some ideas….

Should it be about working out your own personal boundaries in regards to low/unpaid work, or should we always consider its impact on the industry as a whole?

How do you respond to request for unpaid work? How often can successful communication lead to an increase in budget or future opportunities?

Is there a way smaller/new businesses can approach individuals for unpaid work in an ethical and sensitive way?

How can smaller brands/businesses create brand awareness if they have no/small budget?