How online freelancers develop competencies to maintain career employability

This study aims to discern how online freelancers’ sequence of learning helps them develop competencies to maintain employability in their freelancing careers. The study employs thematic analysis to examine data collected from a social networking user group of freelancers over 12 months. The overarching themes revealed (1) the demands and challenges that freelancers experience on the job and (2) how freelancers manage the role’s demands through their systematic approach to developing particular relational, operational, and emotional competencies. In turn, such competencies enhance the discernment of how freelancers maintain their employability and how the human resource development (HRD) function in contracting firms can support freelancers in their career pursuits. Moreover, contributing to intelligent career theory, the findings depict how freelancers’ development of knowing the appropriate time (i.e. knowing when) to use their competencies may serve as a roadmap to their career sustainability over time in this form of work.