Nowadays, it is not easy to find a job with the competition in the market and after AI has expanded. However, one article outlines several ways to prepare for your career while still studying (5 Ways to Prepare for Your Career While Still Studying, 2023). First, start working while you are a student. Working student jobs are designed to be well compatible with your studies: you can work up to 20 hours per week during the semester, and up to 40 hours per week during breaks if you want full-time work. Working student jobs are also offered in many different areas, so you can explore different roles over an extended period of time. Second, research assistant roles generally involve working 15–20 hours per week, often based in the library or with specific academic faculties. Third, Internships during semester breaks are an excellent way to try out different fields and gain a range of experiences. In this article, I describe how to position yourself either as a founder or employee or working as freelance.
What the Three Actually Mean
Employee means operating inside boundaries someone else drew. The comfort isn’t the paycheck itself; it’s that someone else has already decided what “done” looks like, what’s in scope, and what happens if things go wrong. Freelance means owning the execution without owning the direction. A freelancer decides how to do the work and who to do it for, but the underlying problem — what needs solving, what the market wants — usually comes from somewhere else. Founder means owning the direction itself — deciding what should exist before anyone asks for it, and living with the consequences of being wrong about that guess. It’s not about having investors or a company name. However, freelancing can lead to founding: the freelancer who keeps noticing the same unsolved problem across every client, and finally decides to solve it for everyone at once, has already become a founder.
Where LinkedIn Fits In
LinkedIn is one of the few places where that decision becomes visible to everyone else. An employee who writes posts about a problem they solved, a decision they’d make differently, or a lesson from a failed project is doing something else entirely: they’re positioning themselves ahead of any promotion or title change, building a reputation. For a freelancer, you can treat LinkedIn as a portfolio of thinking, not just a listing of services, which is positioning like a founder. For a founder, LinkedIn is where the bet gets tested before the product/service does. Writing publicly about why something should exist — not just announcing that it does — is how a founder finds out if the direction they’ve chosen resonates with anyone besides themselves.
Conclusion
To conclude, remember: whether you’re a freelancer, an employee, or a founder, your rizq is written. Allah (SWT) says: “There is no creature on earth whose provision is not guaranteed by Allah. And He knows where it lives and where it is laid to rest. All is written in a clear Record.” Surah Hud Ayat 6 (11:6 Quran)
