Farah Sadiq – Freelance Writer

by Zainab Nasir
(Karachi)

Farah Sadiq is a young achiever and a freelance writer in Pakistan offering content writing services to international start-ups as well as local companies.

Expertise: Freelance Writer
Professional: Farah Sadiq
Location: Karachi, Pakistan

Farah Sadiq Freelance Writer - Interview

I live in Karachi, though my hometown is Hyderabad. I had a very interesting career path to date; I started giving tuitions from my teenage as I navigated through life, with my high school and college studies.

Due to unavoidable circumstance and a lot of pressure from other family members, my parents forced me to pursue higher education in Hyderabad. However, I always wanted to study in some renowned business school, like LUMS, IBA, etc. I even got selected for the first round of admissions in LUMS, I got selected with 2 more girls from our college in Hyderabad. But I ended up studying in a small bungalow type university which was banned and closed by HEC, 4 years back.

I had completed my two years of BBA from there and then worked hard for my admission in Iqra University. As I did not have any other options because of my credit hour issues. During my first year at Iqra, I realized that whatever my perceptions were about professions and professional life, they had not been true.

I never wanted to work with startups.

Lavish offices, cubicles, large corporate offices, huge number of employees, always attracted me, but this was before entering into graduation.

During the initial years of my studies at the Iqra University my family had major financial crises and I had to do some part-time job to support myself and fund my studies. Before entering the job market I had participated in a few youth events as a delegate and eventually started working as an organizer in youth events where I and my group organized motivational speaking sessions and huge sponsored events too. It was from there that I was picked up by one not-for-profit organization and worked as a lead event organizer for them. It was with them that I had the chance to organize TEDx video events, guest speakers sessions, collaborating with other companies’ events, toast masters, to name a few.

It was a small startup and they did BIG, it was there that I had realized that “big elephants” are targets of every one. Everyone wants to work with the big fish and nobody would work with that start up. This was the time when entrepreneurship was the buzzword in Pakistan and every other person I met in different events was CEO of a company. Those companies had no permanent address or offices at times, they were working from their homes/virtually. They could not afford to hire any full time employees for the small tasks that they had to delegate and they would often hire on weekly or daily basis. After one year of full time job, I decided to quit and started as a freelancer in a Canadian Startup Company. I started with a data entry job and 3 months later, they asked me to start content writing for them.

Long story short, around 2 years of working in the same manner as a freelancer and earning much more than an average full time graduate employee can earn in Pakistan, I was not only able to score some interesting projects but was quite happy to be working online too. Today I run my own start up, I hire writers from all over Pakistan and have my very own clients, it took me over 4 years to get here, 4 long years of hard work and not giving up!

A word of advice you would like to pass on to women professionals who wish to pursue a career:

“Work hard, until your idols become your rivals.“

This quote is for anyone, any gender and of any age. Sharpen your mind, stay focused on your long term goals. Don’t be sad for short term hurdles. Because they are temporary. The best thing about time is that it will pass, so be happy, sincere with yourself first, respect yourself and then you are good to lead your family, office, team or soldiers.