Websites for freelancers – Upwork

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The right places for finding work are, above all, the most crucial thing if you don’t want to waste your precious time. Even more, they are going to help you get a stable job.
If you have a set of skills and you want to earn some money, you should apply at Upwork.

Disclosure: Bear in mind that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and if you go through them to make a purchase, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is entirely up to you.
All this helps at keeping my little Blog alive, thank you.

The right place for finding work – part I

Upwork

 Introduction:

The right places for finding work-upw title

Upwork(link) is USA based firm, one of the largest and most popular global freelancing websites. With millions of jobs posted on Upwork annually, freelancers are earning money by providing companies with over 5,000 skills across more than 70 categories of work.
Their mission is ‘to
create economic opportunities so people have better lives.’ -You can sign me up for that! Their mission is similar to my idea for this site.

They have recently conducted a study with a Freelancers Union, which revealed that in 2019. fifty-seven million Americans, representing 35% of the workforce, freelanced in 2019. A similar survey conducted in 2014. showed that 53 million Americans freelanced in that year. 
Furthermore, the same study showed us that freelancing income is already on par with major industries.
This freelancer workforce contributes nearly 1 trillion dollars to the economy — that’s 5% of USA GDP.

They always have lots of jobs listed on their feed, plus they designed it clean and simple.

From data entry, transcribing, virtual assistant work, to physics or high-end engineer jobs, everything is there.
A few months ago, they started charging connects. It’s their token that you use when applying for job positions that you like.
To send your proposal on the job, you must use 1-6 connects. Upwork sells them for the price of 1,5$=10 connects.
If you are not careful, and if you apply for jobs left and right, it becomes a severe money drain instead of a place of your additional income.

My take on it:

My advice is – choose wisely and apply only for jobs that fit you perfectly and where you have all the necessary prerequisites.

It’s very tough to get the job you are aiming for due to a high number of competitors. Competition is fierce, especially if you are new to this and don’t yet have any standing with them.

You should pick a job that is newly listed, then offer the client fast return time and a very low rate.
After 4-8 jobs are under your belt, you will have your rating, and you will have reviews from your clients (hopefully positive ones).
Then you can start aiming for better jobs/rates with better chances of landing at some quality work.

The right places for finding work

Even then, you must be patient and persistent. If you take a look at the picture with my proposals screen, you can see that I currently have 69 submitted proposals! (Actually, that is about two months worth most are not active anymore).

Will you get jobs also depends on a fact how good is your portfolio uploaded there.
It should be relevant to the field you are applying for, but it also should be without any grammar errors. That goes for the submitted proposals too.
If English is not your native language, don’t be afraid to use tools for grammar checking like Grammarly.
I’m using it all the time, as English is not my native language, and it helps me a lot.

 

Details:

The right places for finding work - Upwork
Figure: details

This is the screen where you will spend most of your time. So on the left, we have My Categories section, you can edit those to reflect your skillset.
Furthermore, to the right are actual jobs feed. With information about what kind of job it is, what are they looking for…

You must go over these very carefully and apply only to those where you are a 100% match.
Applying on the job here is a straightforward process of submitting your proposal.

Here it’s what that looks like:
Upwork title
Figure: submit a proposal

So here, you can enter your hourly rate, deducted by Upwork’s fee, and you can see the total amount you will receive (before tax).
In the additional details section, you should enter your proposition, why should they choose you? Be polite and concise.
Ask about a job-related problem. Answer all of their questions, if they got any, and do it honestly.

Don’t be too broad. I found it’s better to keep it short.

When submitting proposals, don’t just copy&paste from one to another, people have the way of knowing this stuff, and they hate it.


And at the end, there is attachments segment where you will attach files if asked to do so.

Summary – The right places for finding work, Upwork:

Let’s recap what you need to do to start earning money on Upwork:

-Make an account
-Be sure your portfolio is great
-Filter and apply only for the jobs you are a good fit
-Be polite and concise when submitting proposals
-Take a few small bellow prices jobs to get your ratings up
-When you get a job, do it carefully and finish it on time
-Be persistent, don’t give up

Finally, let’s hope this will help you get into the right places for finding work. (One for a start, others will follow soon).

Good luck!

Read more topics on my Blog for more info about how to get a stable job suited for you.
Or head in for big jobs list on the Best freelance websites section.

If you liked it, please leave a comment and don’t forget to share this post!



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