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8 Tips to getting hired in upwork

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8 tips for upwork

As someone who’s had a ton of success on Upwork, the number one question I get is about how a freelancer can increase their odds of getting hired. It’s a great question, and I can understand why the question comes up so often. It’s tough out there.

As more and more people flock to the platform, the competition is only getting tougher. I find that the majority of people that struggle to get hired are making key mistakes in two main areas: their proposals and their profile.

You can follow all of these guidelines even if you have zero work history on Upwork.

When you first sit down to write a proposal there’s a knee jerk reaction that says, “I need to convince the client to hire me.” So you go into pitch mode and start to list out reasons why you think they should choose you.

It’s a very natural thing to do. But if you look closely you’ll see that the Sell Yourself approach contains a number of fatal flaws:

Some people think clients choose freelancers based solely on their qualifications and experience.

But is that really the way it works? When you look closer at how the hiring process unfolds, a different story starts to take shape…

For example, the other day a designer posted a comment on my blog about how a client chose her over a more skilled freelancer…because she cared more.

Don’t underestimate the power of making a personal connection in your proposals. Freelancing is a people business — not a resume game.

Some great ways to quickly build rapport in your proposals:

Some of the most common phrases clients will encounter from your competitors sound like this:

Those are all examples of telling the client you know what you’re doing.

People default to telling because it’s easy and it doesn’t require any imagination. You just copy and paste your qualifications and you’re done with it.

It’s also BORING. Like a comedian saying “I’m funny” — right before being booed off the stage.

Whether you think you’re amazing or not, say something that SHOWS clients you’re someone worth listening to. Here are some great ways to do that:

If you’re applying to jobs that you’re truly a good fit for, you likely have sample work you could be sending to the client. But most of the proposals I get include no such thing. So, if you’ve got great samples of work, attach it to your proposal, none of your competition is.

To get an even bigger advantage, spend a little money or time ensuring the design of your attachments are awesome. A little extra effort will go a long way here.

Getting hired often happens because you’ve described the clearest path between their current state (they have a problem/need) and the solution (you’ve shown them the way).

proposal tip is all about timing. I have found that there is a high correlation to the proximity of a proposal’s submission time and the time the job posting. I recall numerous times where I’ve my proposal was submitted within a couple hours of the job posting, and being hired shortly after.

I recommend bookmarking the common searches you do for jobs, and checking them every couple hours. If you see something that you’re a good fit for, write the proposal now.

If you’ve been around Upwork for a while, you’ve probably acquired a Job Success Score (JSS). A JSS is how your past hirers have rated you. Simply put, if you’ve delivered awesome results, you’ve probably got a great JSS. I consider a JSS of 90% or higher as strong. If this is you, your JSS is probably not holding you back.

If your JSS is below 90%, that puts you at a disadvantage against the market, and you probably need to spend more time ensuring that you’re making the customer happy with what they’re getting.

There are always risks of having a nightmare client that expects too much, or doesn’t fit your personality. Even the best of us, get a less than perfect rating once or twice per year (in the long run it’s inevitable). If you think about it, you can’t really blame a potential hirer for excluding you from their shortlist if you have a history of providing work that the customer wasn’t happy with. If your JSS is lacking, it’s not a quick fix, but you need to focus on delivering better results. Regular check-ins with clients can help. Also, if you’ve gotten bad feedback, consider reaching out to the client to see how you can make them happy with your work together.

This one is pretty simple, but is an area where I see people trip, every day. When setting up your profile, did you grab the first decent photo you could find? That’s the impression I get when I see the majority of profile photos. Big mistake.

As humans, we want to work with people we think we’ll like. We are more likely to think we will like someone with a smiling profile photo. Yet, most of us grab a photo of the wedding we went to, crop out everyone else, and never revisit again. If this is you, keep reading.

A solid profile photo, is one that contains a smile, professional attire and a calm backdrop. So get to it:

If you stick to these 8 things guidelines, you can write proposals that are better than 95% of your competitors, including many of the more experienced ones.

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