Stories

My Upwork Story

Upwork Story

To those who have no Idea about what upwork is. Upwork is a freelancing marketplace much like freelancer.com, peopleperhour.com, etc. where you get paid to work from home.

I know that “get paid to work from home” made you interested in upwork, but I have to stop you right there. As much as it sounds exciting to pursue a career as an upworker. It is as challenging as well. Here, I am going to share you my experience of starting out in upwork.

I started out my upwork journey around 8 months ago and this may surprise you, but I won my first job after just 3 months of being active it the marketplace. Which means I was able to show myself to be better than millions in just 3 months. Although it sounds like an impressive feat, it is not.

You see, there are some tricks and rules that you need to follow to land your first job. And yes, it is easy to get your first job at upwork. It took me 3 months, but if you follow a simple step than you might land one in your first month.

How to land your first job in upwork?

  1. Download and install the google chrome extension named “RSS Feed Reader“.
  2. Add the RSS from upwork to it. To do so, first search for a type of job. Example: HTML.
    When you see the page like the one below. Click on the RSS icon and then click on “RSS”. That will take you to another page. Once there your “RSS Feed Reader” extension will ask you to subscribe to this feed.
    Upwork RSS

Now wait. Whenever a new job is posted in upwork, you will be the first one to get notified.

The key to landing an interview is to act quick and charge relatively less. You will have a higher chance of getting the job if you react quickly on the vacancy. The first job is all about being quick to response and timing. The jobs that follows after the first one is the most difficult ones.

The second Job:

So now you have completed your first job and have earned a 5-star rating. Now comes the greater challenge. Now it gets tough. When you were new to upwork, you were among the newbies. Now once you receive your first rating, you are in the “Experienced Up worker” zone. Now employers start comparing you with the experienced ones. That is how it gets tougher. Now you will need extra skills to land your next job.

Before it was all about less price and quick message. Now it is that and your skill to leave an impression through your message.

How to become a successful Freelancer?

There are many ways to become a successful freelancer. But here I will list down the things that has helped me to be a job winning freelancer.

  1. Charge less in the beginning. Charging less will help you win more jobs. More jobs means more hours in upwork. More hours results in better profile.
  2. Whenever you are free, create your own project or build a theme to sell it on online marketplaces like theme forest, etc. This helps you sharpen your skills and increases your portfolio volume.
  3. Do not take too much projects. Just because you are receiving a lot of work does not mean you have to take it all. If you have a team, then that’s another thing. But if you are a single freelancer, learn to say no.
  4. Always put your work first. One bad review and your upwork career comes to a halt. Remember for the first few jobs, you are working for reviews not money.
  5. Communicate more frequently. Clients love freelancers that communicates freely, clearly and frequently.

If you follow all of these tips, I can definitely say that you will become a successful freelancer. Freelancing is not freedom, it’s about having an opportunity to work on different varieties of project. It’s a career where you get to work on really exciting projects and learn exciting things. It pushes you to your limits, but that’s a good thing. After all that is what makes you grow as a developer or designer.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*