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penguinpete
Community Member

Exactly how is a content cretor for the web supposed to survive UpWork's portfolio system, anyway?

Hi. I don't speak up often. I was grandfathered into UpWork from the oDesk / eLance merger to which I moved after Rent-A-Coder sold off, having done business since before the turn of the century. I keep getting invited to UpWork's "VIP" class. I would join, except that I need a complete portfolio.

 

Long story short: UpWork's portfolio system hates professional bloggers.

 

Issue 1: I sure can't link directly to my work, which is published online, because that's allowing contact outside UpWork.

 

Issue 2: I can't save a WordPress posting as a document, because that preserves the links, see issue 1.

 

Issue 3: I'm not going to save as a plain text file, because I compose _for the web_, which includes embedded multimedia, formatting, bells, whistles.

 

Issue 4: I got clever and tried a screenshot of a whole blog post saved as JPG. Nope, UpWork won't allow images greater than 8Kx8K resolution. You know when a good time to tell me of this limitation would be? Before I was three pages deep in the process! This was only a 2.8K word post, well within the scope of the average order from the average client. However, if I ever get paid to write haikus, I know right where to display them.

 

Issue 5: I'm not going to crop tiny little chunks of my writing. This trashes it. The point of a portfolio is to look good. Amazing!

 

Issue 6: At any rate, I'm pretty terrified to post anything in a portfolio right now given the current ToS storm. My clients are proud to credit me for my work on their site. Literally every sentence I have published on the web can be Googled to take people directly to the source and there's my contact info.

 

Issue 7: I'm not going to write custom tailor content just for my portfolio. I'm too busy working for clients, see "VIP" status above.

 

Issue 8: I'm not going to chop this into a vague description of a project. The _point_ of a portfolio is to _show_ your work. If I draw something, then I upload the image, there it is. But I don't get the same convenience as a writer.

 

Issue 9: The only way I can describe 99% of my projects is "Hey I wrote this thing, it's real popular."

 

Issue 10: I'm not going to jump through too many more hoops to solve this problem. I've been getting work for 20 years with no relevant portfolio (I used to draw stuff just to have something to put in there). I'm not taking time off to devote the year+ disposable time which UpWork seems to feel all freelancers have available.

 

In closing, I'd just like to hear from either UpWork staff about what pro bloggers are supposed to do for a portfolio on your platform (issue #6 is a particularly sticky point), or from other content writers like myself on UpWork who have solved the portfolio problem, preferably with something that takes five minutes or less.

 

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Pete,

 

Thanks for sharing your feedback and experience. Portfolios are an important part of a freelancer’s bidding process to show off their past work and their potential to complete a future project. And I'd like to clarify that we are not prohibiting the sharing of external links to personal portfolios or other websites that provide examples of past work. We recognize that some of these links might include contact information and ways to identify and contact you outside of the Upwork platform. When you share these outside links, please remind potential clients to only communicate with you through Upwork until a contract is in place.

~ Valeria
Upwork

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4 REPLIES 4
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Pete,

 

Thanks for sharing your feedback and experience. Portfolios are an important part of a freelancer’s bidding process to show off their past work and their potential to complete a future project. And I'd like to clarify that we are not prohibiting the sharing of external links to personal portfolios or other websites that provide examples of past work. We recognize that some of these links might include contact information and ways to identify and contact you outside of the Upwork platform. When you share these outside links, please remind potential clients to only communicate with you through Upwork until a contract is in place.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Really! Pardon me, there is a lot of rabble out there about the new ToS, maybe I'm getting swept away in the paranoia.

 

But as a member of staff, you're telling me I can take a webpage, convert it to something like docx format, post it links and all in my portfolio, and still be kosher as long as I make it clear people are not to contact me offsite for initial project negotiations?

 

pandoraharper
Community Member

Pete, I feel your pain.

 

While I am not a "creator" I too have been frustrated by the current Portfolio functions.

 

Might I suggest this workaround, which works great, will not conflict with the 6/26 TOS updates, and generally is less "work" to "create" (asssuming you some some video recording software lying around, which actually might be considered 'scary' to some).

 

Make a video showing your work. Register on Vimeo, and learn how to hide your videos, deny comments, etc. Upload video to Vimeo. Add said Vimeo video as a Portfolio item, along with a description. I have done this, with an an additional asset piece (PDF).

 

Just a suggestion 🙂

 

Edit: Suggesting Vimeo over Youtube because you will have more "viewer" controls, and if you want to go full bar, EXTREME viewer controls with a paid Vimeo account.

Thanks, I did turn over the thought of using video. It's kind of a clumsy way to present the written word, though. It works for the beginning of a space opera movie, but otherwise...

 

That and I'm not ready to make the leap into video. I know I need to someday, I know video is doubling in importance to eCommerce daily. It's just that there's a reason I picked a career where all that matters is my lines of text without other attributes entering the picture.

 

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