Nora M wrote:
Thank you, Preston, for your quick reply and guidance.
I wish was as you say, but if you have been in our position, you must know well that most clients do mean non-disclosure, and if I signed for it, I respect it.
I do not understand what you mean by
"If you create original work for a client, but the client doesn't pay for it, then the work belongs to you, and you may include it in your portfolio." as all the work that I do in UpWork is paid by the client.
I do not think that creating a work specifically for the purpose of adding my portfolio is fair to the client, because I can create whatever, but that does not mean that any client is happy with it.
About your answer
"Your portfolio pieces do NOT need to be work that you did on Upwork, and they do NOT need to be work that you were paid for", I do not agree, because my samples should be about my work in UpWork and not about whatever I do outside of this place.
I appreciate your answer and understand your point of view, but when it comes to the real UpWork, most of your advice is not well seen.
I will take your advice
I am a grant writer, and even though most grants I write could technically be requested through FOIA, I still don't share samples without permission. On the other side, I have signed recommendation letters from a wide variety of clients confirming which grants I wrote for them, my role, and how much they won. Most of my clients aren't really going to know what a well-written grant looks like anyhow, neither will they understand the randomn technical things written for one client in medical research versus another client in art conservation. I do have samples of my writing I can share that aren't NDA covered - such as research articles I've published with my clients - and those also denote if I was a coauthor or an editor - but I find the letters of recommendation are far more useful.
Perhaps in lieu of accounting samples, you could get similar letteres from satisfied clients so that you don't have to disclose covered information. Most of my prospective clients completely understand when I say that I can't share their propietary grant information just as they wouldn't want me to share theirs, and I give them the recommendation letter and the reference instead. For my part, they can also simply Google my name and see that my work history and accomplishments are legit.
I agree with Preston that it doesn't have to be UpWork client recommendations. I have clients from UpWork and from elsewhere, and the work I do for them is the same work I've done on UpWork. The client doesn't care as much where I did the other work as long as they can see that I have indeed done the other work. Maybe you are finding it's different with the clients you are communicating with, but I have found that they don't care much if my experience is on or off UpWork (to an extent of course - they often don't want someone who has done no work on UpWork but that's different than a sample or recommendation from an off UpWork client).
Hope this helps.
