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Jeanne's avatar
Jeanne H Community Member

To all freelancers looking for help

I have always had freelancers come to me for help. In the last year, the river has swelled into an enormous ocean.

 

You don't need me; Upwork provides an enormous amount of information that few ever use. If, after you have gone through all the information I provide, you still have questions, that is when you ask additional questions in the forum.

 

If you think you will make big bucks right away, you are mistaken. The majority of freelancers never land a job because they have no skills and aren't interested in educating themselves. Others believe online freelancing is a path to full-time employment. It can be, but highly unlikely on this platform.

 

Freelancing is not for everyone. It means you are self-employed and must adhere to all regulations and laws governing responsibilities, such as paying taxes. Freelancing means you are on your own. No one has your back, including Upwork. If you don't follow the rules, no one will or can help you.

 

If you are willing to work hard, follow the rules and prepared to spend a lot of connects and proposals, you can be successful, as many are on Upwork. While so many fail, it is almost always due to lack of skills and treating freelancing like employment  where the employer will make sure you do the job correctly.

 

If you want to succeed, start with the Terms of Service, then read this from Wes. 

 

Then go here. Then here.  Next, check this site regularly for events such as webinars and other learning opportunities.

After that, go here for safety information, and then here. If you still need help, after you have gone through all the previous steps, you can find additional help here. This thread is dedicated to new freelancers. And here are announcements from Upwork that can help keep you up to date.

 

It will take some time to go through all the information. I'm not suggesting people should not post in the forum, I am suggesting before you ask questions and want help, you need to help yourself first.

 

 

From Prashant P: "And have relevant profile picture of your face.  Not some desks, or Mickey mouse, or full face covering." 

From Susan S: "And patience! Have patience! It takes a while to get started, even after going through all the information available."

From Martina P:  "Only one thing you forgot, namely telling people to use all 15 skills, if you have all 15 skills"

And with advice from Maria T, I will say, 

Refrain from personal messages, please read all the links I have added.

 

 

1,971 REPLIES 1,971
Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member

Thanks! Why don't you use all 15 skills, yet tell everyone to do it?

Christopherson's avatar
Christopherson G Community Member

Hey,

It's great to see these important links, I'm new here and felt lost, but I'll keep looking and stay informed

One of the admins should pin that post because it's very helpful for new freelancers.

Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member

Excellent post, Jeanne H! Only one thing you forgot, namely telling people to use all 15 skills. Thanks!

Zohaib Ali's avatar
Zohaib Ali K Community Member

This flew over my head. Which 15 skills are we talking about?

Jonathan's avatar
Jonathan L Community Member

Add Skills. They are located just below your portfolio section. They look like this (taken from my profile):

25005175_0-1672912533232.png

 

Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member

Jonathan, I noticed you only used 14. Please add one. Thank you. 

Jonathan's avatar
Jonathan L Community Member

Yeah, that's because I struggle to find a 15th that is a skill that I actually want to advertise. I definitely have other skills, but they are either wholly unrelated to my main services or are a service that I don't want to provide.

Douglas Michael's avatar
Douglas Michael M Community Member

Jonathan, I believe your leg has been successfully pulled.

Martina's avatar
Martina P Community Member

Should I go for the other one too?

Radia's avatar
Radia L Community Member

Martina, I've been seeing the "15 skills" talks lately and I'm actually wondering...

 

Do I need to reduce my skills to, let's say, only 3 skills that I think has the most probability of getting matched?  Thanks!

Douglas Michael's avatar
Douglas Michael M Community Member

Interjecting, if I may:
I choose skills based on the likelihood of their attracting my target clientele. I may have as many as a dozen. I resist Upwork's repeated blandishments to add more; their suggestions are typically either for skills below outside my target market, or verifiable spam magnets—or, laughably, ones that I have already listed. I would suggest our skills, whatever their number, should exclusively reflect the peak value we can offer our target clients.

Radia's avatar
Radia L Community Member

Thanks Douglas,

 

I thought including 15 skills will simply maximize the probability of being matched, but I'm now thinking the algo is not that simple.

Jeanne's avatar
Jeanne H Community Member

Upwork keeps telling us it is crucial to have 15 skills, but I, too, wonder if that messes with the program. I may drop some of my skills and see if I detect any changes.

Anthony's avatar
Anthony H Community Member

I haven't a clue how many skills I have listed ... and I'm not very interested, either.

 

This is a nice discussion, too.  Thanks, Jeanne and others.

Tetiana's avatar
Tetiana C Community Member

Hello, Anthony! I'm a big fan of yours, I read a lot of your recommendations for freelancers, and a lot of what you said I applied to my profile. But I can't get my first order. Anthony, could you please take a look and evaluate my profile and give me a recommendation? Thank you very much.

Atif's avatar
Atif Z Community Member

I don't think you have to downsize those things of what you are capable of

Jonathan's avatar
Jonathan L Community Member


Martina P wrote:

Should I go for the other one too?


I'll be walking funny until you do

Zoran's avatar
Zoran P Community Member

I tried to edit my skills but it says only 10 skills maximum. ...and before I clicked edit I had 15?

 

Muhammad's avatar
Muhammad F Community Member

can you please tell me how did you use dark mode in upwork ?

Jeanne's avatar
Jeanne H Community Member

Upwork will not provide a dark mode, so you have to use programs from outside. I use Dark Reader.

 

Unfortunately, with Upwork messing with the jobs page, now you can't see the job titles with Dark Mode. Freelancers have been begging for a dark mode, for at least a decade, but Upwork refuses. So now, you can't use Dark Reader, unless you want to guess what the job title is.

 

There are other programs out there, and maybe Upwork will allow one of them to work. I have never understood why they insist on violating the accessible standards for all websites, and insist on temporarily blinding people. It's one thing to not offer a basic dark mode, and quite another to intentionally make the programs unusuable.

Maria's avatar
Maria T Community Member

Perfect Jeanne. Applause.
I've flagged your post to see if we can get it pinned along with Wes's in the top positions on both Freelancers and New to Upwork.
I feel sorry for you, but you are going to be inundated with messages.
I think you should add a phrase like "refrain from personal messages, please read all the links I have added".

Jyoti's avatar
Jyoti S Community Member

@Jeanne H

Every single word you have written, is true.

Most importantly, some of the new freelancers think that freelancing is a "get rich quick" scheme. They should remember, freelancing is a business, just like any other.

You need to learn the necessary skills. 

You need to invest money and efforts to succeed in this business.

Go through the material Upwork has provided. Learn some skills, or better still, check the job categories and see if you have some of those skills, then start applying for jobs.

Establishing any business needs skill, time, and investments.

If you don't have these, spend some time and money in learning the skills of some specific category. Then prepare some samples, and then open a "shop" on Upwork.

Just becasue you are shouting the loudest (spenidng 30-50 connects on a single job), doesn't mean that people will buy from you.

Freelancing needs hard work. If you are not ready to put in that hard work, you'll not succed. Here or anywhere else.

Raja Hamza's avatar
Raja Hamza E Community Member

Kindly review my profile and give me suggestions:

 

https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01c40339962b2ea14c

William T's avatar
William T C Community Member

Raja,

 

Please use two Skills in the Title, rewrite the Summary into four compelling paragraphs minus the emoticons with a focus on the first sentence, and use all 15 Skills.

Maria's avatar
Maria T Community Member

Thanks to whoever made the decision to pin the post at the beginning. I think it should also be in New to Upwork, but this at least helps.
I thought Wes's post was also pinned. He should still be there. Scammers are still up with their tricks and there are too many new freelancers as potential victims.
And we already know that they don't read anything, so if they see it on the first line when entering the forums, they might be curious.