Hiring a newbie

[#1]

Hi all,

I am an ambitious Industrial and Systems Engineer with a great background and experience in corporate world. I just joined 2 days ago, spent all my connections to the projects related with my field but I cannot get any acceptance. One company wanted to interview me but their job postings werent compliance with Upwork's Terms. My luck 🙂 Please give me some tips to get my first contract, my hourly fee is very low

[#2]

You need to work on your profile - there's hardly any information in there - and be more patient. Two days is nothing. If you've run out of connects, you can buy more. And I don't think that a low hourly rate is a good selling point; if a client wants to hire an expert, they're going to be looking for someone who charges more than $4/hour.

[#3]

Thank you for your positive feedback! At first, my hourly price was higher. But I thought, to get my first contract I must lower it since I don't have any experience here in Upwork. I cannot see anyones education or work experience outside of Upwork, do you think I should keep them?

Thank you,

[#4]

---

Begüm A wrote:

Thank you for your positive feedback! At first, my hourly price was higher. But I thought, to get my first contract I must lower it since I don't have any experience here in Upwork. I cannot see anyones education or work experience outside of Upwork, do you think I should keep them?

Thank you,

---

Typical newbie mistake. You don't need to start with low-paying jobs, in fact, a very low rate can be to your detriment as Christine pointed out. In order to impress a potential client with your expertise, you need to have a well-crafted profile, though. 

[#5 · Accepted solution]

---

Begüm A wrote:

I cannot see anyones education or work experience outside of Upwork, do you think I should keep them?

---

What do you mean? Most people list their education and experience. It helps to have your profile fully filled out, especially since you don't have any Upwork experience yet. So yes, keep them in, and flesh them out with more details (i.e. what were your duties and main accomplishments in the jobs that you've held in the past?). Write a longer and more meaningful profle overview that focuses on what you can do for clients. Put some stuff into the portfolio section - if you don't have work samples, write some case studies of projects that you've done before. Ask your Linked In connections to provide testimonials. All of this helps. Spend a whole day working on it before you send any more proposals.

[#6]

Hi Christine,

Thank you so much for your feedbacks! I worked on my profile and my work descriptions today. I'll add more projects and testimonials. Other than that, I hope I created a nice profile.