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kymleemurphy
Community Member

Profile Critique request by Seasoned UW Freelancers

Good day everyone!

I've seen this done on this forum before so I am also requesting a profile critique as I'd received one prior when I started posting here about the number of scams I've run into. I had a very simple paragraph listed prior and was told it "screamed newbie." So now, I want to ensure that I am capturing my competencies with the clients proclivity of 'Caveat Emptor' in mind. I want to garner attention from real jobs, and of course I was advised that newbie profiles tend to attract scammers. I figured I would change my profile to accurately reflect skills and add referrals (as I've seen done on several other UW profiles), and hopefully that will assist. Could you please let me know if there's anything you think I should add or redact from your perspective and why based on your experiences here on UW? I appreciate you taking the time in advance.

Hope everyone who celebrated the holiday-- had a wonderful Easter. 🙂

 

The link is : https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01aea6659ddfc06516/

4 REPLIES 4
martina_plaschka
Community Member


Kym M wrote:

Good day everyone!

I've seen this done on this forum before so I am also requesting a profile critique as I'd received one prior when I started posting here about the number of scams I've run into. I had a very simple paragraph listed prior and was told it "screamed newbie." So now, I want to ensure that I am capturing my competencies with the clients proclivity of 'Caveat Emptor' in mind. I want to garner attention from real jobs, and of course I was advised that newbie profiles tend to attract scammers. I figured I would change my profile to accurately reflect skills and add referrals (as I've seen done on several other UW profiles), and hopefully that will assist. Could you please let me know if there's anything you think I should add or redact from your perspective and why based on your experiences here on UW? I appreciate you taking the time in advance.

Hope everyone who celebrated the holiday-- had a wonderful Easter. 🙂

 

The link is : https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01aea6659ddfc06516/


It is much better, but..................

1. Don't do third person. It's distancing.

2. The references are nice, but too long, just use some nice short quotes and lose anything referring to full-time jobs.

3. Sounds too much like a resume. Freelancing is a whole different ball game. 

4. I will now, if you keep this between us, let you in on the secret of success on upwork. I am only telling you because you're not my competition. (Anybody who is my competition, move along!) And it is: It's all about the human connection. I need to know immediately that there is a real person behind this profile, a person I like, want to work with, and pay my money to. Your profile does not achieve that even a little bit. Same of course goes for proposals, they need to make the client want to see your profile. But the profile is what gets you hired. No worries, you are getting there. 

 

You know Martina, thought it may be a little formal however I am used to doing freelance work in my industry which calls for a bit more technical and distanced performance. I completely understand what you mean by the human connection element as I really believe in the human workplace personally and as a leadership style. However, people looking for my type of service generally want to see quantifiable information that relates to their asks which is why I had determined this approach might make more sense. I added the referrals to try to bridge that gap a bit to show that real people are talking about the work I did with emotion apparent. That I am a professional, but I am also a person who understands their needs and can deliver. I like how personal your profile is, and it makes complete sense for translation services too. You can't be an automaton because you have to understand tonal inflection and meaning behind words as well as the literal translation. I'm just wondering how I can bridge the robotic vs human gap so that both sides are acquiesced appropos. Thanks for your assistance here. I know you were the first to mention it, and I took heed to your words. Also, just now I added a project sample of technical writing I completed this past fall if you hadn't had a chance to review. I did that after I posted this initially.

 

Thanks again. 🙂


Kym M wrote:

You know Martina, thought it may be a little formal however I am used to doing freelance work in my industry which calls for a bit more technical and distanced performance. I completely understand what you mean by the human connection element as I really believe in the human workplace personally and as a leadership style. However, people looking for my type of service generally want to see quantifiable information that relates to their asks which is why I had determined this approach might make more sense. I added the referrals to try to bridge that gap a bit to show that real people are talking about the work I did with emotion apparent. That I am a professional, but I am also a person who understands their needs and can deliver. I like how personal your profile is, and it makes complete sense for translation services too. You can't be an automaton because you have to understand tonal inflection and meaning behind words as well as the literal translation. I'm just wondering how I can bridge the robotic vs human gap so that both sides are acquiesced appropos. Thanks for your assistance here. I know you were the first to mention it, and I took heed to your words. Also, just now I added a project sample of technical writing I completed this past fall if you hadn't had a chance to review. I did that after I posted this initially.

 

Thanks again. 🙂


By all means, stay authentic and find what works for you! 

I second everything Petra said, and now: Martina out! (drops mic)

petra_r
Community Member


Kym M wrote:

So now, I want to ensure that I am capturing my competencies with the clients proclivity of 'Caveat Emptor' in mind. I want to garner attention from real jobs, and of course I was advised that newbie profiles tend to attract scammers.

 

The link is : https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01aea6659ddfc06516/


Your profile has an identity crisis...

 

Lose the 3rd person speech.

Shorten it!

Simplify the language. It reads forced / borderline pompous in places.

 

Make up your mind what you are trying to sell. Don't throw everything you could possibly do onto a page in the hope that the client might need one of a dozen unrelated skills. Data Entry and Project Management should never be on the same profile, let alone in the same sentence.

 

Looking at your overview and then your skills there is a disconnect. Your title says "Project Manager" - yet your skills say something totally different.

 

Things like data entry and typist duties can be had for peanuts on Upwork, and US based entry level freelancers who offer those services become scam-bait, as you have noticed.

 

Clients will be confused why anyone who wants to sell themselves as a $ 50 an hour project manager would even mention entry level stuff like that.

 

I would suggest you scrap the lot. Make up your mind what it is you are trying to offer, then write your overview based on that, in nice, clear, unpretentious, un-convoluted language and in the first person.

 

I am torn between losing the referrals and leaving them at the end, where they don't do much harm and should a client want to read them, they can. Most won't.

Maybe shorten them to a max. of two lines each.

 

Watch grammar, capitalization and punctuation, especially if you are listing writing and proofreading as skills...

 

Proofread your portfolio items. There should not be any mistakes in the first paragraph of two out of three portfolio items.

 

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