Table of contents for From Zero to Money at oDesk
- Creating a Professional Profile at oDesk
- Getting and Keeping Clients
- oDesk Diary
From the buyer’s perspective, your profile is you. Unless you’ve worked for me on other projects, the only way I have to judge whether or not to interview you is by what I read in your cover letter and what I find in your profile.
Put yourself in my shoes. I am trying to match a writer to a job I have in mind. I receive oodles of responses when I post my project, and I’m cruising profiles…
Answer these questions for me:
- Do you have the skills I need?
- Do you have the experience?
- How much will it cost to hire you?
If your profile doesn’t give me the right answers to these questions, I’m going to move on to other candidates.
Demonstrate your skills.
oDesk offers a ton of tests that allow you to flaunt your skill set. Take advantage of them. If you are offering writing services, make sure you have a decent score in the English test (sentence structure) and any other area that you specialize in. If you don’t score well the first time, retake the test when you are eligible. You can also display any certifications and education you have.
Show off your experience.
The absolute best qualification I can pick out of your profile is experience and good feedback on a job that matches up to the one I am trying to fill. But, short of this, a related job will do. If I need several articles on mink farming, and you have just finished a mink farming e-book assignment, you can bet I’m going to interview you. Add your best articles in the areas you will be applying for work in the portfolio projects section.
Are you affordable?
While the first two questions convince me that you can do the job, the third tells me if I can afford to have you do my job. More experience, better buyer feedback and how closely you match the skill set I need all influence how much I will be willing to pay. It works the other way round too. Look around at the profiles of other writers working in the area you want to work. Compare your tests, experience and skills with theirs. And look at their job history to get an idea what they charged. Be realistic. But don’t sell your talents cheap either.
Projecting the right online image.
In the world of freelance writing, clips are king. Your work examples prove you can do what you claim you can do. Use URLs in cover letters and in your profile so that clients can see what you have done and evaluate it. So where can you park clips? Two good places are- your own web page, and no, low, or slow paying commercial sites. I’ve parked six articles at Helium.com (there are others of this ilk, I’m not recommending this one particularly) that have earned me a total of 52 cents- yes, cents. I’ve made much, much more by referencing the URLs for those articles as clips.
Bottom line, if you are a writer, you should have written. So show me.
- Jumping Through Hoops
- Are You in Integrity?
- Get a buyer’s perspective on your oDesk profile
- Ever wondered what a buyer thinks about your profile?
- How Good Are You at English?
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