Clean the wax out of your ears! Yes, I said, “Upload feature.”

Like any busy yuppie–wait, I live in the suburbs. I guess that makes me a y’suppie. Anyway, like other y’suppies, I like to unwind. One of the things I do to unwind is to find a nice, quiet spot outside to sit and contemplate the philosophical implications of dental floss. However, the neighbor’s dog had dug under the fence once again, and it was yapping away while shooting me that evil eye with the clear intention of disrupting my zen-like state. Seriously, I don’t know how many times I’ve gone over there to tell my neighbor to keep his poofy house-mutt in the house. Clearly, he needed to be reminded in a manner that would make it stick in his memory.

So, as I was taping a lighter to a can of WD-40, I thought to myself, “Hey, my other neighbors have dogs as well. How can I make this problem a non-issue without having to run through cans and cans of aerosol spray?” I knew that I needed to plan ahead. You can melt one neighbor’s face off, but what if he doesn’t know the other neighbors well enough for them to be invited to the funeral?

That’s where I decided to become proactive. Instead of unleashing a torrent of Canned Death ™ every time I am interrupted, I could rain fire and brimstone on the immediate problem while using my free hand to document the ordeal via camcorder. Then, all I have to do is send a copy of that video to each of my neighbors with a letter explaining the virtues of keeping Fido quiet.

As a freelancer,  you can take a lesson from this story.

What? You want me to tell you what it all means? Okay. Well, fair enough. This article is actually about being lazy to achieve better results, so I guess that’s the point. Here’s how you can use that uploading feature (AKA that Attachment box you pass by every time you click the I agree to oDesk’s blah blah blah box on an application) to give yourself an edge over the competition.

To State Things You Have to Tell Every Client Anyway

Like in the example above, you sometimes feel like a broken record saying the same thing many times over to different clients. For example, if your bag is SEO, then you should make a quick write-up for SEO that will be attached to all of the SEO jobs you apply for. In there, you would include the basic terms and ideas of SEO while not giving away your heavy guns. It’s a verification that you know what you’re talking about, and it gives a little free education to the buyer. Free things always make a buyer happy, and if they associate that happiness with you, then you’re much more likely to land a job with him or her. You can even personalize each document you send out so that it applies directly to the specific jobs you are applying for.

You need to mention in the cover letter that you’ve attached a free write-up you’ve compiled for him or her over SEO. That will impress buyers because it shows that you’ve looked over the materials which they have provided in the job listing and are providing your own in turn.

List Example Projects

That’s what the attachments uploader was made for. You put some example programs, art, writing, or whatever it is you do into a zip file and send it off with your cover letter. While there are probably some online examples of your work, there are probably also examples which are not published to the web. An important thing to remember is to put up a good front. Instead of listing EVERY job you have ever done, select the best pieces of work and show those. In the cover letter, list four or five links to live examples, and then mention that you have attached two or three examples in a zip file for the buyer to look over. It makes you look real good.

Don’t Do The Following

Do not send them a resume as an attachment. Your resume is your oDesk profile plus cover letter and examples. In fact, right next to the Attachment Button it states that you should not upload a resume. If a buyer has their head on straight, they will know that you’re not supposed to attach a resume to your resume.

Do not send them a novella. That is, do not send them over 5 pages of information to cover unless it is a sample of your work.  The buyer is busy, and unless they request a ten page document on why C# is the best programming language for their project, you should keep it to a reasonable length. What constitutes as a reasonable length depends on the scope of the project. If you’re coding a basic database-driven site with limited features, then one page or two at the most is adequate. If you’re writing a new operating system and believe with all of your heart that assembler is the way to go, you might need a few more pages.

Do not send them useless information. That sounds obvious, but if you send them an SEO write-up which contains information which does not relate to their site at all, then it feels like a form letter. If that is the case, cut out the material that does not apply to the specific job.

Oh! THAT Upload Feature

Use the tools you are provided carefully and frequently. Try to come up with exciting new ways to use that Attachment option so you can impress the buyer with the careful consideration you gave to the application. Be careful with it, though, because you can just as easily make a bad impression as a good one. Just use your head and you’ll be fine.

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