Freelancing Handouts

Lesson No. 35
Freelance Job Hunting Skills: Freelance Job Selection
Job/project selection is a very important phase of Freelancing. You have very limited or
no free bids on freelance platforms, so they should be utilized wisely. There are a few
things to be considered for job selection.
Firstly, you have to search the jobs related to your skills. Then browse through the jobs
and select your preferred jobs. Next, you need to verify your employer’s:
• Payment method
• Previously awarded jobs
• Payment history
These criteria should be fulfilled by any reasonable employer. Any relevant job with this
kind of employer is good to be considered.

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Lesson No. 36
Freelance Job Hunting Skills: Bidding on the right project
After job selection, the next important step is bidding on the right project. It is important
for you to realize that even if the employer and job are authentic that does not mean that
you should go for the project, you should consider other factors too.
On freelance platforms, you have very limited bids. Neither those free bids nor the paid
bids are to be taken lightly or wasted.
You should read the project details carefully and then honestly evaluate yourself whether
you would be able to perform the task right and on time or not. Because if you take the
project not by going into its details and not determining your capabilities, you might be at
loss. You will not be able to complete it or satisfy the client, which might result in order
cancellation or bad reviews.

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Lesson. 37
Freelance Job Hunting Skills: Identifying fake vs original project
We have already discussed this in the previous videos about fake and original projects.
It is important to not only carefully analyze the employer’s profile or feedback but also
carefully evaluate yourself. While opting for a project, you should honestly evaluate your
capabilities before causing some sort of trouble for yourself or Pakistan. Also, from the
employer’s side, you need to verify his identity.
But the selection criteria do not end here, you should also carefully read the job
description provided by the employer as it says a lot about the employer's authenticity.
When you are reading the description, you will most of the time realize if the project is just
posted vaguely or if it is some serious employer or job. This will save you from maximum
trouble on the freelance platforms.

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Lesson N. 38
Freelance Job Hunting Skills: Asking questions
After knowing the difference between a fake and an authentic project, and finalizing the
project to bid on, the next important step is to ask questions from your client/employer.
In the freelance marketplaces, there are two things to be considered while applying for a
project:
• Cover Letter
• Asking Questions
You can write a cover letter/proposal/bid and ask questions within the cover letter.
Importance of Asking Questions
In the freelancing marketplace, a freelancer does not have any privilege to open a private
message board (PMB). When you ask questions, then there is a good chance of the
employer to reply and open the PMB for you. Once an employer opens the PMB, there is
a greater chance for the freelancer to win the job.

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Lesson No. 39
Freelance Job Hunting Skills: Importance of professional response to the project
Professionalism is the only thing that sets the tone for your success in every field. If you
are a professional freelancer, you must:
• manage your time,
• manage to provide the deliverables as decided by the employer
• ask important questions related to your project which can help you in completing
the project
• deliver the project within the agreed timeframe.
Environment for professional work
When you set up a professional work environment, there is no way you won’t be
able to act professionally.
On the freelance marketplace, when you bid on a project, your professionalism is the only
thing that the employer notices. You need to be:
• Respectful
• Hardworking and have
• The positive energy that attracts an employer to engage with you
There are some points to remember for giving a professional response to a project:
• Be courteous
• Stick to the point
• Mention your professional experience
• Mention your past work (portfolio, industry, etc.)
Your employer may be seven oceans away. You mostly don't have face-to-face
interaction with your employer, so the only thing from which you can develop the interest
of an employer is a professional response. This is how you set up the tone to grab the
employer attention.

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Lesson No. 40
Freelance Job Hunting Skills: When to put a premium bid?
A Premium bid is like featuring bid. It varies from platform to platform. You can feature
your bid by paying some extra amount to the freelance platform (the price may vary from
different platforms). You should buy a membership plan to feature your bids. When the
client sees bids, your bid will be highlighted and recommended. This way s/he will see
your bid first, and if your proposal is attractive, they will assign the project to you. Your
profile, description, and portfolio must be attractive to the client. A professional bid will
always help you to win projects.
Premium bid feature is available on PeoplePerHour.com as a 'Feature Bid', Guru.com as
a 'Premium Bid', and Freelancer.com as a 'Sponsored Bid'. You can also “Boost” your
proposal on Upwork.
Identification of a project to use premium bid requires experience. You can’t use the
premium bid on every project, because it gets costly for you.
When to use a premium bid
• The project brief should resonate with your skill set
• Project value should be great

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Lesson No. 41
Freelance Job Hunting Skills: High priced projects vs low priced projects
A choice between high or low-value projects is vital because as a freelancer you can’t
waste your bids by bidding on every project. It costs you money on most of the freelancing
platforms after a certain limit.
For explanation, let us take an example of two graphic design projects. Both projects are
of Logo Design but have a different values. One has a price of $50, and the second is for
$250-$500. You should bid on the second job even if the payment method is unverified,
after verifying that his project brief is authentic. To verify the employer, make sure that
the employer is:
• providing his organization’s name and URL of his website
• using the previous logo for some years (if he wants to redesign the logo)
It proves that the employer is authentic and serious to hire a freelancer. Although the
employer is new on the freelance marketplace, you should bid on this project. If we
compare both projects, they require an equal amount of:
• work
• time and
• energy
then you should go for a high price project.

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Lesson No.
Types of freelance marketplaces: Traditional freelance marketplace and
Nontraditional freelance marketplace

In Traditional freelance marketplaces, you search for a project, write a proposal, and bid
on it to win for example Guru, PeoplePerHour, Upwork, Freelancer, etc.
On the other hand, Non-Traditional freelance marketplaces are those in which freelancers
can create offers/services i.e., ‘Gigs’ at Fiverr. The service is offered by the seller
(freelancer) and bought by the buyer (employer). When a buyer searched for a specific
service (Gig), S/he will get several services, related to his/her search, offered by different
freelancers. S/he selects a service (Gig) that suits his/her requirement and budget.
Almost every freelance platform is now offering the option of creating service
packages, they are called, ‘Gigs’ on Fiverr, ‘Offers’ on PeoplePerHour, ‘Services’ on
Guru, and ‘Project Catalog’ on Upwork, respectively. But the most popular non-traditional
freelance marketplace is Fiverr.

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Lesson No. 43
Types of freelance marketplaces: Upwork
Upwork is one of the largest freelance marketplaces. It is a merger of two renowned
freelance platforms, Elance and O-Desk. There are two types of jobs available on
Upwork:
1. Fixed price jobs
2. Hourly jobs (tracked by Upwork Time Tracker)
There are a lot of jobs available in almost every category. You can explore all these
categories in the ‘Find Work’ tab.
There are two types of membership plans available for freelancers:
1. Basic
2. Plus

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Lesson No. 44
Types of freelance marketplaces: Freelancer.com
Freelancer.com is the world's largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by the
number of users and projects. It is among the pioneers in the field of freelancing. Daily
hundreds of employers post their jobs on the platform and hire freelancers according to
their demanded skills.
Freelancer.com gives you an option of signing up with your Facebook ID., instead of going
into a lengthy registration process. Furthermore, it keeps you up-to-date with mobile app
(for Android and IOS).
It provides its users with 3 kinds of bidding options:
• Basic Bid
• Sponsored bid
• Highlight bid
Other than this it provides various membership plans for Freelancers, which are listed
below:
• Basic
• Plus
• Professional
• Premier

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Lesson No. 45
Types of freelance marketplaces: Fiverr.com
Fiverr is the most popular non-traditional freelance marketplace known worldwide. You
don't need to bid on different projects, the employer himself reaches out to you. Instead,
what matters the most on Fiverr is to create a profile on Fiverr.com along with its packages
and gigs. It also recommends that you upload a video about yourself and your services.
Like Freelancer, Fiverr gives you an option to sign up using Facebook ID too. It allows
you to view the gigs of the freelancers even without signing up on the platform.
Each service offered is called a "gig". Services offered on the site include writing,
translation, graphic design, video editing, programming, etc. Services offered at Fiverr
start from as low as $5. You can earn up to thousands of dollars too.
There are two kinds of accounts on Fiverr; ‘Buyer’ and ‘Seller’. Even after signing up as
a single entity, you can switch between the ‘Seller’ and ‘Buyer’ accounts. There are
different levels of profile on Fiverr e.g. Level-01, Level-02 and Top Rated, which are
allocated by the platform after monthly performance evaluation. The evaluation criteria
include:
• On-time delivery rate
• Order completion
• Response rate
• Ratings
• Earnings, etc.

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Lesson No. 46
Types of freelance marketplaces: Guru.com
Guru.com is one of the biggest traditional freelance marketplaces known worldwide.
There are almost 8 million members active on Guru with more than 1 million completed
jobs till now, which can be viewed on its home page. If you are a beginner in freelancing,
Guru is one of the best freelance websites to explore. Following are some of the key
reasons why you should join Guru.com:
• The interface is extremely user-friendly.
• The sign-up procedure is very easy and free of cost.
• It doesn’t refuse your account application.
Guru.com provides 10 free bids per month for basic members. However, a basic member
can increase the number of bids by upgrading the account.
Just like Upwork and Freelancer, there are two main search filters:
1. Find a Guru. (for the employers)
2. Find a Job. (for the freelancers)
There are different membership plans available at Guru.com, which are listed below:
• Basic
• Basic +
• Professional
• Business
• Executive

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Lesson No. 47
Types of freelance marketplaces: PeoplePerHour
PeoplePerHour is another great freelance platform of recent times known globally, which
offers mixed features of both traditional and non-traditional freelance marketplaces.
PeoplePerHour includes more job categories than Fiverr or Guru. It lets you charge your
client on an hourly basis. If you prefer working on an hourly basis, this website is surely
for you. PeoplePerHour lets its sellers and buyers, sign-up through Facebook and
LinkedIn. However, a user can also sign-up through his/her email ID. According to
PeoplePerHour, a high-value project does not necessarily mean that this project will have
a large initial budget or that its invoice is guaranteed to be high. These jobs pass various
factors to fall into this criterion, such as:
• The likelihood of follow-on work; is based on historical data.
• The project’s budget, etc.
Another unique factor of PeoplePerHour is its endorsements. People present on the
platform, freelancers, and clients, can endorse you for your skills and expertise, like
LinkedIn. It makes your profile more attractive and reliable for the clients who intend to
place an order with you.

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Lesson No. 48
Types of freelance marketplaces: Craigslist
Craigslist is US based classified ads website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for
sale, products, services, community, gigs, resumes, etc. There are various part-time,
permanent, and remote jobs available on this website. Craigslist started its web-based
services in 1997 and expanded into other classified categories. It started expanding to
other U.S. cities in 2000 and now covers about 70 countries.
Some Interesting Facts about Craigslist are listed below:
• It is one of the oldest and biggest social classified websites on the internet.
• It is one of the top 50 websites worldwide.
• The website interface of Craigslist is very simple and convenient to use.
• Craigslist hasn’t changed its user interface from the beginning.
• This website is being used in various parts of Asia, including Pakistan.
If you visit craigslist.org, you will land on its home page. At the top of the website, you will
see the world Map. If you scroll down, you will see the division of different continents of
the world. Each continent is divided into different countries, and each country is further
divided into different regions/ cities.
Under the jobs section, job seekers can easily view and search for the desired job of their
expertise.
There is an extensive range of freelancing opportunities available. Some full-time jobs
are also available. You just need to apply through a proper procedure, discussed in the
job advertisement.
Initially, no signup was required to contact the concerned person. But now, you have to
‘signup’ to contact the employer.

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Lesson No. 49
Types of freelance marketplaces: List of all major freelance marketplaces and
their reviews
Besides the major freelance marketplaces, i.e. Upwork, Freelancer, Guru, Fiverr, etc.,
there are hundreds of freelance marketplaces active, which you may not know as they
are not very popular worldwide. According to BeingGuru, which is a freelancing and
technology blog of Hisham Sarwar, there are 101 ways to start earning money. There are
some platforms other than the marketplaces discussed earlier, some of those are
introduced below:
1. SimplyHired
• Category: Job search engine
• Niche: General
• Convenient and friendly User Interface
• Mobile app available
• Educational resources
• Location-based results
• Salary Estimator Tool with detailed Professional Fee Information
2. SEOClerks
• Category: Freelancing
• Niche: SEO
• Wide range of SEO jobs
• Advanced yet convenient communication
• Orders Management Panel
• Gigs start from as low as $1
3. WPHired
• Category: Freelancing
• Niche: WordPress
• Thousands of jobs listings
• Talented WordPress developers
• Part-time/full-time jobs
• PayPal integration

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4. Tutor
• Category: Online tutoring company
• Niche: General
• 24/7 availability
• Best tutors available
• Variety of subjects to choose from
• Simple and attractive interface
• Skills assessment and third-party background check
• Safe and secure platform
• Quick and efficient online support
• Job search assistance
• On-demand tutoring sessions
• Flexible schedules
5. Localancers
• Category: Freelancing
• Niche: General
• Working Domain: Worldwide
• Simple yet versatile platform
• Multiple categories to choose
• Rich filters and super-fast loading
• Direct communication
• Profile visibility control
• Professional online support

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Lesson No. 50
Presenting Yourself
In this topic, I will be discussing the most important step, which is to prepare yourself to
enter the freelance marketplace. Imagine, there are several stores in a market and each
store has displayed a title, board, or banner at the front which gives the buyer an idea of
the products being sold there. You are also setting up a store in that market, so you will
display all the products on your store shelves. But first, you will display a title at the front
so that the buyers passing by knowing the type of products your store is offering, and the
interested buyers can enter your store to purchase those products. The buyer then
notices your communication, services, and the quality of the products but if there isn’t any
title on your store, the buyer will not even enter your store and all your products,
communication, and product quality will be of no use. So, the title is most important in this
scenario.
Similarly, on the freelance marketplaces, the title is most important while creating your
profile. In the title, you will tell the client, the services you are offering (graphic designing,
video editing, content writing, web development, etc). After checking the title, the potential
clients will visit your profile and evaluate you by seeing your portfolio.
Here the question asked most frequently by the trainees is ‘we are new to freelancing and
we don’t have anything to show or display on our profiles so what do we do?’ There are
a few solutions discussed below:
1. Work for yourself
Use your skillset and work for yourself, for example, if you are a web designer, use your
imagination and design an attractive web page. If you are a writer, you can write articles
on current affairs or reviews for products. If you are a graphic designer, you can design
sample logos, banners, business cards, etc. If you are a programmer, you can simply
make a financial calculator as I did. Then, you can upload your work to your portfolio. The
purpose of the portfolio is to tell the client what you can do, what is the quality of your
work, the level of your expertise, the grip over your skillset, etc. It is difficult to convince
the client with words, but the portfolio speaks for you.
2. Work for your friends or family
If you can’t create sample work items, then you can work for any of your family members
or friends. You can create a website, social media page, content, video, etc. for someone.
After working on your portfolio, you must work on your communication skills. You must
be nice and polite with your client otherwise the client will not order your services even if
you have the best portfolio. Once you get the order from the client, put all your effort into
it, and deliver the best you can because the growth of your career, your family, and your
country depends on you. If you compromise the quality of your work, the client will blame
the whole country and will never hire another Pakistani freelancer. So, the responsibility
for your Country’s reputation and credibility lies in your hands.

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