#010: Getting Hired as a Freelancer
Welcome to the freelancing marketplace podcast. Your freelancing guide to leverage your brand, remotely. And now here’s your host Grace Locsin.
Hi there, welcome to the Freelancing Marketplace Podcast. My name is Grace Locsin, I am the CEO and owner of FVA Corporation or Surge Digital Agency. This show is dedicated to freelance marketers and business owners who desire to leverage their online presence through freelancing.
Today, we’re going to be talking about something that is really needed and has been asked about when it comes to our topics here in the freelancing marketplace podcast and it is how to be hired as a freelancer. This is actually very short, since we knew the things that we have been sharing with our students have been proven and the results were really good. So I will be sharing three things today on how you can be hired as a freelancer. Later in this show, I am going to share our Freelancing Tip of the Week and some key takeaways.
How to get hired as a freelancer is a common question in the freelancing industry. I know that a lot of our connections may be in Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, especially the newbies on this earth. This is the number one question because everybody would like to jump right away into the big how, how can I get hired? How can I get clients? How can I ensure that I will be successful in the freelancing industry and I’m very much excited to share the three techniques that we have been sharing with our students as well that have been really helping, how they were able to get clients and leverage success in the freelancing world. And when it comes to getting hired, as a freelancer, I’m going to show you only three things may be that you’re going to be focusing on niches, or you’re going to work part-time or full time, you’re going to be focusing on being a virtual assistant or being a freelancer, with the time freedom and the financial freedom or choosing contracts. It doesn’t really matter.
These three techniques that I’m going to be sharing with you work with everything. It’s general, it’s proven and everybody can do this. May you be a newbie or seasoned freelancer, may you be somebody with experience, may you be somebody who’s been in the freelancing world. May you be somebody with experience in that expertise or not. Whoever you are, everybody can do this.
So number one, whoever you are, you can be hired as a freelancer by applying these three techniques. And we’re going to be sharing this or calling this the three P’s of freelancing success.
- Personalizing your proposals
- Providing solutions and a number
- Producing proofs
When we’re talking about getting hired as a freelancer, it really boils down to these three pieces. Again, it doesn’t matter if you’re a newbie or a seasoned Freelancer with experience or no experience. Whatever niches or expertise you’re going to be focusing on as a freelancer, it boils down to your ability to again, personalize your proposal, provide solutions and number three providing proofs or producing proofs. So how can you apply this in a real hiring situation? So for example, you are checking some job posts, maybe in Upwork, or maybe in Upwork, or you’re seeing a job post via LinkedIn or Facebook. Number one is you have to check the job description. And when you are reading the job description when you are submitting an application you have to personalize your proposal. A lot of times this is why a lot of freelancers are not being hired because we are sending generalized proposals. It’s more of copy-pasting because they don’t want to do the real work. They don’t want to hustle. They don’t want to give the best. They think that freelancing is going to be instant. I’m going to just be copy-pasting and send it to everybody. If I can even send it to 100 people through mass sending or mass email and BCC everybody. I will Do that. But that doesn’t really work in the freelancing world, you have to be above the rest, you have to be competitive, you have to have value and give value. So you can do this by personalizing your proposals.
Usually in the job description, they’re going to hide certain words, that will imply that they can detect that you read the description or you read the instructions. So make sure that you read everything. So for example, they’re going to add their as one of the instructions in your application to our D word purple in your email subject. So make sure that you are reading everything thoroughly. When you are personalizing your proposal, make sure that you read the job description and understand what are the pain points of the company? What are the things that they need from you, how can you go ahead and become an essential part of the team? So personalize your proposal, make sure that you go and do your assessment. So for example, it’s a job hiring for a social media manager, you personalize your proposal by calling them by names, if you don’t have the name of the hiring manager, you can just mention hi hiring manager and maybe add something that will catch your attention, like I’m here to deliver value and then personalize it don’t just be like giving them I have done this, I have been certified to do this, make sure that you personalize it according to the company. Maybe an example of that is you can mention that I will be honored to be a part of your team, I check out your website and your social media sites. And you can add the links there. And for me, I believe that these are the real pain points. And these are my initial assessments. So right from there, you’re already providing value because you personalize it. It’s not too general, you even took the time to create an assessment and it can be applied. If you are a video editor, web designer, graphics designer, SEO specialist, a real estate virtual assistant, personalize it by creating an initial assessment on what they need based on the job description. And you can copy their website, you can go ahead and add the links of their social media sites. And then you can add, what are the things that you found out in your assessment. And number two, you’re going to share how we can come in.
And number two, the second of our three pieces, provides a solution. So after your assessment, you’re going to give them action points, you’re going to give them an action plan. Don’t just be giving them I can help you that’s too general, everybody can say that. But how can you help them? You have to maybe even add steps number 123. Okay, how are you going to do that? What are the necessary steps in order for you to really help the business if they are needing SEO or search engine optimization, you can mention that I did initial research. And I think you’re not really hitting the focus keywords. These are the keywords that are really valuable to your business. And when I did the assessment via SEO quickly, I would suggest that the solutions that we can take moving forward if I will be hired is number one, ensure that we’re going to optimize the website number two, we need to be doing on page optimization. Now you can add in what are the results of your assessment? Number three, do backlinking. Okay, you can add what are the necessary steps.
So you need to provide a solution. So that’s the second key. And number three, you need to also produce proofs. So by number one, number two alone that will already make your potential employer turn his or her head towards you. Because Wow, this is not something common, right? This person gave me the time to give me an assessment and a possible solution. They will actually sometimes include this, like what are the things that we will be needing? What are the apps that we will add? You know, they are sometimes even including this in some of the questions during the interview process. And a lot of their freelancers don’t like the questions because they don’t want to give the details. This is actually where you’re not getting hired because you don’t want to really give your personalized proposal and your provision and your solutions to the company. And this is the voice of the employers out there. This is them crying out that, hey, I want to hire you but I want to ensure first that you are the right person that you can really deliver value to me. So number three, again, the third piece you have to produce proofs. The first two pieces personalizing your proposal and providing solutions are already deal breakers because everybody’s just generalizing their applications. When you’re doing this three-piece for sure you’re going to be hired as a freelancer, probably the deciding factor here is how you’re doing well with your interview. So you have to also nail your online interviews. If you don’t know how it’s being done, go ahead and go back to the previous episode. That was the discussion that we did, where we had, how to nail your online interviews. So here when you are wanting to be hired, these are the application tips that you need to always be doing each time you’re applying. So go and personalize your proposal, provide solutions and produce proofs. Now, when you’re producing proofs, it can be your portfolio, it can be a screenshot of how we were able to grow social media sites. What are the insights for the video that you have done? What are the insights or the feedback of the clients from what are the insights or probably even feedback from clients on the project that you have done for project management for video editing for human resource for online accounting, what happens there so those are proofs, even your certificates from the online training, those are also approved. So go ahead and prepare this in advance. And when you are sending your application, the three things that you need to be applying are the three P’s to freelancing application success, and these are again, personalizing your proposal, providing solutions, and producing proofs.
Before I’m going to share my key takeaways here is our freelancing Tip of the Week. Freelancing Tip of the Week. For freelancing Tip of the Week, allow me to share an application and tell me that you can start right now. And this is to start applying or rendering your services to everyone. You know, a lot of people won’t consider the natural market as their potential clients. But actually, if you would start communicating for probably your friends, your relatives, your acquaintances, that you know how to deliver social media, or the niches or expertise that you learned recently in one of our courses, or their recent online training that you attended, or you’re finished, you will be amazed on how they actually need you. So for example, you finished online bookkeeping, or web development, or brand marketing and advertising, you go and just connect, I noticed that you have an online page, or you’re doing online selling, or you are a real estate professional, you’re a financial advisor, I’m actually a trained virtual assistant on social media. These are the things that I can do for you let me know if you need assistance. And you will be amazed even if you are having your canned responses, and you’re just going to personalize it according to how you can provide value or provide solutions to the company, you will really be amazed what you can get from natural market, especially if you’re starting because a lot of freelancers would target international clients right away because they’re paying in dollars and you are paying because they’re paying in dollars. And that means that you’re also earning in dollars. And when you do the exchange rate that is a lot. Okay. Whatever nation you’re in right now, may you be from Pakistan, India, the Philippines. So when you have international clients, that’s big income for you. But what we fail to actually also consider is our natural market. So it can be your friends from high school friends, from college, your friends, from your church, friends from the affiliations or clubs that you are a part with. When you are going to start with them and communicate with them. You can start with probably 30 people 50 people, I’m sure one will come back to you and will ask you for your packages and if you have your freelancing package is prepared, you will be amazed on the results. So freelancing Tip of the Week, start with your natural market. And these are the people that you know, that we These are the people that you know, it may be friends or relatives that may be needing your assistance as a freelancer. My key takeaway for this episode is the road to success. It’s not my key takeaway from this episode is the road to success is not instant. A lot of freelancers fail to be successful, because they’re having this mindset that it needs to be happening fast. It needs to be working for me right away and do and I’m so sorry to break it to you but it’s not okay. A lot of freelancers are actually very blessed because after two weeks, they’re hired. After one month they are hired after a few days they’re hired but oftentimes, it’s really going to have you but oftentimes freelancing success will require you to do setup will require To finish your portfolio’s will require you to really be sending applications, it may be 100 applications every month, it will require you to work hard, it’s not going to be instant. But all you need is just that one to two clients or experiences and the rest will follow, especially if you’re working. And the rest will follow along and will bring in income, especially if you have an online presence. And if you are a forward thinker, always updating your portfolio and always building your authority for future positioning. So know that the key is the road to success and freelancing. It’s not instant, but it’s worth that one, I worked as a virtual assistant for two years in an office setting and then after that transition into working from home for eight years now. And it has the and it is the best decision that I have ever done. Me and my family we were able to establish businesses helped a lot of people were able to bless, we were able to bless our parents or relatives and we were able to help the kingdom and we are able to give jobs such as to our traders but to freelancer, store staff and even an even help those that are in an even help those that are struggling or have been. And we are even helping an organization focusing on helping the human traffic, the orphan, and those that are starving. So all of these things were able to create an impact because of freelancing so you don’t actually know where freelancing will leave you. You don’t know the potentials of what you’re able to achieve, but it takes a leap of faith and a mindset that hard work is needed because the road to success may be in freelancing or in other maybe in freelancing or any other ventures is not an instant one but is a worthy one is not an instant one, but it’s going to be all worth it.
Thank you so much for being with me in this getting hired as a freelancer episode. This is our 10th episode and I hope that you have been enjoying the freelancing marketplace podcast so far. Let us know how we can be of help to you You can email me at Grace at surge digital agency You can also connect with us or personal message us through our social media sites, search digital agency or check out our website, search digital that agency. That would be all for this episode. I will see you again on our 11th episode. I look forward to being with you again. Bye, and God bless you all. The freelancing marketplace Podcast is a production of search digital agency