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How to Find Employment on Upwork in 7 Days (with No Experience)

1. On Upwork, begin with tiny projects.

Getting your first job on Upwork is the most difficult step in learning how to find employment there. However, if you land your first job and receive compliments on your resume, you start to appear less risky to potential clients.

Search for a low-paying work that poses little risk to the customer if you were to (for whatever reason) mess it up in order to collect feedback for your profile as quickly as possible.

It won't make you rich to apply for jobs with budgets of $20 to $50, but it won't take much persuasion to get a customer to hire you over a more established freelancer.

2. Emphasize complimentary remarks

Tell the possible client in the work application if the job budget is significantly less than what you would regularly charge, but also mention that you are willing to accept the task at a reduced rate if they can provide comments when the job is finished.

You will be able to attract more clients in the future thanks to this feedback, which will also set your profile apart from those of other freelancers who haven't received any.

As a seasoned professional, I can understand that your ego may prevent you from applying to low-paying assignments, but if you want to succeed, you must immediately build up a positive reputation and a portfolio of completed jobs on Upwork.

For a one-time price of $30, one of my clients paid me to optimize the keywords on one page of their website. I did a wonderful job with what was required and quickly established myself as their SEO expert.

Early on in Upwork, going for lower-paying and smaller assignments is a wonderful method to get work, but before you can start your freelance career there, you must optimize your profile so that clients can see what you can accomplish for them.

3. Begin submitting ideas to Upwork

Since you might not get asked to projects right immediately as a new freelancer on Upwork, you'll need to learn how to submit proposals. You must make your proposal stand out from the competition if you want to land a job on Upwork.

The common error I observe freelancers doing when applying for projects on Upwork is using the same scripted application template for each job they come across. On Upwork, this is not how you get employment.

First off, you need to cease sending template messages. A prepared message can be seen by customers a mile away.

When I applied for jobs on Upwork, I found the best success came from waiting to start selling and instead learning more about the client. One of my clients showed me the messages they received from their end, and most applications begin with something like this:

Dear Name,

I'm an SEO consultant from X with the name X. I can perform this service, this service, and this service because I have five years of SEO experience.

Can you picture receiving 50 of those messages at once?

You'd quickly grow bored. These messages further demonstrate your disregard for the client in favor of yourself.

Asking a client just one question is the most effective technique to gain a response from them; the question should be straightforward and not require them to think about it too much. Keep in mind that they are still strangers to you and will be hiring other independent contractors at this time.

I would query them as an SEO consultant, such as, "How long have you been doing SEO?" Why are you quitting your previous freelancer or agency? Have search engines penalized your website?

Using your knowledge and the details in the job description, you must formulate questions that make sense.