Upwork is one of online job platforms most widespread: literally a global hub where freelancers and clients meet.
It is no coincidence that it is the first platform we have decided to talk to you about in this dedicated review. In fact, it is among the easiest to understand and among those that offer a greater variety of supply and demand. Already just focusing on Upwork you start working online without risks, complications or particular difficulties. You will already be able to do your tests, expand yours portfolio, meet new employers, potential collaborators, lay the foundations for approaching other similar platforms and improving your methods.
Seven digital nomads that they want work online from home? Are you a novice professional who wants to build a portfolio before applying to large companies? Or are you established professionals who just want to broaden your working horizons?
In any case, this guide will be for you.
Content index
How Upwork works and how to use it to look for work online
Upwork it is essentially a vast and diverse ecosystem, where you find projects ranging from programming and web development to design, copywriting, digital marketing, up to audiovisual production and post-production.
Basically, as always, we start from a Profile. In this we will define skills in order to see the proposals suitable for us. We'll do ours proposals written to ads that interest us and we will make contact. We will exchange reviews with our people clients, influencing the reputation of our profile and that of those who employ us.
All this to have a constant recirculation of proposals but also to forge long-term bonds with customers. In fact, as you will see, the commissions of Upwork they are studied on purpose. But in the meantime let's start from the base.
Profile and hourly pay
First we structure a Profile, which should be optimized based on the SEO. This is above all a matter of human enjoyment. In short, you have to make yourself understood, and by writing using keywords you can highlight your skills, personality, experiences and approach. The synthesis at the writing level in fact encourages go to the juice clearly, but without being sparse and reductive.
When creating the profile you set a hourly wage that defines us. This can be changed at any time, so we recommend start low to gain more experiences on the platform. In fact the reputation of your profile is not based only on the portfolio and curriculum we offer, but on success rate of jobs on Upwork (JSS).
So, in other words, we have to get our hands a little dirty to find clients who will pay us how we want. On the other hand, we actually have a client who has to invest money in a professional he doesn't know. He can choose from thousands and thousands of people around the world with the same skills. Speaking in large numbers, either he chooses the one that is most available and can pay less or the one that has a higher reputation on the platform.
Skills and job offers
In profile creation the boxes are ticked specific skills, so that you can find questions and make offers that concern you niches in your professional field. Specifying the skills therefore helps us see proposals for which we can apply immediately.
So based on the skills we have set in the interface, all the skills are presented job proposals relative, showing:
- Profile of the employer who published the proposal.
- Written announcement, where the task, the customer's objective and more specific details are clear.
- Start and finish of work.
- Compensation.
- Form
Write the proposal on Upwork
It applies in the form our written proposal, which is crucial.
From direct experience we advise you to read the ad carefully of the customer. In fact, you can understand something about it already from the way the ad is shown person who wrote it, like the guy of communication which could be enjoyed better. For example, if an announcement is written in a very formal way, it will likely be that the customer will prefer a similar communication, and will therefore see a differently written proposal as less serious. Again, if we understand that we have a concise person on the other side, it will be counterproductive to address them too verbosely: they won't even read us.
Then in theannouncement they are present sometimes crucial details, because they can contain a specific need. If we can grasp it we can find the exact communication key to make ourselves taken into consideration and let us choose. Reading only the name of the announcement and the summary of the task exposes us to the risk of writing an aseptic, generic or not very serious proposal, because it could highlight that we have not read anything.
We combine this information and impressions that we have collected with what we will find in the customer profile.
Now we have one person and a need: all we have to do is propose how solution. We recommend first understanding whether we are able to instantly argue as we could an objective solution, without persuasive tricks and turns of phrase.
If we understand we can do it, just try. The rest is left to cases that we cannot know and which concern the customer. Hopefully we will have the contract of which, when possible, we can define some terms. Once the client has accepted our written proposal and both the contract, the work starts without any further procedures. You can chat with the customer at any time for questions and updates.
Reviews and reputation
At the conclusion of each work is the professional the client they can leave ratings of up to 5 stars and reviews textual. These reviews impact the JSS, a success rate of jobs completed on Upwork: our reputation.
The reviews exchanged by client and professional are not visible to either party for 14 days, so that they do not influence each other. But at the same time the customer can leave private feedback to Upwork.
Upwork Fees
Upwork acts as an intermediary for payments keeping the money in a trust account until the job is finished. Since it provides the platform, acts as a contact and ensures payments, it retains a Commission. Upwork's commission varies depending on the total compensation obtained by a single client. In the beginning, up to $500 is 20%. If we then do many jobs with the same client, the total compensation increases and the commission percentage will gradually decrease. In fact, from 10.000 dollars and above it drops to 5%.
In essence, therefore, Upwork incentivizes us to weave relations stable and long-lasting with the same customers.
