Freelance Writing With oDesk - How to Fill Out Your Profile in oDesk

For many writers, making money out of the profession that they love is becoming increasingly difficult amongst all of the scams and offers online. Many try the passive income route, uploading pages to Hubpages and blog sites in an attempt to chase the Adsense dollar. Some are successful, but for others it is too slow or requires too much time setting up backlinks and researching keywords.

One of the best ways of making money as a writer is to sign up for one of the freelance writing sites, where you can advertise your services and look for clients. The idea is simple; you write, they pay. One such site is oDesk, a site that I joined up with a couple of years back, the one that encouraged me to take my first tentative steps in the world of freelance writing.

As with most things in life, it is not a smooth ride and the whole process can be a little overwhelming. After you have signed up, you are faced up with filling out your profile and trawling through the jobs. I am often asked, ‘How much should I charge?’ or ‘How do I find a good buyer?’

In this Hub, I will answer some of these questions for you and guide you through the process of filling out a killer profile. Freelance writing boards are bearpits and you need to use every trick in the book to make sure that you stand out from the crowd and give the buyer no choice but to hire you.

I am not going to go deeply into the mechanics of the process because oDesk has an excellent help section that will answer any technical questions. Instead, I am going to concentrate upon the fine-tuning, showing you how to move yourself into the top 10% and rise above the dross.

If you have not already signed up, now is a good time.

Just one important point, before we waste each other’s time:

oDesk is not the place for creative writers to find work: Such assignments are few and far between.

However, if you are prepared to think sideways, you can still find work and give voice to your inner muse. Writing articles about travel and lifestyle will give you the latitude to unleash a few choice adjectives and use absolutely amazing alliterations

The most important factor, when filling out your oDesk profile, is to spend time on it and ensure that it is complete. Treat oDesk like any other job application and think about what you are writing, rather than become overeager and rush through it so that you can start to apply for jobs.

I have lost count of the number of people who start threads on the forums and complain that they have not managed to find an assignment. In the vast majority of cases, they could not be bothered to fill out their profile, so I have little sympathy. Spelling mistakes, a half-written resume and weak portfolio are just some of the common omissions that will ruin your chances.

If you wish to be treated professionally, then you must act professionally. Otherwise, you will be consigned to a career of scraping around the $1 for 500 word jobs. Don’t be a bottom-feeder – look upwards rather than stagnate.

One of the most common questions I receive is what hourly rate to put. Most of you want to make a decent living on oDesk, without pricing yourself out of the market.

To start with, $5 per hour is a good amount. This low wage may seem insulting, especially if you have been freelance writing for a while, but buyers do not care if you have six books on Lulu or you worked for a major woodworking magazine. Ultimately, anybody can fake a work history or embellish their achievements.

oDesk buyers are only interested in the quality of your work written for oDesk clients, and the rest of your experience is pretty insignificant until you have a work history and feedback on your profile. By all means, include previous experience on your profile but treat your oDesk initiation as a Tabula Rasa.

Every week, you can guarantee that there will be an influx of freelance writers who waste time whining on the forums because they expected to swan in and make $50 per hour. Buyers read the forums, too, and these people will be lucky to find work with such an arrogant attitude. They are usually given short-shrift by the grizzled veterans and are told to shut up or ship out.

As you complete more assignments and better feedback, you can creep your rate up. In just over a year, I went from $5 per hour to over $20 per hour and buyers are happy to pay. I have seen elite writers on there earn over $40 per hour, but they worked bloody hard to get to that level.

Job Title

Your job title and description are crucial – you have seven seconds to sell yourself. Don’t put ‘desperate for work’ or ‘will try anything.’ Something along the lines of ‘experienced blogger’ or ‘technical writing expert’ usually does the trick. When you finally start applying for jobs, take at look at some of the successful providers on the list and you might gain a few ideas.

Certifications:

This is where you have the chance to bulk out your personality and experience, showing that you are more than a writer. You don’t need to put your oDesk test scores here, as they are already on your profile, but Brainbench qualifications are excellent additions. If you have any professional certificates, now is the time to proudly proclaim it to the world.

For example, I have certificates in customer service and hospitality. I am not sure if they have gained me any customers, yet, but you never know. Professional qualifications in accounting, database management or graphic design are particularly useful, informing the buyer that you have a few more talents to bring to the table.

Employment History:

Employment history can be a very useful way to attract buyers, by showing your areas of expertise and highlighting your experience. I was hired for an assignment, writing articles about hardware, simply because I pointed out that I have extensive experience of working in a hardware store. Any work experience that you have could be useful in here, especially voluntary work.

If you have experience as an accountant or a veterinary nurse, you might just land a good website content writing gig. Buyers like to hire writers with experience in a field; it shines through in the writing and can make even high quality copywriting stand out.

Ultimately, you are selling your personality on oDesk, and this helps the buyer to build up a complete picture and decide that she wants you on her team.

Education:

Education is useful, especially if you want to go for a slightly better standard of job. If you have qualifications, use them. I am not just talking degrees – if you have a hairdressing diploma or studied art at school, you might just find an assignment writing web-content for a beauty salon or an art-history site.

Other Experiences

Other experiences can be very useful for helping the buyer choose you, showing him that you will be a joy to work with and that you have studied at the University of Life. For example, if you spent a gap-year backpacking, insert it here as it might just get you that travel-writing gig. On oDesk, you will strike up long-term relationships with clients and it is nice for them to know that you have something in common.

Avatar:

Personally, I am a great believer in uploading a photo, because buyers prefer to see the face of who they are working with. As a freelancer, you are selling yourself and it is nice for clients to be able to put a face to the words on the screen.

For your avatar, find a professional shot and project a good image. When I say professional, that does not necessarily mean that you should wear a shirt and tie. If you intend to look for work writing on social sites and blogs, a fun persona might just work. However, avoid using a party picture with a silly wig and bottle of beer as you will, quite simply, receive no work, although you might give buyers a cheap laugh.

If you really do not want to upload your face online, for personal reasons, that is fine, but I suggest using a professional logo rather than a cat picture or a cuddly toy. For the stay at home moms and dads, avoid including your kids. I am not saying that it is right, but buyers automatically assume that providers with children might have trouble meeting deadlines if Little Timmy is ill. They do not need to know about your personal life, so why tell them?

A Word of Warning

Bear in mind that you cannot put any contact details in your profile; it is against the TOS, to prevent buyers and providers working outside the system. Certainly, It is not worth being banned for.

The oDesk portfolio is the most important part of your oDesk profile and can make or break a freelance writing job application. You can upload as many samples as you want and you should aim to include a broad selection of your work, drawn from an array of subjects and writing styles, to show that you have flexibility as a freelance writer. If you do not have any suitable articles, then you should sit down and write some, showing buyers exactly what you can do.

For example, as a freelance academic writer, I have examples with academic and technical writing, but I am not going to turn down a well-paid blogging or ghost-writing job, so I include a few of those, too. These samples have to be the best work that you can possibly produce, to make sure that you impress potential buyers. if your portfolio is riddled with bad grammar and spelling mistakes, then you will struggle to find work.

One other tip is that you should include the article, not just insert a link, because potential buyers are unlikely to follow the link and assume that you are lazy. The option to include a link is more for the programmers, site designers and coders on oDesk, so that they can provide evidence of their work.

For your portfolio, you can upload Word documents but I prefer to use the free OpenOffice writer to covert the work into pdf files, which I feel look more professional. If you are casting the net wide and showing that you also have graphic design, you can upload images.

As a new provider, you will need to take the oDesk Ready Test to show that you understand oDesk, are happy using the interface and that you understand the terms and conditions. This is an open book test, you can take it as many times as you want and can spend as long as you want on it. Even if you fail, you can take it as many times as you want until you pass. Once you have passed, you are ready to take some of the profession specific tests.

You will need to take some other tests, specifically in the various styles of English required by buyers. When I joined oDesk, there were only a couple of applicable tests but they have extended this to incorporate all the various styles – US, UK, technical, creative and so on. You at least need to take the basic English tests to show that you have some competency.

As a heads up, there are problems with the tests; they are poorly designed and some of the questions are completely ambiguous. However, you want to achieve a reasonable score so try your best. You can only take these tests once every 30 days, so make sure that you are awake before starting.

If you get a low score in a test, don’t panic; you can hide the score so that the buyers cannot see it. In addition, even if you have a low score, it does not mean that you are finished on oDesk. If you have a strong portfolio and write a strong cover letter you should still find work. Of course, once you have the good feedback ratings, test scores become less important.

Hopefully, you will now have a strong profile and you can look forward to impressing buyers and breaking your oDesk virginity. In the next article in the series, Freelance Writing with oDesk - Finding Assignments, I am going to show you how to apply for work and land that dream assignment.

It is a long while since I filled in my oDesk profile and things may well have changed. Make sure that you read the extensive help section and, if I have missed anything out, let me know and I will try my best to answer your questions.

If you are ready to go, please sign up through my oDesk Referral Link

It does not cost you anything but oDesk gives me a $50 payment when you earn your first $1000.

Good luck and Happy Freelancing!

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