8 ms·

My view is coming from someone who hires people last few years. 1) People hate on Freelancer sites, but get on them and and build a profile. If you are good it

My view is coming from someone who hires people last few years. 1) People hate on Freelancer sites, but get on them and and build a profile. If you are good it will show in time. Expect to work for peanuts at the beginning - consider it advertising. 2) Don't lie about what you can do. Always do a good job. I've tried a bunch of people from poorer countries and those seem to be the 2 main issues. Dont have a mentality of cutting corners. 3) Build stuff hired or not. I watch guys blossom from jr to mid/snr after work and work. You learn by doing. If your not working, work anyway. Pick a business, and build something that would be good for them. Contact them and see if you can sell it cheap. But keep building and getting better. This is a long term game. You might pick up a 1 decent client a year, but 5 years from now you will be flooded type deal. Good luck - I think many of have the fear of what might be if this economy truly tanks.

wokwokwok 6y ago
> Expect to work for peanuts at the beginning - consider it advertising. This is terrible advice. Don't work for free, all you're doing is allowing other people to take advantage of you... which, they will. There's plenty of other great advice in this topic; this: "work hard and do a good job, for free and it'll be great experience / advertising / whatever the f" is total BS.
- crc32 6y ago
  OP didn't say "work for free", they said "work for peanuts". I agree that freelancer sites have some problematic aspects, but I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea that you need to start small and build a reputation/profile. This applies to any bootstrapped business, not just when working via freelancer sites.
  - wokwokwok 6y ago
    I would argue work for peanuts and work for free are not significantly distinct on many freelance sites. Unless you're suggesting that there's a meaningful difference in doing 40 hours of work for 5 bucks and working for free?
    - fxtentacle 6y ago
      There is if you get non-monetary benefits such as a 5 star review pushing you up in the rankings, thereby making it much easier to get future bookings at higher prices. Edit: conceptually, it's nore like an unpaid internship. I know someone who got a highly paid job by first doing it for free for 3 months to prove his skills, as he was lacking formal certifications Edit2: I honestly don't get why this is being downvoted. It's neither unfriendly nor offensive and it is relevant to the discussion, even if you might not like this aspect of reality.
      - ken 6y ago
        > I know someone who got a highly paid job by first doing it for free for 3 months to prove his skills And I know dozens of people who got burned by being talked into working for "exposure".
        fxtentacle 6y ago
        In Germany, for such an unpaid internship you will have a contract that says that unless they fire you with a proper reason during those 3 months, your temporary contract will automatically convert into a permanent position. In many cases, it will also already list the salary that you can expect to receive after the 3 months are over. Plus you'll be meeting your future teammates every day in their office. To me, that is a very different level of commitment by the company than working for "exposure" for someone who has no intention of hiring you.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        > conceptually, it's nore like an unpaid internship. People should get paid for work they do. If a task is worth $0 to a company, then they can do without it. The whole "you're getting paid in valuable training/experience/exposure" thing is bunk, IMO.
    - reroute1 6y ago
      40 hours for 5 dollars is well beyond working peanuts that's just robbing people... Even Fiverr isn't close to this rate
- risyachka 6y ago
  This is real advice. You can expect whatever you want but if you are just starting you will get peanuts, as this is your level and fair pay. Another situation is if you have experience but no portfolio. So you have two options - look forever for a project that will hire you without portfolio (usually this takes a long time, seen this many times), or you can complete few small projects for really small pay quickly and then you will be able to find a good-paying project way faster.
- jasondigitized 6y ago
  I disagree. I know someone who approached a company and said "I will work as a free intern for 3 months. If you want me to simply get coffee I will. It will be the best coffee you have ever had." 3 months later he had a full time offer and is now doing very well. Working for free indefinitely is bad advice, but offering a "freemium" model is rather savvy.
  - mobilefriendly 6y ago
    A company that responded to this kind of solicitation would be unethical, at best, and is probably breaking employment law in the West.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    That seems messed up. Seems like survivorship biasor something
- woudsma 6y ago
  Yes, they will take advantage of you, speaking from experience. Right after graduating I was paid ~750eu/mo for 60+hrs a week as a frontend dev in a first world country. It barely covered my rent. I had to borrow money from my parents to pay for food. I lasted 1 year at that first company. My next job, a small but awesome agency, took me -someone with an arts degree, 1 year frontend dev experience- as a junior full-stack developer and gave me the chance and challenges to develop myself further. Now, a few years later, I earn a relatively good salary as a JS consultant at another company. Being taking advantage of (financially) can have the effect of developing a thicker skin. You won't let it happen again after that. That's growth in my opinion. It doesn't take the fact away that you can earn just enough to survive while building up professional development experience, which you can add to your CV. It's tough, but it can be done! Grab any chance to gain professional experience. Also, try to stay creative! I know, it is super hard when you're broke / low on funds, there is no freedom in your head to think about anything else then surviving day to day or month to month. The comment above about contributing to open-source is really good. There are lots of projects that would love more contributors. Also it's a nice way to expand your network. And please, create a stunning personal website. Do some research into graphic design and try to create a professional but creative portfolio site. Next to your Github account, this is your business card.
- question11 6y ago
  My friend told me don't study for free.. make sure you get paid
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fxtentacle 6y ago
This is excellent advice. I would like to add one thing, which is to regularly compare your skill level and your pricing to others on the platform. You'll start at $10 an hour to get good ratings. Then you prove your skill set at $50 an hour. Then after 1-2 months of working in the same niche, you might have the experience and working speed to go up to $100 an hour. Once you reliably get bookings at that price, you're ready to hunt for projects outside of upwork.
chadash 6y ago
For freelancing sites, you need to focus on stuff established businesses need and shy away from anything catering to individuals or startups. Payment is all relative. Someone with an idea for a new social network might think of $10,000 as a lot of money, even if they want an entire app with lots of features built from scratch, which could be a months' long job. They will vastly underestimate how expensive this will be, particularly if they don't have technical backgrounds. Meanwhile, an established business might pay $1000 for something that takes a few hours and think nothing of it, because they are thinking in terms of value to the company, not "I don't want to blow through my personal savings". I hired freelancers at my last job. When going through candidates, I didn't look for the lowest bidder. I looked for someone who charged a reasonable amount who looked like they knew what they were doing. For example, one guy we hired charged us $400 for something that probably took him two or three hours. Considering that he was working out of Russia, this is probably a pretty good wage. Some of the bids were for $50-100, but from my company's perspective, $400 was nothing anyway, so I looked for someone with great reviews and who seemed like they knew what they were doing. I think we found the guy on Upwork, but we ended up hiring him directly to do a bunch more work after that. I think that if you are targeting well-paying work, look for things that appeal to businesses. Businesses use Excel, so work on your skills in integrating Excel with your favorite programming language. Lots of businesses want web scraping, so learn that. Businesses might have old code written in language X. If you find the right opportunity there, it could be a long term partnership that can be fairly lucrative.
- yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
  > I think we found the guy on Upwork, but we ended up hiring him directly to do a bunch more work after that. Be careful admitting this. I believe going off-platform like this is against their ToS, and technically they could sue you for it.
- exolymph 6y ago
  > I hired freelancers at my last job. When going through candidates, I didn't look for the lowest bidder. I looked for someone who charged a reasonable amount who looked like they knew what they were doing. +1, this is how anyone sane chooses vendors. Paying bottom dollar is a good way to end up costing the company just as much in hassle and in-house resources dealing with that hassle.

wokwokwok 6y ago

> Expect to work for peanuts at the beginning - consider it advertising. This is terrible advice. Don't work for free, all you're doing is allowing other people to take advantage of you... which, they will. There's plenty of other great advice in this topic; this: "work hard and do a good job, for free and it'll be great experience / advertising / whatever the f" is total BS.

crc32 6y ago
OP didn't say "work for free", they said "work for peanuts". I agree that freelancer sites have some problematic aspects, but I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea that you need to start small and build a reputation/profile. This applies to any bootstrapped business, not just when working via freelancer sites.
- wokwokwok 6y ago
  I would argue work for peanuts and work for free are not significantly distinct on many freelance sites. Unless you're suggesting that there's a meaningful difference in doing 40 hours of work for 5 bucks and working for free?
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    There is if you get non-monetary benefits such as a 5 star review pushing you up in the rankings, thereby making it much easier to get future bookings at higher prices. Edit: conceptually, it's nore like an unpaid internship. I know someone who got a highly paid job by first doing it for free for 3 months to prove his skills, as he was lacking formal certifications Edit2: I honestly don't get why this is being downvoted. It's neither unfriendly nor offensive and it is relevant to the discussion, even if you might not like this aspect of reality.
    - ken 6y ago
      > I know someone who got a highly paid job by first doing it for free for 3 months to prove his skills And I know dozens of people who got burned by being talked into working for "exposure".
      - fxtentacle 6y ago
        In Germany, for such an unpaid internship you will have a contract that says that unless they fire you with a proper reason during those 3 months, your temporary contract will automatically convert into a permanent position. In many cases, it will also already list the salary that you can expect to receive after the 3 months are over. Plus you'll be meeting your future teammates every day in their office. To me, that is a very different level of commitment by the company than working for "exposure" for someone who has no intention of hiring you.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      > conceptually, it's nore like an unpaid internship. People should get paid for work they do. If a task is worth $0 to a company, then they can do without it. The whole "you're getting paid in valuable training/experience/exposure" thing is bunk, IMO.
  - reroute1 6y ago
    40 hours for 5 dollars is well beyond working peanuts that's just robbing people... Even Fiverr isn't close to this rate
risyachka 6y ago
This is real advice. You can expect whatever you want but if you are just starting you will get peanuts, as this is your level and fair pay. Another situation is if you have experience but no portfolio. So you have two options - look forever for a project that will hire you without portfolio (usually this takes a long time, seen this many times), or you can complete few small projects for really small pay quickly and then you will be able to find a good-paying project way faster.
jasondigitized 6y ago
I disagree. I know someone who approached a company and said "I will work as a free intern for 3 months. If you want me to simply get coffee I will. It will be the best coffee you have ever had." 3 months later he had a full time offer and is now doing very well. Working for free indefinitely is bad advice, but offering a "freemium" model is rather savvy.
- mobilefriendly 6y ago
  A company that responded to this kind of solicitation would be unethical, at best, and is probably breaking employment law in the West.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  That seems messed up. Seems like survivorship biasor something
woudsma 6y ago
Yes, they will take advantage of you, speaking from experience. Right after graduating I was paid ~750eu/mo for 60+hrs a week as a frontend dev in a first world country. It barely covered my rent. I had to borrow money from my parents to pay for food. I lasted 1 year at that first company. My next job, a small but awesome agency, took me -someone with an arts degree, 1 year frontend dev experience- as a junior full-stack developer and gave me the chance and challenges to develop myself further. Now, a few years later, I earn a relatively good salary as a JS consultant at another company. Being taking advantage of (financially) can have the effect of developing a thicker skin. You won't let it happen again after that. That's growth in my opinion. It doesn't take the fact away that you can earn just enough to survive while building up professional development experience, which you can add to your CV. It's tough, but it can be done! Grab any chance to gain professional experience. Also, try to stay creative! I know, it is super hard when you're broke / low on funds, there is no freedom in your head to think about anything else then surviving day to day or month to month. The comment above about contributing to open-source is really good. There are lots of projects that would love more contributors. Also it's a nice way to expand your network. And please, create a stunning personal website. Do some research into graphic design and try to create a professional but creative portfolio site. Next to your Github account, this is your business card.
question11 6y ago
My friend told me don't study for free.. make sure you get paid

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fxtentacle 6y ago

This is excellent advice. I would like to add one thing, which is to regularly compare your skill level and your pricing to others on the platform. You'll start at $10 an hour to get good ratings. Then you prove your skill set at $50 an hour. Then after 1-2 months of working in the same niche, you might have the experience and working speed to go up to $100 an hour. Once you reliably get bookings at that price, you're ready to hunt for projects outside of upwork.

chadash 6y ago

For freelancing sites, you need to focus on stuff established businesses need and shy away from anything catering to individuals or startups. Payment is all relative. Someone with an idea for a new social network might think of $10,000 as a lot of money, even if they want an entire app with lots of features built from scratch, which could be a months' long job. They will vastly underestimate how expensive this will be, particularly if they don't have technical backgrounds. Meanwhile, an established business might pay $1000 for something that takes a few hours and think nothing of it, because they are thinking in terms of value to the company, not "I don't want to blow through my personal savings". I hired freelancers at my last job. When going through candidates, I didn't look for the lowest bidder. I looked for someone who charged a reasonable amount who looked like they knew what they were doing. For example, one guy we hired charged us $400 for something that probably took him two or three hours. Considering that he was working out of Russia, this is probably a pretty good wage. Some of the bids were for $50-100, but from my company's perspective, $400 was nothing anyway, so I looked for someone with great reviews and who seemed like they knew what they were doing. I think we found the guy on Upwork, but we ended up hiring him directly to do a bunch more work after that. I think that if you are targeting well-paying work, look for things that appeal to businesses. Businesses use Excel, so work on your skills in integrating Excel with your favorite programming language. Lots of businesses want web scraping, so learn that. Businesses might have old code written in language X. If you find the right opportunity there, it could be a long term partnership that can be fairly lucrative.

yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
> I think we found the guy on Upwork, but we ended up hiring him directly to do a bunch more work after that. Be careful admitting this. I believe going off-platform like this is against their ToS, and technically they could sue you for it.
exolymph 6y ago
> I hired freelancers at my last job. When going through candidates, I didn't look for the lowest bidder. I looked for someone who charged a reasonable amount who looked like they knew what they were doing. +1, this is how anyone sane chooses vendors. Paying bottom dollar is a good way to end up costing the company just as much in hassle and in-house resources dealing with that hassle.