Upwork Freelancer Pro Tips: Which Job You Should Apply For and Which One You Should Skip

1. 01. Intro: Hello and welcome. If you're new to Upwork and very confused about which job you should apply for and which one you should skip. I'm going to share my experience with you and give you some pro tips so that you can save some money and time. So let's get started. Hi, my name is Emily. I'm the founder of people creating media. I'm a Sydney based freelance animator artist. I've been doing this for years as a full-time job. And I really loved that. I enjoy that. I love being creative and making things. Even though I'm working as a freelance animator artist. I am a teacher as well. I have a lot of students. Earlier in America. I've been working as a freelance artist since 2009 and been working in our park since 2016. Also, I have been working as a freelance creative teacher since 2016. And I got a lot of students from age 7-60 years old who had one-on-one personal sessions with me for the basic knowledge or personal advanced projects. I've done a lot of commercial projects in Upwork and outside Upwork platform. Some of them were more than nine months long and I got paid hourly rates for those projects. I've got it. Quest headset, and I'm learning how to paint in VR. So I'm using Open brush and grab the sketch to make painting in 3D world. And I'm trying to teach myself how to make 3D contents inside a hexagon. I see a lot of potential, particularly in the sector, if I can teach myself how to build content inside the virtual world, I think that'll be helpful for my future as well. Okay, Enough about me. Let's get jumped back right into the listen and learn something new. Shelby. 2. 02. How Upwork Platform Works: I've started working on Upwork in 2016, and since then, a lot of thing has changed. Previously when you open a new account in Upwork, They used to give you 60 tokens for free, which they called connects. So you spend those connects to apply for various jobs. And previously it was like two connects per job. So it doesn't matter which job you apply for. It will take two connects from you, and you actually get 60 connects for free. And then after that you can buy more connects and every month that connects get refilled by them. That means they will provide you more 60 connects in the next month. But now everything has changed, so you have to buy the connects at the first place. And then you can apply for various jobs. And sometimes when you reply to the clients message, they will provide you some free connects as a gift. Now, I assume that you have some connects. You already bought some connects. Otherwise you can't apply to any other jobs, alright? And I assume that you have a strong portfolio. So maybe if you're working in video, animation or Photoshop stuff, or any, any kind of jobs, you have to find the relative website and upload all of your stuff, most of your work. And build a resume or like portfolio where client can have a look and they can hire you. So portfolio is must and you have to make sure that the portfolio is top class. At least you upload your best work in that portfolio. Otherwise, client will judge you by just looking at your portfolio and then they will reject it if they don't like it. Alright, so make sure, let's say if you have skill of photograph or video animation, something like that, you can maybe open an account in behance.net or maybe David out, or even you can upload some stuff on YouTube or Google Drive. It's up to you. What are you going to use but make your portfolio, It's better if you can build a website and then put all of your artwork in your own website. So you just make your resume first emerged me means all of the links that you want to show to your clients to get the job. After that, you're going to buy some connects to apply for the job. So right now I think most of the jobs when you apply for it will take six connects per job. So maybe spend $10 or something and by some connects to apply for various jobs, right? So after that, when you are ready to apply for the jobs, come back to the homepage. Search for the jobs that is related to your skill. Alright? So I search some jobs here relative to this stuff. You can just filter it out by saying that what type of job you're actually interested in. So I'm interested in doing After Effects animation or illustration stuff. So I feel that that job, let's say I'm going to search for animation. There are many types of innovation, 3D, 2D. I'm going to do, maybe after effects animation. And I'm going to search for that. And I'll find a lot of related jobs. Alright? The first thing that you need to do is make sure you're sorting it out with the recent jobs that are posted right now. So you don't click on the jobs that are very old. That means if there's an old job, let's say someone posted the job in the morning and it is nighttime and you're just applying for the job and spend your money on connects to apply for the job. It is just a waste of money because you will see a lot of people already applied for the job. So you should actually skip those types of jobs. You should focus on the jobs that is just posted now are like within few minutes or maybe last hour, kind of like that. Alright, so just maybe go to the newest and then you will find all of the news job that has been posted to that category. So you can see the tags after effects and motion graphics and stuff. So I got all of the jobs that I don't know why it's saying one day ago, but yeah, it is. I think they paid some money to boost it on top of the screen. That's why it's tagged here. Otherwise, you don't see one day ago post job when you feel that as a newest. So you can see here, these job was posted 10 min ago. And now the prototypes, alright, so how you can understand that which job you should apply for? There are a lot of jobs that is flying around and which job you should apply for and which one you should skip. The first thing when I when I started, when I was a new I actually read it properly. I decided that I should look at I just blindly read it and then taught that. Okay, yeah, I can do the job. I am capable of doing that. So let's apply. So that's a mistake that I made and actually I didn't have to spend any money. I just spend that connects. That was free. I got it from Upwork that 60 connects. So I didn't have to actually see that. Okay, I should spend my connects more carefully. So after I ran out of the Kinects and I had to buy more connects to apply for other jobs. Then I found some ways from my experience that I'm going to share with you right now. And you can follow and then skip the jobs that you shouldn't actually apply for it the first place. 3. 03. Client's Account is Verified or Not: So the first thing that you are going to look at is if the client's account is verified on, not just look at this one, the payment method is not verified. That means this guy is probably not actually posting a job. He's actually maybe doing some market research. Alright? So he's just posted and then see the responses of other people. And think that okay, probably this is the current rate of the market that people are willing to work on that rate, alright, for this film, most of the time when the payment method is not verified, that means he didn't include his card or PayPal or anything to Upwork so that he can pay you. That means there's no chance that he's going to hire you or he's going to hire actually anyone. So you should actually skip those guys. The first thing we're going to look at if the payment method is verified or not. Alright, that's the first thing that you have. 4. 04. How Much The Client Already Spent: The second thing that you're going to look at is how much the client actually spent on Upwork. So you can see the, the guy actually spend $0. So I'm going to skip him. I'm not going to look at I'm not going to even bother to look at what he's supposed to. So I'm just going to skip it. And then now you just move on to this guy. The payment method is verified. So I can have a look now that how much we actually spent. If you are new and then you think, Okay, I don't care about how much is spent if the payment method is wafer, I want to apply for the job. Yeah, go for it. But if you really want to work for good clients, then you should consider that how much he actually spent. This guy actually pretty new client in Upwork because he just only spend more than $300. Now, this guy Look at this guy, he actually spent more than $3,000. So are you going to work for this guy or this guy? Depends on the job that he's posting, but work for the new clients. That means they're actually still new to understand what's going on, how much people are paying in Upwork and what type of people they should hire for their job. So they're very choosy and then they will think about the money and then they will interview like hundreds of people and then maybe the budgets are low. So a lot of things happening. You should go for the people where you can see he actually spent some money in Upwork and he has a good record of paying a lot of money in Upwork. Alright, so right now you can see the payment methods vary, but I'm not going to even look at it. 5. 05. Client's Budget and How Much You Charge Per Hour: So the third thing that you are going to look at is how much budget client has for the job. So before you apply for any job, you have to actually understand that how much you're going to charge the client, alright? So there are two types of job you're going to get in Upwork. One is fixed price and the other one is hourly job. So fixed price is client has a specific budget which they're going to spend for that specific job, you can beat on that fixed price. That means if a client has $100 job and you're going to beat on like $100. That's okay. So you can apply for less amount, which is fine. And then client can see that, okay, this guy applied for that much money and then this guy is applied for $100. So they can decide, and then they can have a loop your portfolio, then they can decide who will get hired. Alright? The other type of job is hourly job. So you have to fix your hourly rate that how much you're going to charge the client for your time that you're going to spend for the clients jobs. Alright. That means if we are saying that, okay, the skill that I have, I believe that I should get paid $40 per hour for my skill. So I'm going to set my hourly rate as $40. And if you see someone who is spending like someone's budget is $3 of three to $5. Obviously, you know, you're going to apply for that job. So it's not gonna be a lot of your talent. You're going to skip those types of jobs that is not going to meet your requirements. That means like it's not going to be the budget is too low for you, so you're not going to skip those jobs. Okay? So you decide that how much you're going to ask for and how much you're per hour rate should be. And when you are happy with the rate that you fixed. Now have a look. If you want to work for this guy, have a look how much he is paying. Is it a fixed price or it's part of our job? Now you can have a look that it is a fixed fixed price. That's why it is saying the budget is estimated budget is 250. But if it's an hourly job, then you can see like this type of writing that there's no estimated budget mentioned here. That means this one is only job. So you decide that you want to go for a fixed price. Sometimes, yeah. You can apply for both types of jobs, but you have to understand that. Yeah, I don't I don't wanna get paid less than $40 per hour. So this guy has a budget of ten to $45, but I'm going to reject him because he doesn't have verified account. It didn't add his bank account to his account. That's why he can't pay anyone and this job is not legitimate it to me. So I'm going to skip this job. So I'm going to skip this job as well. So you have to have a loop that is a budget too low. You have to understand that you are paying 20% of your income to Upwork as a fee. That means if you are working to this rate, you are going to even get paid less than that right? After 20 per cent pain, you're gonna get that money. So this money that is showing it is actually Upwork will take 20 per cent out of this one. So you are going to even get less money. Now, you decide that, yeah, should I spend my time for the job that I'm getting paid after paying that fees. Does it worth your time to apply for this job or should I apply only for the hourly jobs that decided, okay, I'm not gonna do any other type of job like $80 or $100. I want to stick with hourly job. You have to decide that. Okay. That's the thing. 6. 06. Client's Star Rating Status: The fourth thing that you are going to look at is the client's targeting, alright? Sometimes you will not see any star. That means this guy actually started the, he's a new client and he doesn't have any ratings yet. That means the people who got hired and then he paid already $300. They actually didn't provide any feedback to the client. And sometimes you will see like one star or two stars. They spend the money. They have a verified account, they spend a lot of money. But the client has like two-star or one-star, something like that. Not five-star. That means the client has added problem. You have to think twice to apply for those and work for those clients because maybe the client is true. Maybe he got two stars because he gave a lot of extra jobs to do, but he didn't pay. Maybe he has some kind of problem that the workers are not happy and they gave him bad ratings. Alright, so you should avoid those people because those people actually train your whole energy. And then they will maybe asked you to review many times and then they are not happy at all. They see problem on everything. Okay, So you made something for them and then they will find problems and they will get back to you and then ask you to fix it and then it will drain your energy. Alright, so just avoid those people. 7. 07. Read Description Preview: Then when you're happy with everything, like so far, just have a look what the client is saying. Do you want to really do it? Like just pretend that I don't have any skill of 3D animation, but I searched for After Effects animation. But there are some post saying 3D animation. Let's say 3D animation. So just have a loop that what the client is asking here before you'd look into like deeply. Just have a look. If you don't think that it doesn't meet my scale, just keep it. So I can skip the 3D animation and then I can just move on. Then see where it's saying After Effects there. They're looking for after effects people. Okay. 8. 08. Client's Location: Another thing that you have to consider is the country of the client. So most of the jobs that you will see an upward, most of the clients are from the United States, or Canada, or Australia or from UK. Other than that, if you see any other country, you have to think twice before you apply for those jobs. Let's say this guy is from France and there's a strong chance that he's not going to hire you if you don't know French. Most of the people other than, other than US or UK or Canada or Australia, they are actually looking for the local people. And they will actually hire the people who understand their own language. And there are some countries who have some bad experience with working with them. So I started the job and then I didn't get paid or maybe i2 finish the job in the middle of the project because they have a tendency of scamming people. So you have to be careful of those countries people and then be aware of the people. Maybe you will get scammed or maybe they are actually hiring you to get the other clients job done. That means they get a job from other people or the big clients. They will hire you to, like get it done by you. They are the middlemen. They will get the most of the money. They will take the money from the client and then they will hire you. They will pay you less. Let's say they got a job for like $1,000 and they will post the job and then they will pay you maybe $50, you will do the job. Here's the middlemen. He didn't do anything, so you will get scammed. So just be careful. I recommend that you just have a look at where the kinds country and then should you apply for the job or not? If he's not from US or UK or Canada or Australia, just think twice before you apply for the job. 9. 09. Average Hourly Rate Paid by Client: Now it's time. You just click on any specific job and then have a look at what they're actually asking for. Let's say I'm going to apply for this job. So it's asking for a graphic designer. I'm just going to open that to a new tab. So you just open it and then see he actually posted 1 h ago. Okay. The thing that you're going to look at now is the average hourly pay rate. By looking at here, you don't actually see much. You can see it is verified. You can see he actually spent more than $1,000 and he's his budget is hourly rate, but you don't see how much he actually paid to the other people he hired. So when you click on that, you can actually see it here. So you look at the hourly average pay that he actually paid to the people. And obviously you can like without study or like looking at anything, you can straightaway reject his job because you are asking for 40 $40 per hour, but he's actually willing to pay $4 per hour. That means he's actually not going to hire you if you're applying for this job and then say that I want $40 power, steady way he will reject you. So why you're going to spend your money and time to read all of this stuff and then spend your six connects to apply for this job. There's no that doesn't make any sense. So just keep this job. Okay. Let's say you're new and you're happy with this job. Okay. What's next? 10. 10. Client's Percentage Hiring Ratings: Now you're going to look at what is the rate of his hiring people, okay. So you're going to look at here, he posted 19 jobs so far. And he only hired auditory person people. Sometimes you will be surprised seeing that a lot, lot of clients post a job. You apply for the job and then you spend your connects. But they actually don't hire people. If a person is posting like 100 jobs and they are only hiring like for ten jobs, that means 90 jobs that are posted and people wasted their money and time to apply for those jobs. And then he just closed it. He just closed the job. He thought that okay. I don't need to hire anyone else, so I'm just going to close it. He's not going to spend money or anything. Like he's going to losing any money to do that. But he's going to get this rating. That means he's going to losing this, like it is going to be very less amount. This percentage will be less. And you can actually have a look and understand the client's behavior. That is, you're going to really hire you or you're going to just waste your money by applying for this job. If you think that 43% higher ed is good, you can apply for it. But I already apply for any job that is like less than 60 or 70. That means sometimes it happens that yeah, you just post something and then you don't need to get anyone else. It was done by it was managed. So you can just delete the post. But if you see someone in positive ten jobs post, a lot of people apply. But he actually hired for one job or two jobs. Yeah, you definitely should think about it. 11. 11. Client's Recent History: Look at the client's history, alright, before you read a whole thing and understand and you spend your time, you just look at the client's history of work. You can actually have a loop that preferred location as well. Before you actually go see the history. If it's saying that dislocation only, you can straightaway close this job because maybe you're not from this country and he's not going to hire anyone else except this country. So you can easily just close that and then move on to a new job. But if you think that okay, he's globally hiring people, you can just read the history of his work. And you can see here, he's actually spending very less money. Sometimes you will see the red is saying like $20 or $30. But in here, you will see that he's actually not spending much money to the people. And he is maybe maybe one person or two person is getting a lot of money. And most of the people will get less than $5, $10, something like that. If you're, if you think that okay, I should get paid $40, then you shouldn't waste your time applying for this job. You just have a look and maybe have a look the stars that he got from the workers. And try to really, if you see that less stars, it just had tried to read it and then see, get a sense about the client. Should you spend your time for this client or not? Just have a look. The most important thing that you're going to have a look is how much people are getting paid. And sometimes you will find the same title here, that means here also that job before. And then here I had someone. And you can have a sense of how much he actually willing to pay for that job. And if you think that okay, let's say this job, he's saying he's going to spend. You can see the average rate is $4. Let's say you're going to apply for $5 for this job. You're asking for $5 per hour for this job. You can have a look the history and then if you see the same title and then same writings and stuff, you can have a sense that okay, he got maybe he hired someone for $3. That means he's actually not going to pay you $5 at high you, he's actually going to get someone, wait for someone who is going to apply for $3 and then he will actually hire him, not you. So you can get some sense from looking at history. 12. 12. Proposals of Other Applicants: Now when you're checking the country, the same time, you can have a look at how many people are actually applied for the job. So in here, he actually posted it 1 h ago, but you can see less than five people actually applied for the job. I think, because it is from Philippine, he is actually asking to hire people from Philippians, only less than five people actually applied for that. But sometimes within five-minutes of posting the job, you will see 50 plus people applied for the job. So you have a very tough competition there. If in a job, you can see 20 to 50 people applied for the job, that means you have less chance of getting hired, especially if you're new and you're Upwork portfolio is not strong enough. If you have a good record, then that's fine. You can move on and then apply for the job. But if you're not confident and if you think that okay, my portfolio is not, not good enough, then you should avoid where 50 people already applied for the job. So he's going to look at the people who has more skilled than you. So you have to I just had considered that as well. So after that, what do you have to do? 13. 13. Interviewing or Not: You have to have a loop that if the client is actually interviewing people or not, Let's say I applied for this job and then I leave this open, and then I move on to another job and then I leave the tab open for like 23 days, come back after two days or three days, refresh that page. And I can still see zero interviews. And it's more than 50 people already applied for the job, but interviewing is zero. That means the client actually posted and then client is too busy. He's actually not getting time to intervene people. You have to have a loop that is a client is active or not. Let's say this job was posted 1 h ago. If the client is interviewing, that means there's a chance that client is actually intervene people to hire someone right now. It is going to be risky if there is no intervening within like one or 2 h. That means client is giving some more time to apply for more. But when you already have like 50 applicants and the client is not intervening for like pass 3 h. That means there's a problem. The client probably is too busy to have a look all of the job applicants and then maybe he's not going to open it. Maybe after seven days he's going to delete the post. There's a chance of that. You have to have a look at client is active or not. When the client was active, like this client was active for minutes ago. So he's actually continuously checking how many people applied for the job. He's actually checking them. So you have to consider that as well. It is not important to consider this. You can just move on. But the first few steps that I told you, you definitely have to check it out before you apply for the job. 14. 14. Final Tips: Time to Read the Description Carefully: And finally, now, if everything is okay, you are satisfied with everything, then it is time to read everything carefully. Read everything carefully. Don't just keep it. Because sometimes clients put some words are like say, I asked you some questions, You have to actually type those words on top of your application so that client understand that he posted a big post and then you actually read it. Let's say this client posted a very long post and you're not going to like, you just keep reading it and you just blindly apply for the job. But in this line, clients said that if you read everything, just type this in on top of your application. Otherwise I will reject your application. So you didn't read it properly and skip that and he applied for the job. Client will straightaway reject. Okay, so you're gonna lose your connects and client isn't going to hire you. So you have to have a look that What's client is asking for. Sometimes they will give you very difficult rules and regulations that it is hard to follow. Just have a look there. If you're happy to work for that client or not. If you're happy, just go for it. Just submit the proposal and then put your resume link and then just write it down in a document previously so that he can copy and paste for most of the clients. And if you are working for creative jobs like Photoshop or After Effects animation, you must have to have some portfolio in like behance.net or maybe some YouTube videos or LinkedIn profile, instagram profile. Just upload stuff, alright, more you show to your client, they will be convinced that this guy has skill. The other thing that you must have to do, if you have a lot of work's already done, you should make a montage video where client can have a look, only one video. And they can have the whole idea about your workflow and everything and your skill so that they can hire you. Just looking at one video, they can decide that, okay, this guy has the style that I'm looking for, so I can hire him. So just make one montage video and then you can provide the links, individual links of your related jobs that client is asking for. 15. 15. Conclusion: I hope that experience that I have shared with you will help a lot of new people. And I'm hoping to see you soon with the new tutorial. Alright, Stay safe. Bye.