How to Get Approved on Upwork and What to Expect
Before the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, online workers already accounted for 15% of the country’s workforce. While it is a remarkable way to earn money, building up a good portfolio online doesn’t happen overnight. You have to devote some time first and take simple gigs in order to improve the quality of your work which will later on help you land more premium online jobs later on.
By taking tiny steps, you will have the opportunity for great clients to get back to you for future tasks after building a good working relationship with you after proving you are reliable and could come up with quality work. One of the best online job platforms for freelancing is Upwork.com and that’s true. How it works is clients are able to post their listings containing description about what they seek for in their remote workers while freelancers create their profiles defining out their skills and relevant experiences.
To increase your chances of being accepted, here are important steps to keep in mind in order to get approved on Upwork:
1. Show Upwork You’re a Wholehearted Professional
After signing up on Upwork, remember that you are not only creating a profile but most importantly also considering remote work sincerely. In order to get approved on Upwork, you have to put in the best email address, the one that you regularly use and are connected with your mobile devices so you won’t miss any future client updates and messages. If you have a business email, that would be great as well since business emails are more professional. Either way, you can ace any job you’re skilled at as long as you are honest, sincere and reliable.
2. Avoid choosing just one type of work subcategory.
Upwork will ask you what type of job you will do, hence the more you choose, it means the more flexible you will be. If you think you know other skills, tell them so as to get approved on Upwork.
Pro Tip: Upwork seems to be difficult to enter now compared to the previous years given the surge of applicants vying for a spot in the freelancing world at present. So it can be helpful if you include rare, in demand skills that could be highly relevant to the clients. Say for example if you are an engineer and has experience in creating prototypes, you might as well add those, too.
3. As much as possible, put at least 8 or more skills that you can do or you’re best at.
Example skills:
- Writing content writing
- Copy writing blog writing
- Article writing word process
- SEO writing
- Ad copy writing
- Feature writing
- Business writing
4. Do not leave any section blank especially the overview section.
Did you know that the overview section is the equivalent for “About Me” page in Upwork? So in order to get approved on Upwork, the overview section has to look good as it is where you will be “selling” yourself, i.e. your background, skills and what you have to put forward to your clients.
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5. Be specific with your title.
Take into account that Upwork prefers freelancers with skill level that are in high demand. Thus, if you want to get approved on Upwork, you have to create a substantial title that will give you an edge from the others.
Example: Instead of Virtual Assistant, put Topnotch Virtual Assistant instead.
6. Include all your educational background and employment history.
I’ll tell you what, you know it is best to include all your educational background, vocational courses, trainings and seminars as well and not just your college and masteral degrees. This is to show its importance to your proficiency. And then, include in detail your employment history. You have to put all your work experiences including part time ones. Even if you are just a fresh graduate, you always have in one way another a relevant experience to share like previous data entry or encoding work. By doing so, you are one step nearer to getting approved on Upwork.
7. Do not underestimate yourself with your professional rate.
Perhaps you are not aware of this but when clients post their job listings, Upwork asks them how much they can pay you. Hence, in order to get approved on Upwork, you should never underestimate yourself with the lowest rate just because you are only starting. Sometimes, clients might think you are not actually competitive enough or that you are not worth the high rate. You should start with a rate that is within Upwork’s suggestion like this below.
Example: Upwork Suggestion
Virtual Assistant rate – $25.00 – $50.00 / hour
8. Try to learn an extraordinary but in-demand skill.
The ability to have a new set of skills which are not very common will be your best shot to get approved on Upwork. For instance, a voice over artist is not a common skill but it is highly in demand. Voice talents are those that narrate audiobooks, commercials, movie trailers podcasts introductions, and many more. Having good voice skills will help you attract clients’ attention.
At the final thought, make sure to treat your profile like a resume so you have to proofread every section as carefully as you should. You know, if at first Upwork will disapprove your curriculum vitae, don’t feel bad, it’s not the end of the world. You can submit another one in the future, just continue to add new skills when you acquire some and new experiences gained to your portfolio. And once you will get approved on Upwork, I am sure that the door for bigger online opportunities will open for you. Patience is always a good virtue.