Being a freelancer is fantastic, they say. And here you are, reading the thirteenth blog post about how to make money as a freelancer, slowly turning to search “how to survive as a freelancer.” Well, things are not that complicated, and the number of jobs waiting for freelance specialists in different fields is actually enormous. All you have to do is find your way to them. And that’s what I’m going to help you with.

A tip for those looking for a job — invest in your career even if you need to take a loan. You might need money to build your own website or pay to get access to more job offers on reputable websites. Platforms such as GetCash can connect you with vetted lenders that can provide you with a loan to pay for such things. You can get a short-term loan from $100 to $5,000 within 24 hours, even if your credit score is rather low. Get as much cash as you need from a lender to start your way to success.

Scour the Websites With Jobs for Freelancers

While Behance is a go-to site for designers, Contena is great for copywriters. I urge you not to forget the websites that advertise all types of jobs. For instance, the good old Upwork is versatile for all freelancers. On this platform, you can find not only orders like “I need a text for a landing page” or “Create a website design” but also “I’m looking for someone who will voice-over a piece of text in German.” Don’t limit yourself.

A mistake that many novice freelancers make is they register on ten or more platforms at the same time. The thing is, it’s virtually impossible to manage to promote yourself on more than 3 or 4 platforms at the same time and get a job in the end. I would focus on one until I get the result.

Create a Portfolio

Whether you are a designer, copywriter, or SMM manager, finding a job is hard without showing any examples of your work to potential customers. But don’t fret. It won’t be the hopeless “they don’t hire me if I don’t have experience — I don’t have experience because they don’t hire me” circle.

Things work differently in the freelance world. You can write a text or create designs for different products for free and include it in your portfolio. Making these things for free at the beginning of your career is one of the investments I have mentioned before. As you see, you need to invest money and time.

Many platforms such as Wix or Tilda allow you to create a website without any programming knowledge and publish examples of your work conveniently. Once everything is ready, you can share a link to your website on your social media and add it to your job applications.

There is a huge benefit to writing a text or creating a design that nobody actually ordered — you can choose any topic or product and make something remarkable. Of course, you can also spend a few weeks looking for people who can pay at least some money for your work. However, in this case, you are likely to be working on a task that you are not interested in.

Let’s say you want to write about cars and everything related to the automotive industry. That said, you get a more or less nice order from a person who owns a flower shop. You have no choice, so you write the text for them, get your money, add the text to your portfolio, and what’s next? Get more orders from flower shops? The idea is simple — fill your portfolio with the works that match your interests.

Monitor the Job Boards

When I was looking for my first writing gig, I had a particular strategy. I opened an online job board, checked all the offers that suited me, and applied to those published in the last two weeks. After that, I monitored new vacancies every day and applied to most of them for the next two weeks. All in all, I spent four weeks submitting applications for all suitable job offers.

You might say I was crazy, but I prefer going with “persistent.” Of course, it wasn’t easy as I had to read all the job descriptions and adjust my application to them. For some of them, I even had to perform various test tasks. However, in the end, I was chosen by five good companies which wanted me to work for them. I used this strategy several times to find a new job, and it never let me down.

Wrapping Up

Becoming a freelancer is a road full of ups and downs. But once you hit the road, you will have a fascinating trip. Try out my strategies for a job search and find your customers as soon as possible. Feel free to share your thoughts on finding a job as a freelancer.