How to Find Great Freelance Work
You can be skillful and motivated, but if you can’t find freelance work — well, you can’t work your magic.
To thrive in the freelance world, you need a blend of strategy, persistence, and marketing skills. This guide provides actionable steps to help you land high-quality freelance work that aligns with your skills and career goals.
Building a Strong Portfolio
Remember in high school and university (if you attended) when everyone would make you have your elevator pitch perfected? There would always be a scenario along the lines of: “You never know when you are going to meet the next person to change your career.” Well, in a similar (but less dramatic) vein, building a strong portfolio is kind-of like having a strong elevator pitch. It needs to be concise, needs to showcase your skills, and should make the person watching to want more. Though, there are a lot of mistakes you want to avoid when creating your portfolio — check out our blog here to take the deep dive.
Leveraging Freelance Platforms
Not every platform is built the same — and no one website is going to give us all the best freelance job opportunities. Finding work is a bit of a game, but if you know the rules — you can play the game too! Now, this part of finding freelance work is completely reliant on things being posted for you to see vs. being proactive and creating work for yourself (which we will get to).
Here are some of the most popular freelancing platforms to date:
Depending on the platform, there will be different types of fees applied. Since you are finding the work on their platforms, typically they take a cut. Here is a great blog that goes into depth about different sites with pros and cons!
When you enter these types of platforms, your will have a large amount of competition. However, this doesn’t mean the competition is strong. You need to focus on the quality of your profile! Ensure you using a professional headshot, clear headline, and detailed descriptions for your bio and services.
To go a step further, you must showcase what makes YOU worth hiring. Chances are, a lot of your services are going to be offered by other people. So what makes you special? Maybe it is your specific experience with clients or maybe it is how you position the outcomes of your services.
Another note to consider: there are a lot of freelance jobs posted on freelance platforms that are one-off jobs. This is just how the cookie crumbles! Though, just because it is one-off, doesn't mean it can’t turn into longer term projects.
Network like a Pro
As the saying goes: your network is your net worth. Some of these online platforms allow you to easily connect with other freelancers in your space. Aside from that, you should be joining online communities to stay active! There are LinkedIn groups, Reddit forums, or even Slack channels that can be for your industry.
You also don’t want to forget to let your friends, family, and past employers know that you have gone freelance. You never know who will need help in the future!
If you are in a city, chances are there may be in-person meetups as well! This is a great way to connect with people in your niche industry — whether they be future collaborators or even clients!
An example of an SF meetup happening is below!
Creating an Online Presence
No, we are not saying you need to become an influencer or post on social media every day. However, it should feel natural to want to keep up with your industry and connect with more people within it. This may lead you to want to share your own thoughts — becoming a thought-leader if you will! If anything, your social accounts should be updated to indicate where people can reach you if they want to work with you (especially your LinkedIn profile).
Easy wins:
Updating your LinkedIn profile with relevant work + any new business updates!
Creating a simple website portfolio with your offerings.
Updating any relevant social media (X, IG) with your website link + freelancing title!
Challenge yourself to write an article or share a though-leadership social media post about something in your industry bi-weekly.
Pitching Proactively
As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, sometimes relying on platforms to find work is not the way. While that is part of the art, being proactive puts things back in your hands. Finding companies that align with your interests and goals as a freelancer is a great place to start. If you can point out something that needs to be created or optimized in their business, try getting in touch with their teams and briefly sharing your thoughts. You’ll want to ensure you have these ideas fleshed out a bit more, just in case they do get back to you! The key here is to not send a cold email introducing yourself — they receive enough of those spammy LinkedIn messages every day. Instead, you are trying to set yourself apart.
You should always send follow-ups to your pitches! People are busy, so you need to be the one to remind them that they have an unopened email in their inbox. You can also try to reach out to other people on the team. Try to connect with people who work in the department you’d be collaborating with the most — or our favorite, the “Head of People” if they have one!
Parting Thought
Finding freelance work is always going to look like a different process for everyone. Some people have certain connections, live in certain cities, or maybe have previously worked in the industry they now want to freelance in. While others, may not have any connections, live away from major hubs, and are just now starting their careers. Depending on the cards delt to you, you’ll have to make strategic decisions that work best for your circumstances! It will always be a process of trial and error, so don’t get down on yourself — you will learn what works best for you in due time!
