Odesk Tips – Applying For Jobs
By Julia Khusainova • October 3, 2009 • Posted in Freelance, Making Money Online • 10 Comments »
In my previous post How to get started with Odesk I showed you how can you benefit from working as freelancers and how to set up your provider profile and make everything ready to start applying for jobs and make money.
Today we are going to apply for our first job.
How to get your first Odesk job? When I started I got nothing in my portfolio because my past clients were asking me for privacy. That’s why I have nothing to add and show to my potential clients but I started to build my portfolio – just start with several pages and after 1 week I have 2 projects so far – 1 wordpress theme and 1 xhtml/css site. I put a $7/per hour and started offer my services.
I searched for jobs positions that best matches my skills – my priority was (X)HTML/CSS/Javascript front-end developer. I took 2 tests and my job quotas inscreased to 20 per week.
My advice – don’t loose your time. Apply for jobs. Now.
He is the list of top advices I’m used to become a successful provider.
1. Read job description carefully
2. Be polite
3. Be responsive
4. Be creative
5. Be truthful
6. Apply only for those jobs you possess required skills
If this is your first job it’s very important to show yourself to the buyer as a hard-working, responsible and willing to be paid provider. I personally recommend beginners to apply only for hourly-based jobs. You will have the oppotunity to feel what does it look like to work with Odesk tool and estimate your delivery time for future projects. Buyers love asking how many hours will it get you to complete the project.
If you have been invited to the interview write a great catchy cover letter. Mention your skills and you personal interest in this job position.
Do not apply for jobs you are not qualified enough. Anyway you will not finish it and there are a lot of chances for you to get a negative fedback. We don’t need it.
My provider profile has beed favorited 41 times. Not bad.
Give it a try and start making money with Odesk – it’s not hard and have a lot of advanteges. If you have any questions on how to get started read my post How to get started with Odesk or ask questions in the form below.
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10 Responses So Far
Hi, Aasif.
I took a look at your Odesk profile. My suggestions are:
1. Add portfolio projects that contains images of what you have done. It will add some polish to your portfolio and make it more attractive for buyers.
2. Increase you hourly rate. Yes! You have to respect yourself at first to be respected by your clients. Otherwise they will keep thinking you don’t have enough skills to be paid a good rate. I recomment to set not less than $7 including Odesk fees.
3. Add a picture of yourself! Proove you are a real person. It’s very important for building strong relationships.
4. And keep applying for jobs. I’m sure you will success as you have good test scores and skills overview.
If you have any questions feel free to post here.
Good luck!
[Reply]
Thanks for your good article but how can I write a good cover letter please send me sample………………..
Rupom´s last blog ..Avast Free Antivirus
[Reply]
I got rejected 3 times on odesk just because of “insufficient odesk history”. Whats this? I am new to odesk so how can I make my history good to get hired??
And I see while applying to different jobs the employer asked about odesk hours. Like 1 hour or more. Whats this?? Kindly give me some tips to get hired on Odesk. I have 5 years of customer service experience. But still no job on Odesk.
Looking forward to hear from you soon.
RGDS,
Abid Hassan
[Reply]
Julia Reply:
February 28th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
This might be happening for several reasons:
1. Buyer is looking for someone who has more oDesk hours
2. You have not enough positive comments or not enough rating
[Reply]
Hello everyone,
I have created my profile on odesk since 2010 (although I didn’t use it few months ago) but I am not been able to get handsome jobs as I want to… I am providing you the link of my Odesk profile below. Kindly review my profile and pleas pleas pleas provide some tips that how I can increase my chances to be hired on Odesk?
So, kindly check out my Profile and tell me what’s wrong with this…>?
https://www.odesk.com/users/~~afa4f8c1a075f0b3
I am waiting for your response anxiously.
Ali Qamar.
[Reply]
HI,
we are also considering to hire someone from odesk to set up our ecommerce website.
all applicants will provide a portfolios of their previous ecommerce websites which they did.
But we are concerned how can we be certain that those websites were indeed developed by the contractor ?
Kendell
[Reply]
You provide some rally good information thanks.
But unfortunately i did nt get any job yet, every day i apply for job i cant get it, can you tell me the reason, please see my portfolio/:
http://www.odesk.com/users/~~b59954eadcd21811
[Reply]