Freelance 101: how do I keep competetive?

July 20, 9:50 PMSeattle Freelancing ExaminerL.J. Bothell

Previous Next

3 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Seattle Freelancing Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

You can and need to continuously add to your skills toolkit and your experience examples. This is so you always seem fresh and in-the-know, so that you are always doing something progressive and not feeling hopeless, and so that you keep looking for opportunities instead of waiting for job listings. Make it happen!

• Evolve your portfolio/experience examples so that grows in professionalism and individuality. Add, add, add!
• Look for opportunities to be a tester or evaluator in your business.
• Join one or more collaborative/cooperative project groups for your skill set, or create one.
• Sign up on a free/low-fee project marketplace site like Guru.com, Crowdspring, or Odesk where you can bid for bits and projects - but focus on fair and real bids/projects. Don’t go for projects that are obviously underbidding or hint at time spirals.
• Find a serious blog in your skill set industry and become a knowledgable and regular contributor.
• Create tutorials, how-to's, and snips to share so that your network and build a skills reputation.Look for blogs, e-learning, and sites like DayTipper.
• Teach, tutor, and or mentor - local community centers, senior centers, junior and senior high kids, job search centers needing tutors, online, etc.
• Speak at schools, meetings, and networking groups as an expert.
• Subcontract as a bit part of a project, dev for a design team, design for a dev team, organize for another freelancer, etc.
• Build a bit of any freelance expertise to enhance your ability to consult.
• Commit to a minimum of one interesting but low-hourly-impact pro-bono a quarter when unemployed, and a couple a year when employed.
• When visiting someone out-of-town, look for networking functions and meetings in that area for your existing networking groups.
• Use Twitter, Facebook, your professional networking profile, and your portfolio to update/announce your new materials, and share your growth & professional presence.

Being low on work can be demoralizing, but regularly doing some combination of these kind of things will keep you moving forward, even while the market works to catch up to you!

Questions? Contact L.J. at ljbnomad@gmail.com. Note: culled from from LJ’s previous teaching information