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Getting started as a freelancer - how do I portfolio?
Librarian
The face of liberal fascismRegistered User regular
The face of liberal fascismRegistered User regular
So, I know it hasn't got the best reputation, but I figured I'd go with upwork to get my toes into the world of freelance work, I do not want to invest in a professional website or other promotion for the time being until I have actually completed some jobs.
I have finished my profile and done some of the tests that show potential customers I actually have the skills I claim I have and now I am a bit stuck at the point where I am supposed to create a portfolio.
Since I am just starting out, I have no freelance work to show off and while I have been working in my field for roughly 10 years, my credentials all relate to positions where I was fully employed AND most of them are in German. So I am not sure if putting a recommendation letter in there will help.
My one high profile recommendation letter I do have in English is from an internship at the UN, where I set up a database(according to my boss the first of its kind) with articles about climate change. But that was 10 years ago.
Upwork requires me to put something in the portfolio field to complete my profile, but I am pretty clueless on what to put in, should I just upload the one English recommendation I got? Or write a translation of my last one?
If someone has any experience with the site, it would also be awesome if you could tell me how to best approach customers - I have the tendency to be absolutely honest about my lack of freelance work and would probably work for less money to gain experience, but at the same time I fear I might be selling myself short.
I have finished my profile and done some of the tests that show potential customers I actually have the skills I claim I have and now I am a bit stuck at the point where I am supposed to create a portfolio.
Since I am just starting out, I have no freelance work to show off and while I have been working in my field for roughly 10 years, my credentials all relate to positions where I was fully employed AND most of them are in German. So I am not sure if putting a recommendation letter in there will help.
My one high profile recommendation letter I do have in English is from an internship at the UN, where I set up a database(according to my boss the first of its kind) with articles about climate change. But that was 10 years ago.
Upwork requires me to put something in the portfolio field to complete my profile, but I am pretty clueless on what to put in, should I just upload the one English recommendation I got? Or write a translation of my last one?
If someone has any experience with the site, it would also be awesome if you could tell me how to best approach customers - I have the tendency to be absolutely honest about my lack of freelance work and would probably work for less money to gain experience, but at the same time I fear I might be selling myself short.
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Well, a portfolio and recommendations are two different things in my experience. A portfolio is generally tangible examples of your work.
I don't know what you do, but if it was writing, it would be actual writings, not someone recommending your writing. On the other hand, it looks like that website you mention also has fields that are not creative product fields such as accounting. Not sure how you would build a portfolio for accounting. If you do something where you cannot link an actual product, I would look up your successful competitors portfolios. What do they put in?
These are all fields I have worked in and have recommendations for, but I can't plug in the databases I worked on to show the abstracts I have written or the data I entered.
Same for the research, I did work for the German Medical Association and my medical records research contributed to uncover that a certain medication was actually harmful to the patients taking it. This made it into international media, but it's not like my name is tied to that, all I got is a letter of recommendation.