# My Story As I finished my computer engineering degree, and finished another diploma in software development as well, I naturally started to look around and see what the job market is like. The unfortunate reality of the market in Egypt is that **Software Engineers** are very undervalued and underpaid.

Having been exposed to the international market **Through friends, and influencers on different platforms**, I realized that there can be so much more earning potential for me, doing the exact same thing as I would do as a software developer in a company here in Egypt.
So I had a friend who'd started his freelancing journey a few months ahead of me, looking at the progress he made got me very excited for what's to come if I try the same thing too, and after doing my own research, and applying the tips he gave me, and tweaking a few things here and there, I went from having no jobs on Upwork, to being in the **Top Rated Plus** category, which is only the **top 3%** of freelancers on the platform, here is **how I did it**.

# 1. Building a profile that will get the attention I know that having the right profile sounds like obvious advice, but it cannot be skipped because of how important it is, think of it this way:
You send a proposal to a client for a potential job, the client on the other hand receives **many** proposals, and probably only has the attention span of an **average tiktok viewer**, so what are they going to do?

They're going to check only a few proposals, probably the ones they received first ***more on this later***, and they'll only click on your profile if you did a good job writing the proposal ***also more on this later***, now let's say they clicked your profile, what are they going to do?

They'll look at your picture and form an initial judgment *it's unfortunate I know, but we live in a superficial world*, then they'll look at your bio for a second or two, they might continue reading if you do a good job at writing an interesting and unique bio, then they'll probably scroll down and take a look at your past work, and past reviews to see if you've worked on something relevant, and if you have an introduction video they might click it, again, only if you've **managed to capture their attention for this long**.
So what are the most important things to prioritize while creating your profile?
1. Choosing the right picture:
I know it sounds obvious but having a good high quality picture with a confident smile can do wonders, it can very easily send a message that you're the professional they're looking for, and that's exactly what you want. So you want your picture to be a front facing head shot, preferably wearing something elegant, **only a portion of your outfit should show**, and also preferably having a cocky smile on your face. This combination works wonders.

A good idea here is to go on **Upwork** and look for successful freelancers, and see how their pictures look like, and try to take a picture of yourself that looks similar.

2. Choosing the right title:
This one can be a little tricky because let's say you're a software developer, you'll be inclined to just write **Software Developer** or **Software Engineer**, but guess what?

Everyone will probably think the same, and what are we trying to do? We're trying to **stand out**. So a better thing to do here is to think about what you excel at in your industry, let's say again you're a software developer.

Are you a **frontend developer** or a **backend developer**? What frameworks do you work with? What are you good at? you can ask yourself all these questions in order to come up with a better title that will help you stand out.

Example titles would be:
**ReactJS** enthusiast, **NodeJS** expert, etc...

3. Choosing the right rate:
This is obviously very important, because this is the rate you'll be working at.
It's not very difficult to find the right rate, what I personally did was look for **successful** freelancers on Upwork, with a similar skill-set to mine, then I took an **average** of their profile rates.

Some people would advise you to lower your rate at first to increase your chances of getting a job, but I personally would recommend you not to, because having a **low** profile rate would imply that you would deliver **low-quality** work, and you definitely don't want to imply that.

3. Choosing the right bio:
This one is not very difficult, but there's also good room here to stand out. You can start with a little background info, not too much because again, the client's attention span is probably not that long. Then you want to describe what you excel at, in the most efficient way possible.

Using bullet points here is a great idea, because they're straight to the point, and they're short and sweet. You can also use emojis here to help spike certain emotions in the viewer. Some examples would be:

- I'll get you 3 times more sales 🚀.
- 5-Star feedback ✅.
- Excellent and timely communication ⏰.

These emojis help deliver your message in a better and more unique way, which will help you **stand out**.

One thing you really don't wanna do here is focus too much on yourself. Instead, you want to focus on what you can provide for your clients, how you can use your strengths to solve the client's problems.

4. Crafting a solid portfolio:
This is one of the most important sections of your profile, because here is where you show your skills and convince the client that you indeed are the right professional for the job.

There are multiple ways you can show your work in your portfolio. I personally chose to make **short videos** of my projects and uploaded them to **YouTube**. Then I wrote short descriptions about the projects and linked to the videos. If you have live examples that you can link to, that definitely boosts your chances because it shows credibility and professionalism, but at the time I started, I didn't have that and I still managed to succeed, so don't worry too much about it.

Having a **personal website** also helps because you can show off everything you want on your website, exactly the way you want to, so if you manage to get the client on your website, reading your content, you probably already **landed** that client. But **again**, it's not a requirement. I personally didn't have a personal website when I started, or even when I found success on **Upwork**.

5. Having a profile video:
This is something that I haven't dabbled with personally, but it's definitely worth a mention. I've seen some Upwork profile videos that blew my mind, both for people I know and people I don't.

And it makes sense because in the world we live in today, the internet is **dominated by video content**, so if you can create a video that **captures** your client's attention for just a minute or two, and sell yourself properly, you raise your chances by a lot.

A great way to approach this would be again, go on Upwork, look for successful freelancers in your field, then look for the ones that have video intros, and watch them, write down some notes, and try to make your own version. It's pretty simple.

# 2. Writing job winning proposals This is one of the most important skills you need to work on in order to succeed on Upwork, or as a freelancer in general.

Let's try to switch views here and look at it from the client's perspective.

One of the most important notes here is how **quickly** you send your proposal to the client, because if the job's been posted for let's say more than **24 hours**, then the client probably received more than **10** proposals, and if you send more proposals, they're most likely not even going to read it.

Let's imagine that you're the client, you open your proposals page, and you see 20 proposals, first of all, these **20** proposals will be split into **different pages**, so let me ask you this, are you going to read all **10** proposals on the first page, then navigate to the second page and keep reading? **Probably not**.

What you're gonna do instead is probably open the first proposal, read a few sentences, and if the proposal has a **solution** to your problem, and a **plan** on how the problem will be solved then you'll probably read all of it.

Then you'll probably click on the freelancer's profile and take a quick look, and \*here is what we discussed earlier will **matter\***. If the freelancer has a video, you'll probably watch a few seconds, if it's good you'll probably watch more.

If all is convincing so far, you'll probably reply to the proposal with some follow up questions, or you'll set up a meeting/interview with the freelancer.

You'll probably do this with a few proposals then your attention span will run out and you'll probably only stick to one of those that you've already read.

So the key takeaway here is **timing**. You need to find jobs that are recent with **_less than 5-10_** proposals and apply for them. This way you can guarantee that your proposal will not be a **wasted effort**.

Now let's say you got the timing right, and you wanna send a proposal, what should the proposal look like?

First of all, you should start your proposal with a quick greeting, and introduction. No more than **2-3** sentences. Then you want to quickly address the client's problem/project.

You want to describe exactly **how** you can solve the problem, preferably with a plan, and **why** you're the right person for the job. You also want to show how you've solved similar problems in the past with **evidence** if you have it. eg:

- A link to one of your projects in your portfolio,
- Or a link to a website that you've already built with similar features. etc...

Then you want to make it easier for your client to reply to your proposal. How can you do that?

You can easily do that by prompting them to choose a suitable time for a **meeting** where they can discuss more details with you for the project. A good piece of advice here is to be as **flexible** as you can with your schedule, especially if you're still starting out.

Then you want to end your proposal with a nice greeting, your name, and optionally a quick hint at the end, for example, that you're ready to start working ASAP.

A great tip that comes to mind here is, while writing your proposal, you should quickly navigate to the client's profile and scroll down to the **feedback** section, because there you might find their **name** in one of the feedbacks they received, and you can greet them with their name on the proposal, because that helps **personalize** the proposal and encourage the client to **keep reading**.

Here's an example of a solid proposal:

> Hello there **Client name**.

Your job post caught my attention immediately because I've recently worked on a similar project, where I solved very similar problems to the ones you described. Here's a link to the project:

**_insert link here_**.
My plan is to use **_this framework_** to approach the first problem, and **_this tool_** to approach the second problem.
The work should take **_x number of hours/days/weeks_**, and I'll always be available for discussions/meetings. So let's set up a quick call to discuss more details for your project, and hopefully start working together.

PS: I'm flexible with time, so pick the time that works best for you.

Best regards, **_Your name_**.

As you can see, we wrote a very quick introduction, then quickly jumped to the client's **problem**, we described **how** we'll solve the problem, and we've given an **example** of a similar problem we've solved. We set the client's expectations for how long the problem will take to solve, then we prompted the client to set up a meeting whenever they like.

A proposal like this is very likely to get you a reply, and that is exactly the **goal** of your proposal.

Something very worth mentioning here is, you should **NEVER** copy and paste your proposals, every proposal you write should be **unique** to the project, avoid using templates at all costs. That is if you want to be hired.

# 3. Finding the right job Finding the right job is obviously what we're here for on Upwork, so here are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind while job searching.

Usually after you complete your profile on Upwork and set up your categories and skills, you'll get some relevant job postings in your feed, but most of the time, scrolling through this **unfiltered** feed will be a waste of time, thankfully though, Upwork gives you a lot of options to filter down the feed in order to find more **relevant** jobs.

There are **two** distinct ways to filter jobs on Upwork, one is key-word filtering, and the other is filtering details about the job post itself. here's a list of the filtering criteria I personally pay attention to:

- Payment type (hourly/fixed price). - Experience level. - Number of proposals on the job.

Here's a screenshot of the typical filters I would **personally** apply:

![UpworkFilter](/UpworkJobFilter.png)

A few things to note in the screenshot:

- Number of proposals is very important because as we mentioned earlier, we don't want to be looking for jobs that already have **more than 10** proposals.

- I personally look for more **hourly** jobs than I do fixed price, because with my experience on Upwork, hourly jobs end up being better in terms of **pay**, **communication**, and **convenience**.

- Experience level isn't really that important, but it helps filter the low payment jobs that I personally would skip.

The other way to filter job posts is by filtering keywords using the **Advanced Search** option, here's a screenshot that shows where you can find it.

![AdvancedSearch](/UpworkAdvancedSearch.png)

After you click on the advanced search button, you'll get a new window that allows you to filter the feed based on keywords. eg:

- Words you want to be **included** in the posts. - Words you want to be **excluded** from the posts.

I personally use the **Any of these words** filter, to get more relevant posts with the technologies I want to work on, and I also use the **Exclude these words** filter to filter out the jobs that include things I wouldn't wanna work on. Here's another screenshot of how I would personally go about it.

![WordFilter](/UpworkWordFilter.png)

As you can see above, I **specified** the technologies I would want to work on, and **excluded** some technologies I don't want to see in my feed, in order to save time and effort.

After you're done filtering the feed, here are a few more things to keep in mind while applying:

- If the job post doesn't have enough details, it's probably a waste of time.

- If the job has any means of communication outside of Upwork eg: Telegram, Whatsapp, etc... you should report it and move on, because these are most likely a **scam**, and it's against Upwork's **terms of service**.

Now let's say you found a job that seems perfect for your skills and you want to write a proposal, here are a few things you should look out for about the **client** you're about to work with.

# 4. Finding the right client Finding the right client might seem trivial, but in reality it's not. Before you commit to any client on Upwork, you should always inspect the client's profile and history, and pay attention to a few things.

After you click on a job post, you'll see the client's information on the right hand side of the page, with a few key pieces of information:

![ClientInformation](/UpworkAboutTheClient.png)

1. Payment method:

This is definitely important because it tells you if the client is legit or if they're possibly a scam. I personally worked with a few clients that did not have a verified payment method because I was their first hire on Upwork, but when I asked them to verify their payment method, they had **no problem** doing it right away. If they don't want to verify their payment method, then you should definitely **stay away**.

2. Jobs posted and hire rate **percentage**:

This is especially important because it tells you how likely this client is to hire a freelancer for the job they posted.

I personally try to look for clients with at least **50%-60%** hire rate, the higher the better of course. Anything under that tells you that this client often posts jobs, but doesn't actually hire freelancers for these jobs. so if I see something like **20%** hire rate, I would personally avoid it and move on.

3. Reviews and client star rating:

I personally look for clients with at least **4.6-4.7** star reviews, because if you think about it, if this client posts jobs and hires people and pays them **fairly**, chances are the people they hire are going to give them a **5 star** feedback. If they on the other hand have an average low star rating, that means there must be something fishy about them, and I would personally avoid them.

4. Client location:

This is not extremely important but should be put into consideration because if you decide to work with a client that has a drastically different timezone, then you will have to **compromise**.

5. Average hourly rate paid:

This one is important because it quickly gives you an estimate of the client **quality**, the higher the average they pay, the **better** the client is likely to be. This obviously depends on the industry.

6. Client feedback:

After you finish inspecting the information on the right hand side of the page, you want to scroll down to the **feedback section**, here we'll pay attention to a few things:

- We'll look for the client's **name** in one of the feedbacks they received in order to it use in our proposal as we discussed earlier.
- We'll look for any **low star** feedback the client has received, and look to read it, and of course consider skipping the client if we find one. - We'll also look for any **low star** feedback the client has **given**, if you find that a client often gives a low star feedback, then that means they're likely to give you a bad feedback as well, and on Upwork, the most important thing is your reputation. So if you find that the client often gives bad feedbacks, I would personally advise you to **move on** to another client.

# 5. Selling yourself right Now let's say you found the right job, and made sure the client seems good, you sent a proposal, and you got an interview lined up. The most **vital** point of the entire process is the **interview**.

This is where you can flex your **communication** skills, your **technical** skills, your **positive** attitude, and essentially why you're the right person for the job. If you do a good job here, it's very **likely** that you'll be hired, so do your best to prepare and be **ready** for any questions they might ask you.

# 6. Feedback and client relations Feedback is the **most** important thing on Upwork, if you manage to collect **5 Star** reviews, then you're setting yourself up for success, but if you get bad reviews, then your journey on Upwork will be much more difficult.

I personally try my best to keep my clients satisfied, by delivering the work on time, communicating everything I need, making sure that all the requirements are fully understood and that we're both on the same page. I would even go the extra mile of offering a **refund** if the client is **dissatisfied** with the service, because **again**, if I receive a bad review, it would hurt my profile way more than a few extra bucks would be worth.

Needless to say, if you maintain a professional attitude and deliver quality work in a timely manner, your clients will come back to you for more work, that way you wouldn't have to spend as much time job hunting, and spend more time working.

# General tips and tricks - You want your profile to be 100% complete, that way you can qualify for the **Rising Talent** and **Top Rated** badges. Here are a few links with more information:

- [Upwork Rising Talent Badge](https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211063228-Rising-Talent) - [Upwork Top Rated Badge](https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/211068468-Top-Rated) - [Upwork Top Rated Plus Badge](https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/360050417233-Top-Rated-Plus)

- You want to reply to all job invitations as **quickly** as possible, even if you're going to **reject** them, because response time affects your profile views, and the overall number of invitations you receive, and we want to get as many invitations as possible.

- Landing your first job can be a very **daunting** task, I personally sent out more than **30** high quality proposals in order to get my first real opportunity. So if you really want to make it on Upwork, **persistence** is key.

# Conclusion We've covered how you can build an optimal profile, send job winning proposals, find the right jobs, find the right clients, and ultimately find success on Upwork.

If you have any more questions or if you feel like I missed something, feel free to reach out to me on [Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adel-kafouri-232746193/), and I'll make sure to respond as quickly as I can.

With that being said, I wish you the best of luck on your journey towards success on Upwork.