How to select your first writing job

Getting your first job and correctly marketing yourself is the key when you join. Grabbing that first feedback is critical for each of these sites and some people go months before they get a job. When you are new it is important that you understand the first impression a potential client has is your profile. This is why you need to correctly market your skills and provide a thorough profile. When you place bids on jobs on any of these sites you need to know that cookie cutter responses will not work well for you. Each job is different and therefore your description of why you would be best for the job must be different. You might highlight a completely different set of writing skills for a technically minded job versus an academic one. When you fill out a description to go with your bid you need to tell the client why you are better than the competition. This might be uncomfortable at first especially if you do not like complimenting yourself but it is necessary if you ever want t make a name for yourself on these sites. You have to sell yourself as well as possible giving the most glowing and honest review.

• Some jobs as for samples of previous work. If you do not have any paid writing pieces you might try spicing up an old report you wrote in school or taking an hour or two one day to write a creative reflection piece on a current event. Even a simple 500 page article you write on a topic of your choice can be used as a sample for every job until you start writing more.
• Another way to land your first job on these sites is to look at the client profile. They are looking at yours so it cannot hurt. Most clients know that if they want the highest quality work they will have to pay more. However not every client wants to pay for the highest worker. Sometimes they select the lowest bid or the fastest delivery time. You can learn a lot about catering your bid to their needs by reviewing who they have selected in the past for previous jobs and determine the link between them. Were they all the lowest bid? Were they all the fastest turnaround time? Were they all people who attached writing samples? Were they all new hires?

In some cases you may get lucky. There are often people who seek out newcomers to these sites. These jobs typically pay less than the average job but they give you a chance to get great feedback in exchange for working less. You can often find these based on their job description and/or title which will clearly state something for “beginners” or “newcomers” or “newbies”.