How to Compete for a Freelance Job
When you’re applying for a freelance job, how can you make your resume and clips stand out from the pack? There are many conflicting ideas about how to do this, but there are some surefire ways to make yourself look like the pro you want to be.
First–read the instructions. If the freelance job ad says “no attachments”, don’t send any. Copy and paste all required documents into the body of your e-mail. You’d be shocked at how many people ignore or disregard this basic step.
Send only relevant samples of your work. If the freelance job is a technical writing gig, don’t bother sending copies of your articles from the college paper. If you don’t have relevant samples, try to find those with ANY tie-in to the job you want.
Finally, make damn sure there are no typos, spelling errors and abused apostrophes in your cover letter and resume. Again, a surprising number of people blow the gig before they even get to the interview stage because the cover letter reads like a poorly thought out, hastily dashed-off mash note.
In our experience every time a call for freelance jobs goes out, at least 50% of all responses have all these problems. Sad, isn’t it?
