Freelancing Or Speedlancing?
A few days ago, I decided to freelance. I signed up for Upwork, followed the necessary steps and my account was good to go.
Before applying for any jobs, I made sure my profile was well-optimised. I added a few samples of my work to the portfolio section, wrote a convincing description and a lot more.
To put simple, my profile was looking darn good!
After a brief series of admiration for my profile (you do it too. I’m not a creep🙃), I finally clicked on “find work”. As soon as the page loaded, I spotted open jobs that suited my skill set. I clicked on the first and applied. Same with the second, third……… tenth.
After a day, I came back to my Upwork account. As I clicked into my account, I expected 1 to 3 notifications. I had just applied to 10 jobs which had urgency stated in their proposals.
Surely the clients would hire quickly.
To my gullible surprise, I found crickets. The silence was bad. Really bad!
I was flabbergasted. I quickly accepted by telling myself “Maybe they didn’t want new freelancers”. A sharp thought of mine pointed out I only applied for entry-level jobs.
Don’t I know the meaning of entry-level? Or am I not entry-level enough?
What the hell is going on?
Later on, I found out what was happening.
Freelancing has become Speedlancing.
Let me explain.
I moved on and found a gig. More like it found me.
All I did was navigate to the “most recent jobs” tab and I found what I thought was a jackpot. A job was posted a minute ago.
Not only that, I could apply. It was an entry-level writing gig in my niche of speciality. I seized this opportunity and clicked on apply. Joyfully, I wrote my cover letter, specified the job timing, added attachments and portfolio highlights.
I scrolled down to click submit proposal and what I found shocked me.
In a minute after posting that job, over 5 people had applied! They were even bidding for top spots!
In that moment I realised what was going on. Other people had been accepted for gigs even before I applied.
Upwork freelancing has become something else. Survival of the fastest is at play here.
I think this has to do with a reduced supply of gigs. With the advent of AI, people no longer tend to seek human content. The freelancing market demand is reducing. As AI advances, this will become more prominent. AI is the go-to
This has turned freelancers into animals of prey. They wait patiently for a gig. When it arrives, they pounce on it.
How then do you pros do it? I still have a lot to learn about freelancing.
What should I do? How do I find clients?
I’d love to see suggestions in the comments. It’ll mean a lot.
Thanks.
TOOLS I USE ✨✨
To stay organised and balance my life 📃, I use Notion😩
For all my marketing 📭, I use Systeme, the cheapest all-in-one digital marketing tool.
To write better product reviews, ✍ I use SEOwriting AI. (make sure to put your own touches to the article it generates for you.)
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