After I quit my job more than a decade ago, I had to decide what direction I would take next for my career.
I’m a software engineer, so it goes without saying that I didn’t initially want to go radical and completely change my career path. I preferred to stay in the IT industry and save the exploration of new ventures for later.
One of the options I gave a try back then was Upwork. It was around the time Elance and Odesk merged to become Upwork, and it seemed like the place to be for freelancing.
I remember I signed up, created a decent profile, and started looking through the projects to see if there was something to do there.
I was a bit turned off when I saw clients looking for top-notch freelancers to build a social media platform “similar to Facebook” for laughable budgets (something like $200-$300). It felt even worse when I saw “freelancers” actually bidding for such projects.
Nevertheless, I found some jobs that seemed reasonable from decent clients, so I sent many proposals but without any success. I told myself this whole thing is a joke and decided to move on. This is, by the way, a pattern to always pay attention to; your mind can deceive you into looking at things the wrong way.
I was already starting to have something on my plate coming from local clients. I was doing fine, so I forgot about Upwork for a while. Then one day, accidentally, I stumbled into an awesome blog about how to be successful on Upwork. It opened my eyes to one horrible mistake I was making and one of the worst to make in business in general: sending generic proposals.
Clients get a very negative impression from generic proposals; they question whether the freelancer has actually read the job description and become seriously doubtful about his integrity and ability to produce high-quality work.
The guy really nailed it and explained in detail why sending generic proposals was such an awful idea. He also provided illustrations of profiles that were rocking it on the platform (freelancers who made 6+ figures). He enlightened me and made me understand on the spot where I was coming short.
I knew what I had to do. I fixed my profile and started sending personalized killer proposals. It worked like a charm, and I landed contracts with top clients, some of whom I ended up meeting in person several times. During my time on Upwork, I too made 6 figures.
In case you’re wondering “is Upwork legit?”, let me tell you that all of this was obviously some time ago, when Upwork was still a great platform for freelancing. Things have unfortunately changed a lot since then, but this is another story for another day.
This applies as well to sending cold messages/emails and applying for jobs. When I wasn’t hiring, I often got emails from candidates applying for a job in my company. I was often busy and didn’t really have time to reply to every candidate. So when I skimmed the email and noticed it was a generic one, I felt absolutely no guilt for ignoring it. It wasn’t for me anyway.
The same holds true when I’m hiring, either for my business or on behalf of a client. When I have a large number of candidates, I discard all the generic ones without batting an eye.
Hear me out: time-saving techniques can sometimes become the real time-wasting ones. Always put effort into what you do and try to customize your offer. Make people feel valued so they give you importance as well.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot!
– Ys Heartruth –
