Don’t Always Expect a Reply
Do you apply for freelance writing jobs on a regular basis? You can apply for jobs through online ads, or by sending query letters, cold emails, etc. It is very important that you are always marketing yourself. By replying to open positions you are doing just that. One thing to keep in mind during this process is that you will not always receive a reply. It would be nice to receive a reply all the time, good or bad, but this is not the case now and probably never will be.
Companies that advertise freelance writing jobs online receive a flood of interest within a matter of minutes. I myself have put ads on numerous freelance writing websites. The end result was close to 100 emails within a day. As you can imagine, it was difficult and time consuming to get through them all. For this reason, I only had enough time to reply to those who I was interested in working with. If you do not receive a reply after applying for a job you should not take this personally. Sometimes you will land a job, sometimes you will get a rejection, and sometimes you will not hear back at all. This is all part of the freelance writing game.
I have found that most magazine editors take the time to respond no matter if they want to hire you or not. This is not always the case, but I would guess that 75 percent of the time I receive a response. Even if I am not assigned a story it is still nice to hear back from an editor. This way I know they received my query. And of course, a rejection is not always a bad thing. If you receive a rejection it does not mean you will never write for the magazine. It just means that the time is not right.
Apply for as many freelance writing jobs as you are qualified for, and leave it up to the recipient to make a hiring decision. If you do not receive a reply, move onto the next opening. Soon enough something will break your way and you will land a high quality gig!
March 10th, 2009 at 8:02 am
This was one of the first things I learned when I started freelancing a few months ago. In my experience, if you don’t get a reply to an application in 24 hours it’s unlikely that you’ll hear from them. Unless the ad specifically says that it’ll take them time to reply.
March 10th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Samar – I would agree with you for the most part. Of course, with a query letter you need to give the editor a couple months in many cases.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Oops, I forgot to clarify that I meant this for ads alone and not magazines. As for query letters, so far I’ve always gotten a reply from editors no matter how late. Even if it’s just a ‘Thanks but no thanks’.
November 4th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Very nice information. Thanks for this. I am going to add this to my bookmarks. Keep up the good posts.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:13 am
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