Getting Considered for Freelance Writing Jobs
Now that you have a better idea of where to find freelance writing and blogging jobs (see the last post), you must now know how to win these coveted positions.
I recently ran a test experiment of sorts at freelancewriting.com. Since I was a bit behind with some articles, I wanted to find an experienced writer to crank out a couple pages for me; not a huge project by any means. So I posted the job, with a detailed description, and waited for the responses to roll in. Within five hours or so I was barraged with more than 30 emails. As you can imagine, I had a hard time sifting through all of these to find the best writer.
So what was the point of this experiment? Outside of actually wanting to find a writer, I also wanted to see what type of competition was out there. The bottom line is that if you want to move to the top of a buyers list, your email better stick out.
Here is what I looked for when going through the emails.
1. First off, anybody who made a typo in the subject line was immediately out of the running. It is this attention to detail that buyers are going to notice first.
2. Upon opening each email I began to look at sentence structure, grammar, etc. As soon as I noticed a mistake, no matter how small, I deleted the message.
3. Finally, I took a close look at what the remaining writers had to offer. Are they experienced? Did they follow my directions? These, among many others, are questions that I asked myself.
As you can see, if you can put together an error free email you will be able to move onto the final round with most buyers. From there, your past work and current skills will determine whether or not you get hired.
The point is that you need to take each email you send very seriously. If you make even one mistake, you may miss out on a great job that could have netted a big paycheck. And remember, spell check is not enough. You need to read and reread each message to check for typos, grammar mistakes, and anything else that may raise a red flag!
