HOW TO HIRE A HACKER: A COMPLETE GUIDE

 The freelance work style sounds great on paper—flexible hours, being your own boss, choosing your own clients—but, like in any other career change, it’s important to weigh the benefits and drawbacks and consider how freelancing might fit into your current lifestyle. You may be very well-prepared to be a full-time freelancer, or you may choose to freelance on the side. Regardless, consider easing into freelancing to see if it’s right for you.

 Freelancers are hired for their expertise in a specific industry or skill set. Because freelancers can offer almost any skill, it’s important that you determine which skills you feel most equipped to offer clients. If you have a clear set of skills conducive to freelancing, it will be easier to build a portfolio and take on new clients.

 When setting up your freelancing business plan, especially if you plan to do it full-time, you’ll need to choose a specific market and set of services within that market to offer to your clients. Once you've chosen a target industry, you can market yourself more effectively to potential clients.

 Whether you need specific licenses or permits depends on where you live and where you work from. Typically, you don’t need any permits to work under your legal name, but if you are working under a business name, you may need to look into obtaining the proper licensing before conducting work.

 After you’ve chosen a target market and determined what skills you’re most equipped to offer, it’s time to set your prices and start marketing yourself. One way to create a strong online presence is to build a website that displays your credentials, resume, and portfolio of your work. A website link is easy to include in messages to potential clients and will help boost your professional credibility.

 A portfolio is a great way to demonstrate your abilities to potential clients. A strong portfolio may include things like past work examples, testimonies, mock-ups for future projects, and accomplishments. Think of your portfolio as your way to show (not just tell) your clients the real value of your work and how they can take advantage of it.

 It's crucial to maintain a LinkedIn profile because it provides a specific online space for marketing and networking among professionals. If you haven’t updated your LinkedIn profile in a while, now may be the time.

 It’s important to actively pursue jobs as a freelancer. Although you may receive offers through your marketing efforts, actively pursuing projects or clients aligned with your interests can further enhance your network. A great part of freelancing is getting to turn your passions into a career, so be sure to pursue projects you’re passionate about.

 After establishing a client base, it's crucial to maintain those relationships while actively promoting your services to expand your professional network. Take advantage of resources that are available to you. Many freelance websites like Fiverr, Freelancer.com, Guru, and LinkedIn, can help you find job listings in your niche.

 Freelancing can be unpredictable at times, since you’ll work on a project-by-project basis. This is why it helps to build a larger network, to avoid missing out on work opportunities for extended periods of time.

 Navigate freelancing by first learning about it with CalArts' Building Your Freelancing Career Specialization. In this five-course series, you'll learn how to overcome imposter syndrome and get paid for your talents by equipping yourself with the basic skills to operate your career like a business, including how to create a solid business plan and develop your financial planning skills.

 A simple way to get hired on Upwork is to choose a specific niche of clients and projects. Working on similar projects saves you time, so you can make more money. Also, positive reviews from clients in a specific industry tend to draw in additional similar jobs.

 Once you know your niche, it’s easy to target the right keywords that potential clients search for. For example, I specialized in building “WordPress websites” for “small businesses” – two popular keywords I use in my title.

 Hi, I’m Mikke! I’m a blogger, freelance web developer, and online business nerd. Join me here on MikkeGoes.com to learn how to code for free, build a professional portfolio website, launch a tech side hustle, and make money coding. When I’m not blogging, you will find me sipping strong coffee and biking around town in Berlin. Learn how I taught myself tech skills and became a web dev entrepreneur here. And come say hi on Twitter!

 If you’re starting out in your freelance career, finding new clients or building out your portfolio can seem daunting. Working smarter means using freelance design job boards to your advantage. There are so many job boards designed for freelancers that finding new opportunities is just a few clicks away.

 Upwork may be one of the best freelancing websites for finding work, no matter what type of freelancer you are. Those in web development, graphic design, customer support, and even freelance writing will find that Upwork has much to offer. The seemingly unending feed of job postings is continually updated. From small businesses to huge corporations, many different types of companies are looking to hire freelancers in different disciplines, including freelance designers and freelance writers.

 Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk, has a bit of a learning curve when you first get up and running. You’ll have to learn the artistry of writing effective proposals, and you may have to bid below your pay rate to build up your feedback rating. Many freelance jobs are posted on Upwork, but there’s a hungry audience competing for them. Unless you’re an Upwork superstar, bidding on a project that already has 30 proposals usually isn’t worth it.

 That being said, some freelance designers secure plenty of work on Upwork and score project after project. Upwork can be worth the time — it offers the potential for great returns once you’ve established yourself on the freelance platform.

 Designhill is a creative marketplace that connects employers with freelance designers. Employers can create a project contest to find creative freelancers and receive a variety of design entries to choose from. Or, they can find freelancers by searching for specific services on the homepage or placing an order for a creative service. Freelancers can post jobs for either short, part-time gigs or more dedicated, long-term work.

Hire a Hacker

 Designhill has a lot to offer whether you’re a graphic designer, web designer, WordPress site builder, or pursuing other types of design. Designhill further courts its creatives by offering them the chance to design their own T-shirts, have them printed, and sell them in their online shop. This is a nice touch, giving freelance designers yet another way to get their work out there and make some money off their artistry via a freelancing platform.

 Toptal pitches itself as a place to find the top 3% of freelance talent. Their screening process is so rigorous that out of the thousands of submissions they get every month, they only accept a few into their ranks. This exclusivity sets them apart from so many other freelance job sites out there. It may seem intimidating getting in, but if you do, you’ll get the chance to put yourself in front of some pretty big names — Airbnb, Duolingo, and Shopify are companies that have used Toptal to share job opportunities for designers, software developers, and finance experts, product managers.

 Whatever your field, especially if you're a creative, you should have a LinkedIn profile. Keeping your profile up to date helps you build your network and connect with people via the integrated messaging system.

 You can post examples of your work for each role you've had, making it more than just a resume. And by having your skills searchable on this platform, you're bound to bring in some traffic to your profile and connect with people who may be looking for your exact design expertise.

 Another smart feature that LinkedIn has rolled out is LinkedIn Services Marketplace, which helps businesses find freelancers who are qualified to work for them. Potential employers can filter by different specialties like content marketing, design, data entry, and more. LinkedIn Services also sends project leads your way via email, giving you the chance to write a proposal and bid. It’s like having a recruiter who is always looking out for you.

 Thanks to LinkedIn job postings, this is one of the most reliable sites for online jobs, whether you’re looking for remote jobs, part-time gigs, or full-time freelance work. There’s a reason why LinkedIn is one of the best websites for freelancers: they continue to deliver what job seekers are looking for.

 We Work Remotely boasts that they get around 4.5 million visitors to their job boards. That’s huge. They have a multitude of job postings in categories like programming, design, sales, marketing, customer support, and more. We Work Remotely is one of the most well-known sites for online jobs, including both freelance and full-time gigs.

 People or companies seeking to hire freelancers or virtual assistants have to spend a fixed price of $299 to list on We Work Remotely, which acts as a screening process and weeds out a lot of low-quality job leads. With heavy hitters such as Google, Amazon, and InVision all listed as companies who’ve posted on it, this is a legitimate platform for freelancers. And what's even better, you don't have to create a profile — all you need to do is click on a job link and be brought straight there.

 When you fill in your Behance profile with great project samples, your work is put in front of an audience of like-minded creatives. And if your work earns the coveted spot of featured project, you'll get even more positive exposure. Who knows who might see it and might want to hire you?

 If you’re still figuring out how to get work as a freelancer, SimplyHired has a lot of great resources that go beyond a simple freelance job board. You’ll find guides on resume writing, cover letter writing, and other information to help you out. SimplyHired even has a free online resume builder if you need to revamp yours.

 This site doesn't charge employers for job postings, which opens a floodgate of job opportunities. And for freelance workers wanting to be seen by potential clients, SimplyHired makes it super easy to upload a resume and get your profile up and running.

 Their job search functions also come in handy, letting you narrow down your searches only to what you’re interested in. Having a focused search is much more valuable than sites that display only loosely related results.

 Dribbble is one of the most popular freelance websites for designers of all specialties. So if you’re looking for freelance design jobs ranging from graphic design to product design and everything in between — you need to set up a profile on Dribbble.

 Having a high-quality Dribbble profile is a great way to market yourself and show potential clients what you’re capable of. Dribbble gets a lot of traffic, with plenty of clients looking for talented designers. All you need to do is write a stellar bio and show off the best of your portfolio.

 Dribbble also gives you an easy way to update your work availability and lets you flip the switch on and off whenever you need to. And if you upgrade to the pro level, you get access to an exclusive freelance design job board.

 Fiverr got its name because it originally facilitated quick freelance gigs for five dollars — but it’s grown quite a bit since then. Now, you can set your own starting prices, packages, and add ons. Many savvy freelancers use lower sticker prices for small projects to lure in new clients. Kind of like giving them a cheap sample so they’ll want to contract you for larger projects.