How to Earn as you Learn by Becoming a Freelancer

For many, earning as a freelancer sounds like a dream job. Whether you’re looking to escape from a micro-managing boss or just to have more control over your working hours, the benefits of being a freelancer are broad and varied.

There’s just one problem: you don’t have the experience. You’re good at learning and you’re eager to put the work in but without a solid portfolio, how can you start finding clients in the first place?

Well, today we’re here to fix that problem. We’ll be sharing the secrets of how most freelancers find their first clients as well as the freelancer opportunities you didn’t even know about.

Earn While You Learn

Earn while you learn is a nice principle. As a student you may even have had teachers and role models suggest that it would be a good way to build some experience up for your CV.

The problem is that in the freelance world there’s almost as much demand for experience as there is in the career world. While it’s not quite as extreme as traditional employment, freelancer employers still want proof that you can do the work they’re paying you for.

That said, earning while you learn certainly isn’t impossible—it may just take a little more strategy and setup than you’d expected.

Finding Your First Freelance Jobs

Your first freelance jobs will be some of the hardest jobs you’ll ever have to find. You won’t have any professional work to show off yet, so you’ll need to put together a few demo examples of what you can do.

They don’t have to be major projects. While it does depend a little on your niche, as a general rule, it’s good to put together a few small scope projects that show the depth of your knowledge/technical skill. It’s completely reasonable to use school or college projects for this so long as they’re professionally presented.

You should also take some time to refine portfolio projects. You don’t have to leave them in their original form, especially not if you’ve improved your skills since they were made. All that your clients will be interested in is seeing what you can do. They’re looking for evidence of results—how and when you get those results is up to you.

Okay, but what should you do if you don’t have any projects to show off? Well, start simple. You’re a beginner so you’ll be looking for beginner jobs anyway. Show what you can do under your own initiative.

Working For Free

Perhaps one of the most controversial questions you’ll hear in freelance communities is whether you should do free work in order to build up a portfolio and get some references. It’s a fierce debate and not one we’re planning to settle here but it’s worth knowing both sides of your argument so you can decide for yourself.

The argument against it is fairly simple. You deserve to be paid for your work. If you do work for free then your time isn’t being respected.

Furthermore this kind of work can create a race to the bottom mentality in freelance spaces. If people are willing to do work for little-to-know money then this undercuts everyone else and makes it much harder for anyone to earn a living.

With that said, if you’re being completely pragmatic and only care about building up a business then doing one or two small projects for little to no money is a good way to start. Not only will this test your skills and push you to learn, but it’ll get you those all important reviews for future clients to refer to.

Watch out for scammers in this space. If you’re doing a job for free then it shouldn’t be something that will take more than twenty minutes. These kinds of jobs are more of a quid-pro-quo favour swap to get a review rather than a real piece of work. If you’re doing more than that, then you’re being taken advantage of that.

On the other hand, some clients will offer very low pay with minimal expectations. These clients can be more legitimate but again it depends on the scale and scope of the work.

At the end of the day, only you can decide what counts as being taken advantage of. Just remember that your time is worth money and that the prices you choose to charge have a real impact on other freelancers and the health of the market.