Tag Archives: work

3 personality traits every freelancer should demonstrate

Personality traits for freelancers

Written by Alvina Lopez

Without question, maintaining a freelance career requires a specific type of person and quality compared to traditional nine to five job at a steady location. For many, freelancing may not fit. With a freelance career, individuals tackle new challenges with every job, a variety of skill sets are utilized for each gig, and a level of self-reliance and self-motivation is necessary to truly succeed and prosper as a freelance professional. While some of this is true no doubt within a traditional career, there is no arguing that freelancing is a different type of game in the professional world. Individuals who seek a thriving career in a freelance atmosphere will need to exhibit certain characteristics and interests for their professional lives that will set them apart from the traditional careerist. These three traits are attributes that every freelancer should have and know how to properly market to their potential employers. Continue reading →

New freelance portfolios feature

Soon we will be starting a new feature called Freelance Folios. Essentially the idea is to feature the best online portfolios of freelancers from around the world – serving as both promotion for the freelancer and as inspiration for our readers.

So if you think your portfolio should be featured, let us know. To give you an idea what we are looking for and how to submit your portfolio for consideration, here are some notes:

How to submit your portfolio

  • Send us a url link to your personal website portfolio or your hosted portfolio (e.g Behance) via our Contact page.
  • Tell us a little about yourself, where you are and what you do.
  • If you built the website yourself, tell us how and the tools you used.
  • A small photo of yourself would also be good, but is optional.
  • Make sure your portfolio is relevant to our readers – we mainly focus on freelancers who work for design, digital and advertising agencies around the world but are also willing to consider other creative freelancers’ portfolios.
  • We will not rule anyone out, but the aim of the feature is to show top quality portfolios.
  • Note that while we make every effort to reply to everyone, if we receive lots of submissions it may not be possible.

That’s it! So either send us your portfolio details, or sit tight and wait for the show to start.

Not a creative freelancer? You can still promote yourself here through our feature called Freelance Five, which is a series of quick freelance interviews.

Make a good CV or resumé for freelancing

In this article I have gathered together some useful guides to CVs (resumés), along with a few suggestions for making them more effective for freelancing at creative agencies.

The guides

The following are some good articles I have found, giving advice on CVs and resumés for people in the creative industry:
david-airey-cvs
David Airey
I’ve mentioned David’s article before, which gives useful insight written by a senior designer at a London design agency who receives three or four of them every day.

stopgap-cvs
Stopgap Group
This blog article by a recruitment group from the UK and Australia is about future-proofing your CV.

eye-cvs
Eye Magazine
An article by UK creative recruitment agent Mike Radcliffe on simple CV guidelines.

freelance-switch-cvs
Freelance Switch
A useful blog article by this popular freelancing website. Also take a look at their Part 2 article.

periscope-cvs
Periscope
Some good pointers from another UK creative recruitment agent.

Tips for freelancing

So now you have your CV in good shape, what can you do to make it more effective when looking for freelance work at creative agencies? Here a few simple changes I suggest from my experience:

Simplify
Do not including your whole career or life story – keep it strictly to the most recent and significant details.

Structure
Employers have (or expect to spend) less time to look through CVs for freelancers. Make it even easier to scan – it should be easy for them to find the top pieces if information on you in one glance.

Update it
The one thing that you must do as a freelancer is update it regularly. Clients and recruitment agents are always interested in what you are up to and it makes you stand out if you have news.

Promote action
The employer must know how to take action (find out more about you, or get in touch). The top ways of getting in touch and a link to your online profile or portfolio should be immediately obvious.

Any other ideas?

If you have any other suggestions, ideas or know of other good guides, please share them by posting them in the comments below.

Main image by SOCIALisBETTER