Thursday, September 24, 2009

Getting a Gig (in the Philippines, at Least)

It’s funny how Facebook can reconnect you with old friends. I was discovered a couple of months ago by one of my better high school buddies, one I haven’t since seen my early college years. Like most manly men, we never really caught up much. Neither of us really said how much we missed each other. And, as if to support a certain theory I have, we didn’t really meet up again “just because”. It took a Magic: the Gathering tournament to get us to see each other again.

It’s also funny how reconnecting with said old friend can be incredibly relevant to what you’ve got planned for your next blog post. Since I want this to be a sort of chronicle to my experiences as a freelancer, I had always wanted to start at the beginning – scoring a gig. I’ve been putting it off for one reason or another (mostly because I lack sleep), but meeting up with Mr. Old Friend today gave me more motivation to finally write shit down. He actually asked me how I got started, and how I got gigs as a freelancer. Rather than exert any of the few brain cells I had running this morning, I decided to spare my friend from my incoherent rambling and told him, “That’s actually going to be the next entry of my freelancing blog.”

And so here we are.

Getting started as a freelancer was actually a really simple thing for me; I got referred to a local company that hired writers for part-time work doing how-to articles. However, I soon learned that this wasn’t the best set-up, and had I known then what I know now, I probably would’ve been a few thousand pesos richer.

See, the company was one of those freelancer-gatherers (I’m sure there’s a better term, but I’m lazy to Google it) – companies that book bulk-order gigs from foreign clients, and then distribute the work to a team of writers. While this system can be more convenient for the writers, in the sense that getting work isn’t much of a hassle, it also pays a lot less. The company often takes a substantial cut of the client’s per-article rate, and so you earn much less than you would have by directly dealing with the client.

That said, I suggest that those looking to start out in the wild world of freelancing do so by getting their own contracts. Working directly with clients brings you much better gigs. In order to do that, however, you’ll need a few things:

• A reliable internet connection
Once you go freelance, the internet will become your lifeline. All your work will be coursed through email or through Skype, and so you can’t have a connection that’s finicky about when it wants to let you go online.

• A bank account
And not just any bank account; you’ll need a bank account that’s proven to be reliable with your preferred method of payment.

Let me elaborate on this for a bit. There are several ways to get paid for you gigs, the two most common methods being PayPal and Xoom. I’m one of those guys who feels uneasy about handing over any bank information to people I don’t know, and so PayPal is my payment method of choice. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that my bank, BPI, doesn’t deal directly with PayPal. All the money is coursed through the Bank of America first, and so it takes longer than the usual 3-4 days to have my money transferred. As a result, I’ve found myself broke over certain periods of time, just because BPI hasn’t given me my money yet.

If you’re looking to go freelance, I suggest you get an account with BDO or Unionbank; I have yet to hear of any complaints about the two.

• Writing samples
Employers will always ask to see samples of your writing, so always have a few handy. Your clients won’t be interested in any lengthy philosophical discourses, so save the school papers for someone else. All they want is to see how capable you are as a writer, so two or three 500-word articles should suffice. They can be on just about anything, from how-to articles to reviews on your favourite cookies. It also helps to start a blog (if you don’t have one already). A blog will provide clients with an easy-to-access stream to your writing style, and you don’t have to bother sending them clunky attachments. Just include the link in your email, and you’re good to go.

You’re now ready to get your first gig. Two of the best places to look for jobs are Elance and Craigslist. Elance offers some of the best rates for writing projects, as well as many security measures to protect the interests of both the client and the writer. All you have to do is sign up for an Elance account, select the type of job you want, and start bidding against other freelancers for the projects you’re interested in. If you’re anything like me, however, you won’t be getting many jobs from the website.

See, I’m a bit of a cheapskate, and it’s almost impossible to get jobs from Elance using a free account. The problem lies with Elance’s Connect system. In order to contact a client, you’ll need to use Connects. Connects are markers used by Elance to help control against low-quality workers who get jobs via the hit-or-miss method – spam enough clients, and you’ll eventually get a gig. Unfortunately, the number of Connects you have is limited by the type of account you own. A free account, for example, gets you just three Connects a month. To make things worse, any unused Connects don’t get carried over to the next month. What’s more, the number of Connects it takes to contact a client or bid for a project is relative to the size of the project; the more the project pays, the more Connects you’ll need.

This can get incredibly frustrating for those who don’t have the capital to invest on premium accounts or buying Connects. For instance, a prospective client once invited me to bid for a well-paying project (I think it was worth around $500). Even better, it was an invitation-only bidding, and I only had around 5 other freelancers to compete against. Unfortunately, Elance determined that the number of Connects needed to bid for such a job was four, and I didn’t have any disposable income to gamble on a few extra Connects. I wanted to graciously turn down the invitation (and hopefully get in good with the client), but Elance wouldn’t even let me do that! I needed four Connects just to email the guy. I contacted Elance Customer Service for some help, but all I got was a reply telling me “Nope, we can’t let you email the client. ” Fail.

Craigslist, on the other hand, has no such frivolities. The site is a ginormous classifieds board. You’ll find a bunch of postings under Writing/Editing Jobs and Writing Gigs. All you have to do is email the posters and wait for their replies. Most of them will reply to your emails within three days. If it takes any longer than that, the position’s probably been filled. If you’re looking to get a job fast, though, I suggest you respond to as many ads as you can.

You can also post your own ad in Resumes/Jobs Wanted. After two to three days, the responses will start coming in. You’ll get most of your offers within the first two weeks of your posting, but you’ll get the occasional inquiry a month or two afterwards. Craigslist ads are good for three months, and if you haven’t gotten an offer you like, it’s a simple matter of reposting your ad before it expires.

The one problem with Craigslist is that it doesn’t offer the protection that Elance does, and so you’re more vulnerable to scams. You may be asked to write 50 500-word articles, only to get cheated out of the payment for your hard work. You can try to alleviate some of that worry by drafting a contract, but it’s still no guarantee that you won’t get scammed. In my experience, though, none of the clients who contacted me via my own ad have stiffed me on the payments. While it doesn’t give you much control over the types of projects offered to you, I suggest posting an ad rather than responding to others.

Whichever way you choose, you’ll eventually get your first gig. You’ll be surprised at how quickly it can happen, too – it doesn’t take me any longer than a week or two to get a job I want. If you plan on going freelance full-time, make sure you have a steady source of income. Try to get multiple long-term gigs if you can, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to make a substantial amount of money.

Good luck, and happy gig-hunting!

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