Nevertheless, no matter what your field of expertise, chances are you’re going to stay an unemployed and penniless graduate if you don’t sell your skills effectively to potential clients. The solution? Creating a portfolio online is perhaps the fastest way to convince customers of your worth as it enables interested clients to view your biography, experience, skills, qualifications and past work with ease. Here are the most important points for your online portfolio;
List your skills;
The first step in any professional portfolio is to list your specific skills. After all, these skills are primarily what the customer is looking for in the first place. If the client is searching for a freelancer that can provide quality web design services then they will know that they are looking in the right place if the skill for web design is listed at the start of your portfolio. Your skills will be the hook that will draw the attention of the client in and don’t be afraid to give a long list of skills. In this section the more skilled qualities you have the better. If you can speak more than one language then here is the place to state this as it will catch the attention of internationally based clients.
A short biography;
The purpose of a biography in a portfolio is to give a snap-shot as to who you are and provide a face behind the work. However, the best places to give an in-depth biography are personal blogs and websites, where you can list your favorite hobbies and talk about your interests to your heart’s desire. Therefore, in your portfolio you should keep your personal info to a minimum and instead focus on your professional attributes. A name and location will typically suffice for details that need to be shared. Nevertheless, if you DO want to write a short introduction to you and your services keep the text short.
Build trust;
As a graduate freelancer there may be clients who are unsure as to the quality of your services and would rather hire the services of a professional agency with a recognized name and track history. Don’t worry, as a young freelancer you have the chance to show your potential clients that you can bring the personal touch and one-to-one services alongside your enthusiasm and expertise that the agencies cannot hope to provide. Nevertheless, to shore up your credentials provide a copy of any technical qualifications you have or relevant certificates that you have achieved. Another way to build trust is to include positive testimonies from any previous clients that you have had in the past as this will increase your credibility and reputation as a freelancer.
Show your brilliance;
Provide examples of past work and projects that you have undertaken. If your speciality is creating quality logo designs then it makes sense to include samples of your work into your portfolio. In fact, if you are a design freelancer then try to showcase a variety of past work including logo designs that you may have designed for companies or sports teams to show your diversity of talent. Now, if you are a student freelancer or have just graduated then it’s highly likely that you haven’t got a wide-ranging portfolio of previous work because your career is only just starting. Nevertheless, if you’ve only worked on a small number of projects then at least describe these projects in detail and give more in-depth examples of the type of work that you carried out in these projects, after all it’s quality that counts, not quantity.
Get your Portfolio out there!
As a student or graduate you probably won’t have a large budget with which you can market yourself and buying a website or outsourcing the task of its creation to an expert is expensive. That’s where online freelancing platforms like twago can come to the rescue. On this platform you can create an online portfolio of yourself and start bringing your talents to the people who need them most. The playing field is level and if you can make the most considered offer, emphasizing your talent, value for money and passion for your field of expertise then there’s nothing stopping you from success.
Author: David from twago, Europe’s largest online freelancing platform for experts in app programming, PHP development, graphic design, web design, translation and SEO.
Sometimes having a long list of skills will be detrimental to your marketing. Listing one or two main skills can then allow you to call yourself a specialist in that field rather.