Trend of freelancing is increasing in Pakistan day by day. Not only fresh graduates prefer freelancing but there’re people who left their full time jobs (with handsome salary) and became freelancers. The reason behind that is simple, Comfort!
One may think: Comfort, how? As it isn’t our topic today, you can read Why Freelancing is better than a full time job.
What is Freelancing?
First of all, let me tell you the meaning of term “Freelancer”, – A freelancer is a person who is self-employed.
I am sure most of you may relate freelancing with an online business but it’s not true. Online business and freelancing are two separate things. Freelancing can be done online as well as offline.
How Offline?
Basically, freelancer doesn’t work for one specific company. Freelancer can work for multiple clients at one time on contract basis, contract can be for a short term or for a long term, it’s up to the task(s).
We’ll not discuss offline freelancing as it’s not that much popular in Pakistan as in US, UK, Australia or other developed countries.
Available Freelancing Jobs
There are many jobs available for freelancers. High earning jobs in freelancing are programming jobs, graphic designing jobs and digital marketing jobs. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do freelancing if you don’t know programming, graphic designing or digital marketing.
If your English is good, unlike me 🙁 , then you can also search for writing jobs. You can write blog posts, articles, social media posts, website content for clients. I think this niche is vast as if you have some skill, you can write about that, there’re numerous jobs of writing.
There are also jobs for data entry, virtual assistant, teaching, customer support, translation, legal services, photography etc. You can read more here
Available platforms for Freelancing in Pakistan
There are many online platforms available where you can find work. Some of them are listed below:
1: Freelancer
2: Upwork
3: Fiverr
5: DesignCrowd (Specifically for designers)
6: 99 designs (Specifically for designers)
7: WriterAccess (Specifically for writers)
These are some of them, Freelancer, Upwork and Fiverr are probably the best options. You should create account in one of these and start applying for jobs.
Getting a First Freelancing Job
If you are new to freelancing, getting a first job isn’t a piece of cake. Many people skip freelancing because they can’t able to get their first job. If you are lucky enough, you can get as soon as you start. Otherwise, it can take some weeks, months or even a year. What if I tell you, it took me about one year and three months to get my profile approved on Upwork. So, don’t lose hope.
Some tips for starters:
- Keep your bids low at start, so you can get some jobs and have some good reviews in your profile. Reviews are important, only bid on those projects/jobs which you are 100% sure that you can do it.
- First impression is last impression – Yes, submit a well written proposal and mention that you fully understand the job. Briefly describe your experience and skills.
- Last but not the least, get a help from freelancer friend(s) and ask to give you first job on whatever the platform he/she is working on, it’s kinda shortcut or hack, whatever you say 😉
If you wanna add or ask something, drop a comment below. I will reply as soon as I can.