Showcase your skills
Building your portfolio from zero
Part of a new series of posts highlighting some top tips from The Feisty Freelancer!
"How do I get work without samples, and samples without work?" Every new freelancer faces this chicken-and-egg problem. Here's your way out:
Start with what you have:
Class assignments (polished with feedback incorporated)
Blog posts you write specifically as samples
Volunteer work for nonprofits or local businesses
Personal projects that demonstrate your skills
Add a professional polish to unpublished work:
Consistent headers and formatting across the samples helps them come across more professionally
One-line descriptions of the assignment or purpose shows that you’ve achieved what you set out to create and signals you can work within established formats
Trade up over time
Begin with school work and volunteer pieces
Replace with articles published by websites, magazines and then bigger magazines
Keep a blog throughout your startup to show consistent activity
Stay organized
As you build your portfolio, you’ll want to reach out to different prospects with different content. When pitching a law school magazine, highlight legal writing samples. When approaching a business client, showcase your commercial work. Other organization buckets include:
Content type: reports, blog posts, feature articles
Subject area: law, business, healthcare
Client type: nonprofits, corporations, publications
Remember: clients want proof you can do good work consistently. Send them a well-organized portfolio and they’ll see that you’re the writer to hire next.
Want to see what’s new with The Feisty Freelancer? Visit the events page or buy a copy at Amazon or Indigo.