How To Get Upwork Profile Approved Without Rejection + Video Guide

Well, I’m here to teach you. In the following few paragraphs, you will understand how to get Upwork Profile Approved and optimized for jobs

The world is changing rapidly, and skill is one of the currencies of the 21st century. 

Leveraging your skill will make you richer than you think.

I’m not talking about looking for a job but selling your skills on a freelancing platform.

There are several freelancing platforms out there, but Upwork is the best. 

You can argue about it, but having an Upwork account is like a money-making machine,

but it isn’t that easy to have an account on the platform.

You’re reading this content because you want to learn how to open an approved Upwork account. 

Well, I’m here to teach you. In the following few paragraphs, you will understand how to open an Upwork Account that quickly gets approval.

Step 1: Use a Professional Email When Getting Started

I suppose you know that you would need to register yourself on Upwork before creating a profile. 

However, all you will need to get started with is just an email and your name. 

I should probably warn you (better now than later) that you don’t need a VPN to register; want to know why? 

Here’s why: Upwork’s IP address changes often. 

If they find out that yours often changes too, your account gets blocked immediately. 

So, stick with one IP address (the IP address of the country from which you operate) throughout.

When getting started, providing a personal email address (like “@gmail.com”) won’t cut it for Upwork: 

They need something not personal but professional. 

Upwork would like to work with experienced freelancers and believe that nothing shows less professionalism than using a unique email address for work. 

Having a professional email address (in the “@domainname.com” format example like contact@paulonlinehustle.com)

gives you a higher chance of getting your account approved quickly. 

The Upwork Team would get the impression that you’re ready for serious freelancing by you using a professional email. 

Typically, I recommend that freelancers have a blog or website they own or are affiliated with. 

That way, getting a professional email address wouldn’t be difficult.

For example, you could get Google Workspace for Businesses for really cheap (starting at $6 per month), which gives an @domainname.com access to Google Business Applications such as Gmail.

Step 2: Beef up your Job title – Get Upwork Profile Approved

You know that you need a job title to work on Upwork (or anywhere else). 

Providing a job title is the first thing you would have to do when creating a profile. 

This comes after filling out a preliminary form and successfully creating an account. 

While your email has been verified, asking you to tell Upwork more about the services you wish to render to clients, your skills, and your experience level. 

However, as straightforward as this seems,

many profiles will still get rejected even after they’ve done everything I asked of them at this stage.

The reason this happens isn’t so hard to understand:

Upwork is pretty specific about what it wants you to state as your job title,

so it is not enough to state your position in a company as a job title or state something you do that’s too general. 

Things like “Graphics Designer” and “Software Developer” wouldn’t cut it as job titles. 

You would need to try as much as possible to describe your expertise in one sentence; 

The goal here is to make the title not too broad and yet not too specific so that Upwork doesn’t think you might not be flexible in working with other kinds of jobs. 

Instead, try using “Adobe Illustrator Designer for Logos and Banners” or “Frontend Vue.js and JavaScript developer.” 

This way, the profile has a higher chance of getting approved since you’ve been able to convince Upwork with all you can render as a service in a sentence.

Step 3: Give thought and words to the “Overview” section.

After you’re done telling Upwork about your job title,

you will be required to write a professional overview highlighting your top skills, experience, and interests. 

The “overview” section is essential in an Upwork profile because it’s one of the first things a client would see on your profile (once it gets approved). 

Still, most of the time, freelancers underestimate its essentiality. 

In the professional overview box, you can input up to 5,000 characters about your top skills, experience, and interests;

But freelancers often write a summary of what they do; please, don’t do that, for goodness sake. 

Here is the Best Video Guide on How To Optimize Your Upwork Profile For Freelancer To Get Upwork Profile Approved

Upwork appreciates a detailed overview and would pick an overview with more characters over one with just the minimum characters. 

Upwork uses the Overview section of a profile to tell if you’re ready for work or you’re just trying to get in there; 

So if you want to get that approval pretty soon,

you’ve got to take time to fill out the overview section with everything about you that’s worth business.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that you should write a whole 5,000 characters; 

All you need to do is explain the overview of the service (or services) you hope to render,

how you can add value to the businesses of clients who would patronize you, the experiences you already have pertaining to your skill, and so on. 

You could even go the extra mile by adding a video to your overview section. 

However, it isn’t mandatory to do so: I recommend that you upload a video if you can. Doing so would boost your chances of approval. 

Ordinarily, a well-detailed overview is more likely to be considered by Upwork.

You would be required to input your education, employment history, and English proficiency down the page. 

You can then set your hourly rate and add your availability and location.

4. Take Skill Tests

Your profile has begun to take shape – you could even submit it for review now, but don’t. 

It would help if you still did other things, like taking a few skill tests. 

You can find numerous skill tests available on Upwork based on several skills,

so find one about the skill set and take it. 

While freelancers are encouraged to pass the skill test they attempt, it isn’t harmful if they don’t pass; 

Because if you pass a skill test, it will bolster your profile.

On the other hand, if you don’t pass, you could temporarily hide the results,

prepare on the topic, and retake it after a few days. 

Skill tests help show how much you know on the subject and ultimately help your profile get approval quickly.

5. Add a Portfolio or projects you’ve handled

You need to know that, as a freelancer, you need have a portfolio. 

A portfolio is a collection of your works, which you can use as an example of what you can do. 

This comes in handy when building an Upwork profile,

and it’s one of the things that determines whether the profile gets approved or rejected.

There is the space to add all the previous projects you’ve worked on, which counts towards your portfolio. 

It also helps if you can list the skills you used on a project you’ve worked on,

as these skills would be used to place you uniquely in the Upwork marketplace. 

However, I know that some freelancers are just starting and don’t have any projects they’ve worked on previously. 

There are other workarounds to still having a good portfolio, even as a newbie.

Still, eventually, you would need to be involved in a project in your field of expertise. 

Thus, for those freelancers who are just starting, don’t be in a rush to finish filling up the portfolio space. 

After all, the goal isn’t just to fill in details in the profile; it is to build a solid profile that would undoubtedly get approval from Upwork.

To achieve this, you would need to take the time to get the necessary details ready.

Also, you would need to go beyond just supplying details to the mandatory fields and fill all the areas you can find on the profile. 

6. Tell Upwork all your experience

You must tell Upwork all your experience in the expertise you’re hoping to work in. 

Some freelancers usually get it wrong as to what to provide as their level of expertise,

but let me help you by telling you this: 

What is needed is your overall experience in the skills you think you’re best at, not just your freelancing experience. 

For example,

if you’re a Graphics designer who is very proficient in Adobe Photoshop but wants to offer freelancing services using Adobe Illustrator — which you’re just starting to learn, 

It would pay you more to state your proficiency level in Adobe Photoshop alongside your proficiency level in Adobe Illustrator. 

You would only be considered an “entry-level” freelancer if you only chose Adobe Illustrator. 

Still, when you choose Adobe Illustrator alongside Adobe Photoshop, you would be considered an “intermediate” or “expert” level. 

This would be advantageous because the Upwork marketplace gives precedence to primary skills. 

You need to select a skill where you have the most experience.

7. Don’t forget your employment history for Upwork Profile Approved

As a freelancer who is eager to do business on Upwork; 

You need to know that it is essential that you have worked somewhere before as a freelancer or have some other similar work experiences. 

While I’m not talking about the usual “9-5” employment,

I mean any work you’ve done for someone with your skillset and paid for it. 

Even if you’re starting fresh from school with no actual work experience, you could still mention the details of your Internship Programme. 

(if your school organizes that) or the little side job you did for a friend or someone else. 

You’ve got to provide an employment history of any kind. 

So before the Upwork team takes the profile seriously, they need to know you have done what you say you can do before. 

If you don’t have any employment history or work experience (which is very unlikely), try to gather your work experience before building your profile.

8. Learn Uncommon, In-demand skills

Freelancers are eager and enthusiastic about getting to Upwork, showcasing their skills, and earning money. 

I always encourage you don’t follow the crowd and carve a niche for yourself: become a niche freelancer. 

For example, JavaScript is a broad niche, but vue.js isn’t as wide; thus, if you are a JavaScript programmer. 

You could learn and improve your skill in vue.js and put yourself in better stead because a JavaScript developer with vue.js 

His expertise has a higher chance of getting approved on Upwork than the guy who says he’s an expert in JavaScript. 

Carving a niche for yourself should be one of your fundamental goals of being a freelancer. 

Be the one who does things uniquely.

9. Find someone to hire you on Upwork

One exciting way to get into Upwork is to find a client who already has an account on Upwork, to invite you over to Upwork. 

Upwork has a program called BYOF (Bring Your Own Freelancer), and this program allows Upwork clients to invite their freelancers; 

it would surprise you to know that this is the surest way to get your Upwork Profile approved instantly because 

To Upwork, it seems your profile and expertise are attracting a high demand even outside of Upwork, so bringing you in would be a good idea. 

You can take advantage of the BYOF program by sourcing Upwork clients from outside of Upwork.

If you have a blog, this could be on your blog or by visiting other blogs and freelancing forums.

10. Never create multiple profiles

I have been talking about the “do’s” all this while, without mentioning the “don’ts.” 

Well, I saved the “don’ts” for the last tip so that it might ring for longer with you, the reader. 

There is just one “don’t” you need to pay attention to if you want to keep the possibility of working on Upwork. 

Do not create a second profile, no matter how much you might be tempted to. 

You might be feeling you need to “start afresh” with another Upwork profile, maybe because the one you currently have is getting rejected.

Still, I’d like you to know that when a profile gets left once,

there is no chance that it would be approved a second time unless required changes have been made to it; 

In the same vein, getting another profile created by you approved is zero once your profile gets rejected.

So what you should do instead is try to build that one profile you have and try to improve on the details you provide;

a profile can be rejected severally before finally getting approval. 

Besides, you risk going against Upwork’s rules and regulations by creating multiple accounts, leading to the suspension of the account behind those countless profiles. 

So you do not want an account suspension. Unlike profile rejection, very little can be done to lift the suspension.

Conclusion on How To Get Upwork Profile Account Approved + Optimization of Account [Video]

Upwork is a vast freelancing platform, and it makes you grow as a freelancer in several ways. 

First, it’s only normal and logical for every freelancer out there to apply to join Upwork – it’s the best freelancing platform, according to most people. 

But then, not everyone can get approved, as that can only make the marketplace overcrowded and “messed up.” 

Therefore, Upwork has raised its approval requirements to separate serious freelancers who are willing and able to work from passive freelancers. 

Do not be despaired if your Upwork profile gets rejected once (or even multiple times). 

All you need to do is follow these guides I have explained above. 

All will be fine; with these guides, your Upwork profile has an extremely high chance of getting approval from the Upwork Team.