How to Become a Rising Talent on Upwork (Untold Secret)

The way to do this is by becoming a rising talent on Upwork. How to become a rising talent on Upwork would teach everything you need to know.

The start of every journey is most difficult. Taking the first step is even more difficult, but taking the first step can be the essential part of the journey—a thousand miles journey begins with a step.

The same goes for Upwork.

Things are pretty tricky when you are just starting.

You have to submit many proposals to get a single job —if you are lucky—and sometimes, you don’t even get invited for job interviews.

All these can be attributed to the high competition on Upwork, but you are not the only one trying to make it big.

Remember, millions of freelancers are doing the same thing you are doing.

And things get more complicated when starting because you have to compete with Top-Rated, Top-Rated plus, and the Expert-Vetted type of freelancers.

To have a chance of competing with these titans, you need to have some advantage, an edge over the competition, and one way to achieve this is by clinching a Rising Talent status.

If you don’t come to this point as a rising talent, you may continue to struggle all through your freelancing career on Upwork and how to become a rising talent on Upwork is here to make things easy.

How To Become A Rising Talent on Upwork?

Create a Killer Profile

Your profile creates the first impression on your client, and you’ve heard that the first impression matters the most.

A compelling profile is what attracts a potential client. If you don’t give them a killer profile that would make them want to know you, there’s always a freelancer willing to take such a client away from you.

Besides, thousands or even millions of freelancers are out there, and you are just a single individual among them.

Most freelancers, especially newbies, rush to fill out profile information.

They assume creating a compelling proposal is all there is to get jobs and become a rising talent.

If you are one of such freelancers—the type who rush to get their profile done with—you’ve shot yourself in the back.

You’ve never even started, but you are already out of the game.

Your profile overview should communicate confidence and speak directly to your clients, and your profile should be about your clients and how you can make their life easy.

The picture you choose should be nice and portray confidence in your skills.

How to become a rising talent on Upwork will not go into specific details of profile creation. Instead, justice has already been done to that.

To know everything about creating a compelling profile, check out the perfect profile to land your first job on Upwork.

Pass The Upwork Readiness Test

How to become a rising talent on Upwork will not be complete without mentioning how important it is to pass the Upwork readiness test.

The Upwork readiness test is the first thing to try out before you start sending proposals. You not only get 40 connects on passing the test—which gives you different proposals to send out—you also get an optimized profile and a rising talent badge.

The good thing about the Upwork readiness test is that it’s straightforward to pass. Once you know the rules guiding Upwork—what freelancers can do or not do—you are good to go.

If you are interested in passing The Upwork Readiness Test on a first trial, check out Upwork Readiness Test: All You Should Know.

Go for the right Jobs

Going for the right jobs means applying for jobs that fall within your area of expertise—the jobs you know how to do very well.

At the beginning of your freelancing career—whichever platform you use—getting good reviews is critical to success.

You need good reviews, not just because they look good on your profile, but because they aid in getting future clients.

Good reviews sell you to potential clients.

They tell clients that if given the job, you are sure to deliver, and this is why most new freelancers find it difficult to get jobs—they don’t have reviews.

And to get good reviews, you must satisfy your client—you would get bad reviews when clients are disappointed with your work— and to help your clients, you must do a perfect job; and to do an ideal job, you must possess the expertise to execute such jobs.

Never apply for jobs you are not sure of. If you have doubts about any job’s requirements, try to conduct some research.

Find out if the said job is something you can do or not.

If you are 70% sure you can do the job, then go for it.

Don’t be afraid. Learning as you go is better than not going at all—but be careful, so you don’t end up with bad reviews.

Don’t over-promise your clients

Dishing out different promises to clients may sound like the best thing to do when trying to get a job, especially when other freelancers are in the race.

This is understandable because you need to stand out from the crowd.

 You end up promising heaven and earth to your clients. You want to let them know you are the best man for the job by all means.

But it would help if you were careful what your promises are. Don’t make promises you cannot fulfill just because you want an edge over the competition. Don’t say that which you cannot do.

As a rule of thumb, it is always best to under promise and over deliver.

Yes. You heard it. Under promise, but over deliver.

Try to catch your clients off guard by exceeding their expectations with little promises. People react more with surprises.

Don’t let them know the bonus they stand to get by giving you the job.

This should come as a surprise, and by so doing, you get the reviews needed for a rising talent freelancer.

There are instances where you may want to win the client by overpromising. And this is understandable because you are trying to get a job.

But whatever the case, make sure to deliver what you promised.

If you make promises, If you promise heaven and earth, ensure to give the client heaven and earth.

A word of advice

Your words should match your deeds in every situation

Define the scope and deliverables

A vague job is toxic to your freelancing career.

Defining the job’s scope and delivery schedule is one of the most important parts of becoming a rising talent on Upwork.

If the scope of the job is not defined and your tasks are not clearly stated, you are headed for trouble.

A vague job would see a client returning to ask for things not stated in the project description—go through the project description thoroughly.

You become not only tired with additions but also waste precious time that should have been spent on other projects.

A project whose objectives are not clearly defined means you are at the client’s mercy because they can, and most of the time, will always come back for more.

They will continue to ask for things not stated in the project description, and in the end, you end up doing more than required, which is OK if you are comfortable with charity work, but for someone else, this may lead to resentment.

There are times when you would want to tolerate these types of clients,

They are always asking for more types of clients, which should be when there has been a long-term working relationship.

It is even OK if you do charity jobs for these clients because a working relationship has already been established.

They’ve always been good to you; they’ve paid or have been paying for their jobs,

and it is OK for these types of clients to ask for favors—this will further strengthen the working relationship.

Defining the scope of a project is vital for doing an excellent job and timely delivery, which will give you good reviews and rising talent.

This is it, the simple things to become a rising talent on upwork.

They are not difficult. You need to put in a little time and effort. After all, that’s all it takes to become a rising talent on Upwork—little time and effort.