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Freelancing Your Way to a Job

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Workshop Customer Service Contest alternate photo low resby Mike O’Mary

December unemployment numbers will be reported on January 8, and recent weekly reports on unemployment claims indicate that things are getting better. But it’s still a tough economy out there. As of the end of November, U.S. unemployment was 10%, and underemployment (a freelance writer bagging groceries, for example) was 17.2%. Pretty grim.

If you are freelancing by choice, my hat is off to you. I know some people who have very successful freelance careers and would never consider going to work for someone else. But if you’re freelancing because you’ve been laid off, I have good news for you: freelancing just might be the best way to find your next job.

Twice in the past decade, I was offered (and I accepted) corporate jobs from my clients. So my tip for those of you who desire a corporate job is to offer up your services as a freelancer first. I believe this is actually a better way to get a job than competing with the dozens (or hundreds or sometimes even thousands) of people sending in resumes for job openings.

In the two cases where clients offered jobs to me, I went to the client with no ulterior motive. I really was not looking for a job. I was looking for freelance work. I didn’t want them to give me a job; I wanted to give them some help. That difference in attitude made a difference to them. And in both instances, there was a definite sense that they had discovered me…their attitude was almost a joyful “look what I found!” (Compare that to the attitude of a potential employer during a job interview where all-too-often they are looking for reasons not to hire you.)

Bottom line: Don’t mislead a potential employer. If you’re not interested in freelancing, then don’t present yourself as a potential freelancer. But if you are interested in freelancing – and if you are also interested in the possibility of a full-time job with the right employer – then marketing yourself as a freelancer just might be the best way to get your foot in the door to your next job.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, a book publisher and online community for writers and other artists.

freelance jobs

Writing Jobs for Thursday September 24 2009

get freelance jobsTime for another round of hand-selected freelance jobs and full-time opportunities for writers. As always, we personally comb through these positions and while we don’t catch every great freelance job lead that comes along, we do manage to snag a good variety of interesting gigs. If you have a freelance job to post, why not get in touch?

Just a friendly word of warning–we don’t post job ads for online survey takers or people hiring ghost writers for topics like payday loans or other bad-for-consumer products–if we know about that stuff up front, we don’t run the job listing.

Universal Media Group needs a freelance writer for a temp contract gig writing music-related trivial questions for a mobile quiz game. This gig is via JobFox and could turn into a half-year writing opportunity for some music-obsessive writer.

An unnamed company seeks a ghost writer who can polish up rough drafts. This one’s a bit mysterious–they have topics that range wildly–the music industry, networking, trade magazine topics. Stranger still, you’ve got to ring 310-422-2112 extension one, and ask for Cara rather than submit a resume or fill out an online application form. We’ll be calling that number later in the day to see just what the fuss is about simply to satisfy our own curiosity. Continue reading Writing Jobs for Thursday September 24 2009 →

freelance jobs

Writing Jobs for Monday, September 21 2009

get freelance jobsIt’s time for another round of hand-picked writer and freelance writing jobs. Let those other sites scrape Craigslist, they’re doing a great job. We prefer to bring you our picks based on something more discriminating. We don’t always catch the goofy ones– sometimes a clown company slips under our radar and we thank you for pointing out when we’re found what looks like a promising freelance job that turns out to be something less than what it promises. Together, we’ll find the GOOD gigs. As always, thanks for reading.

There are lots of higher education writing gigs available lately. Want to go back to academia? Columbia University in New York needs a writer/researcher. You need a Bachelor’s and a background in PR or news writing. You’ll be working in the office of Columbia U’s president and there’s a lot of internal communication mentioned for this position. Apply online at Columbia via their Human Resources page.

St. John’s University needs a writer for the Office of Communications, Division of Institutional Advancement in Queens, NY. You’ll write for St. John’s University Magazine, plus internal communication, advertisements and create content for the St. John’s University Alumni and Friends official site, among other things.
Continue reading Writing Jobs for Monday, September 21 2009 →

freelance jobs

Writing Jobs for Wednesday September 2, 2009

get freelance jobsWhat recession? Northrup Gruman is apparently out to hire ALL the writers. Look at this massive list of writing jobs they advertise–openings in locations from San Antonio, TX to San Diego CA. There are a lot of technical writer jobs listed here, so if tech writing is your thing, here’s how you’ll spend a nice chunk of your day.

Denver TV station KMGH wants a writer who is also a skilled tape editor to put news packages together for its reporters in Denver. You’ll be writing scripts for broadcast.

Hearst seeks a freelance editor for GoodHousekeeping.com. This is a true editor position–you’ll manage junior writers and be responsible for site content each month. Drop your resume to kogorman@hearst.com. They need somebody ASAP and you must have three to five years of content management experience.

Asylum.com wants feature writers who know AP style like the back of their hand. Drop your resume, clips and story ideas to asylumapplicants@gmail.com.

Financial Times Group needs finance writers for DebtWire.com. Drop a resume on them with relevant clips, and be ready to talk about your two years of finance writing experience and a love for breaking news. Contact ken.meehan@debtwire.com

advice, editorial, lifestyle

Traffic Boosting Experiments For Your Freelance Writing Blog

top ten excuses not to go fulltime freelance

by Joe Wallace

Over last week we tried a few experimental posts designed to boost traffic to Freelance-Zone. A couple of them were squarely designed to appeal to people’s basic desire to save (and earn) a buck. You might have noticed a few random Freelancer Freebies posts–that was one of our experiments.

Results? About what we expected. More people are interested in freelance jobs and resources directly related to freelancing. Fewer people thought free Cold Stone ice cream was cooler than freelance jobs. Everybody loves free ice cream–why didn’t we expect that to perform?

It’s all about the power of highly targeted niche blogging. Take a mass-appeal idea and try adding it to the mix on your blog without tilting it directly towards your target audience. That idea gets a lukewarm reception unless you can address the “Who cares?” factor.

Freebies WORK as a blog topic. They also work as a traffic-driving gimmick, but unless you target your gimmick directly to your existing audience, it won’t give you the results you want.



Over the weekend I stumbled across a variety of sites gamely trying to attract viewers via Google by using a practice I call keyword stuffing. They take popular search terms from Google Trends and try to stuff them into their new blog posts. Sometimes the stuffing worked–one blogger tried to tie in her blogging work with the fictional writer in Sex In The City. It was a stretch, but it wasn’t too far out.

One blog I saw was literally dictated by specific trends, spending a few months dedicated to one topic, ditching the idea when it didn’t go viral and switching to a new topic for a few months, dumping that, and trying yet a third and fourth unrelated topic. None of them ever had a chance to gain traction. The blog shed its skin and tried to survive with a brand new identity over and over. None of the identities took off.

To make any blog work you need a good topic you actually know something about, time, and the dedication to pull it off.  It’s crucial that you use your expertise to give authority to the site, put in the required online PR work and allow your site to attract long-tail traffic. Anything less will result in your blog going dark in, say, six to nine months.

In case you’re wondering, we definitely ARE doing the freelance jobs feature–that wasn’t something we just dangled out there to see how you’d react. Stay tuned.

editorial

Confessions of An Editor: New Year, Same Old Pet Peeves

freelance-writing-adviceIt has been a very long time since I wrote a Confessions post, and since we’re in the first weeks of 2009, I figured it was high time.

As some of our loyal readers may already know, I’ve been an editor for quite some time, starting with my work as News Director at the Naval Media Center in Keflavik, Iceland. Since then I’ve edited everything from radio and TV scripts, press releases, articles, a whole forest of paper and a river of red ink. Today, my work editing Cheap Today.com doesn’t kill any trees, but some things remain the same no matter what you’re editing.

Including one of my all-time pet peeves; sacrificing accuracy for speed. CNN was guilty of this recently when reporting a military plane crash in California. The anchor or his script writers assumed that if it had wings and an engine, it must belong to the Air Force.  It’s an easy mistake to make, but one the CNN crew knows better than to make.

Another example I found recently hit my inbox courtesy of a writing group mailing list I signed up for once upon a time. I confess, I kind of like these mailing list groups…they give me plenty of fodder for posts like this.  Continue reading Confessions of An Editor: New Year, Same Old Pet Peeves →