Last Updated: Tuesday, April 19, 2016
If you’ve been freelance writing for even a day, you know how time consuming looking for work can be. There are a lot of great resources out there for finding writing jobs, but you have to spend time sorting through them to find the ones you’re a good fit for. That’s assuming you know all the right places to look.
It can be tedious and frustrating, especially when you realize that the time you spent looking for work could have been spent on writing.
Enter Contena Pro
Contena Pro is by far the most thorough and well-organized freelance job board I’ve found. They get it. They realize that the more time you can spend writing, the more money you can make.
Note – Contena, on it’s basic level, is a free job board for writers that anyone can access. Contena Pro, which gives you all the amazing searching and sorting features described in detail below, is not free. It costs $39/month, with discounts offered on longer-term plans. But you don’t have to be a Pro member to see the job postings. If you decide to try Pro, they offer a 7-day money back guarantee. – Anna
In his video, Kevin at Contena estimates that most freelancers spend 80% of their time scouring the internet for jobs.
How much fatter would your bank account be if you had been able to dedicate all that time to your actual money-making activities rather than searching the web for work?
The creators of Contena have found that there are dozens of websites with freelance job listings, and curating those listings is a full-time job. They make the process easy for writers by making it their business to know where to find those listings and putting them all in one convenient place. Talk about a time-saver.
But let’s say you don’t consider time an issue. Even if you know about all the common job boards, like Problogger or Paid to Blog, job listings are sometimes tucked away in places you never thought of.
Where are these obscure listings?
I don’t really know. But you can be sure the team at Contena does.
What’s most unique about Contena Pro is how the site is organized. They have a handy search function called Contena Scout that sorts job listings in several ways.
The first option is to search listings by category, making it extremely easy to find jobs in your niche.
There are eleven categories to choose from, including a general category that houses miscellaneous listings that don’t fit into specific niches.
You can also narrow your search to a specific quality of job.
This feature groups jobs into low, medium, high and very high categories, making it possible to view only higher paying gigs if you wish. Choosing ‘Medium’ in the minimum quality box is a good place to start, and will pull up listings considered medium quality and up, based on rates.
Another way to sort job listings is by typing in a minimum rate per word.
If you type in your required rate, Contena Scout will only pull up gigs listed at that rate or higher.
In addition to those selections, you can also choose whether or not you want to see jobs from agencies, full time listings, contract listings, and listings from websites that are looking for submissions.
It’s great that Contena Pro has a huge list of websites that take one-off submissions, but it’s also great to be able to block those in your search if you are looking for contract work.
One of the other timesaving features of Contena Pro is the ability to set email alerts. If you are short on time (and let’s face it, we are all short on time), or if you just want to increase your chances of getting hired by being one of the first applicants, this feature is a lifesaver.
Set up your alerts with as many or as few restrictions as you like and you will get an email alert in your inbox each time a job matching your criteria is added.
In addition to all these timesaving search features, Contena Pro also offers some other valuable benefits to its members, one of which is a free portfolio review.
You are allowed to submit up to three writing samples or a pitch letter for their team to critique. Typical turn-around time is three days. This is a service you could easily pay hundreds of dollars for anywhere else.
You will also find video tutorials for getting the most out of their services as well as interviews from successful freelancers from all over the web.
Do I Recommend Contena?
Yes, with one exception: Contena Pro is a tool that will only help you if you use it. Just like with any other job board, if you don’t pitch, you won’t get the gig. It’s that simple.
So, if you’re ready to put in the work, and want to find higher quality job listings in one convenient location, Contena Pro can easily become the only job board you’ll ever need.