As a freelancer with little experience and few clients, your hardest job is going to be finding work to maintain a steady income stream from your freelancer jobs. There’s good news though:
69% of freelancers said technology has made it easier to find freelancer jobs
Up to a few years ago, freelancing was limited to those people who were able to either make a name for themselves through the grapevine, or who splurged on the yellow pages. Today, technology and freelancing jobs sites have made it much easier to find freelance jobs online.
Pitching yourself on as many freelancer sites as possible, will ensure that you get as much exposure as you can possibly get. Here’s a list of sites where you can get more freelance work.
Freelancer jobs websites: A Word of Caution
You’ll need to be a little bit careful and do some research first. Check how much jobs like what you do are paid first. Some jobs get heavy competition from Asian developers whose prices are ridiculously cheap compared to western expectations. It will be useless to try and compete here.
We’d also suggest that any jobs you do with friends or contacts are entered into your Freelancing website of choice for two reasons
Even though they are people you know – a good escrow service is always a good idea
You’ll up your portfolio of work on that site (this is especially important for those just starting out)
Now – onto your experiences. Tell us the good and bad experiences you’ve had.
Freelancer.com – hire expert freelancers for your online job
Wonder of wonders – if you are looking for freelance work, where better than freelancer.com? There’s 850 categories of work to choose from, so your problem is going to be where to start.
UpWork – find freelancer jobs to tackle any job, any size, any time
Upwork has about $1 billion worth of work done annually over about a $3 million jobs done annually. Formerly known as ODesk, this is one very popular site for finding freelance work.
PeoplePerHour – a community of talent available to work remotely
The unique selling point of PPH is that all freelancers are quality checked. Some freelancing sites have quite the reputation for “harbouring” scammers who post a few jobs and then disappear – PPH is different. These freelancers won’t make it in this site, so if you get yourself approved here – you’re bound to get good work.
EnvatoStudio and the Envato Marketplace
The EnvatoStudio is another site where you can get freelancer jobs. Since the Envato marketplace is mostly targeted towards creatives, designers, photographers, developers, and creators of all kinds of digital goods, the nature of the work you’ll find will be mostly in these categories of work.
Besides that, you might also want to add a bit of a revenue stream by productizing your work and submitting to the various marketplaces for digital goods.
ThemeForest
GraphicRiver
CodeCanyon
VideoHive
PhotoDune
3DOcean
AudioJungle
ActiveDen
Fiverr – what do you need done?
Our experience with Fiverr has not been stellar – whilst we’ve gotten some *very* good work and contacts there, we’ve also found quite a few scammers when buying – so you’ll be competing with those. Use with caution – do NOT give large gigs to users whose 5 start rating seem to come from the same person or who do not look genuine different people.
The thing with Fiverr is this – the original idea was what would you be able to do with $5, however much of the work will not sell at $5, you’d have to pay or be paid many gigs (each gig is $5) for this to make sense for you as a freelancer.
So – don’t undersell yourself.
Project4Hire – find skilled freelancers worldwide
Another run of the mill freelancer jobs site, you pay $5 to accept a project. Average bids we saw were from $5 to nearly $4K.
SimplyHired – explore millions of jobs
SimplyHired boasts millions of jobs available to search by location, a quick search for Freelance gaves us more than 50,000 results – so there’s plenty of stuff across various industries you can apply for.
Workhoppers – Freelance, contract & part-time
pros in your city
Workhoppers freelance marketplace
Workhoppers specializes in matching candidates with work for freelancers, part-timers and contracts in various locations. The good thing is that there are no fees for freelancers, fees are paid for those who are posting more than 1 job.
CrowdSource aka OneSpace – a skilled and scalable workforce as a service
Crowdsource flow of work
CrowdSource works somewhat differently than the others. You apply as a freelancer (in their terms you are a worker). You need to get trained and tested so that they can gauge what tasks you are suitable for. Once this is done, you are presented with tasks within your capabilities and you can then work on these tasks. You may also be paid more or be given access to more freelancer jobs as your performance increases.
FlexJobs
FlexJobs is mostly about flexible jobs, jobs where you can work remotely, part-time or freelance. FlexJobs screen every job and guarantee that each job is legitimate. telecommuting and freelance jobs. Searching for jobs is free, however applying for jobs is against a fee.
CollegeRecruiter – helping students find great internships, entry-Level Jobs, and careers!
Collegerecruiter ( as the name implies) connects students or graduates to their new careers. Although not strictly aimed at Freelancers, there are 100K jobs posted at any one time so you should find quite a lot of work to get your hands on. Word of note: most of the jobs are entry-level or internships – but there’s quite a lot of work tagged as freelance or freelancer
LinkedIn
As the primary place where business related social networking happens, LinkedIn is one of the obvious places you should be looking at for. Besides actual job searches, you may want to join a few groups in your niche and look around for freelance work or post about your services.
Guru – find and hire talented freelancers
Guru is aimed squarely at Freelancer jobs so it should be one of the first places you should get registered at. With about $200 million (at the time of writing) paid to member Guru’s for jobs, it’s a good place to hang out at.
Craigslist
The popularity of this site makes it a good idea to keep an eye on it – the local aspect of it makes it easier to compete, so keep it handy.
WeWorkRemotely
It’s no very difficult to understand what this site is all about … there’s a little bit of everything, but coding jobs seem to be the most prolific
LocalSolo – find the top freelancers in your city
LocalSolo is a site which is focused on finding freelancers in your own city. Essentially, the premise of this site is that it should be very easy to find freelancers locally. There are jobs across all categories, so if you’re looking for freelance working in the area where you live in, this is a good place to stop.
OnSite – quality, curated freelancers
OnSite is another site which is specifically dedicated to freelancers, and essentially curates and screens the applicants. It is free for both the applicants and the companies posting jobs – at least while the site grows.
HireMyFriend – get into the spotlight for your next job
This site works quite differently than the rest. You create a profile which is anonymous, and then you get your friends (or contacts) to endorse you. Approved companies then look at your profile, and will approach you. You can choose to discuss with them or not!
YunoJuno – find, book and manage the best freelancers in town
YunoJuno is another fresh site for freelancers. The great thing about YunoJuno is it’s a full work portal, you can chat with your client, log timesheets, generate invoices and what have you.
Crowdsite – the world’s fastest crowdsourcing site
Crowdsite is the Twitter of freelancing, complete with hashtags and everything – people who need jobs will send 140 character shouts, whilst freelancers will search within these shouts. It’s essentially all done in realtime via chat and “shout”ing. #wordpress #design #logo – you get the idea.
There are also a number of design contests going on at any point in time within which you can compete in with your designs.
Localancers – simple directory for freelancers from around the world
Localancer costs $19 to sign up, however they have quality criteria – your profile may not make it (though you’ll get refunded in that case). The idea is to be able to work (mostly) with people in your own timezone and speak your own language. Essentially, it tries to narrow searches, such that clients don’t have to spend ages scouring through profile which will never work for them. Buyers of services can use search options including location, skill, timezone, countries, and price of services.
Working Nomads – A curated list of remote jobs,
for the modern working nomad
Nomads are of course people who have no fixed “home”. They travel from place to place accordance to circumstances such as availability of food and other resources. In today’s economy there are different types of nomads though. Digital / working nomads. These are people whose work is location independent – they can work just by being online, so whether they are in NYC or in Timbuktu – they can work.
Rather than doing this for works sake though – these are people who enjoy travelling – but can both travel and work. Current categories of jobs are mostly around development and design because of course these jobs lend themselves very nicely to working nomads.
Bark – find local service professionals for whatever you need
bark is essentially marketplace for any kind of work. They essentially connect jobs to pros who do the jobs, but if you are a freelancer, registering here will probably give you a number of jobs to work on. As opposed to other sites referenced in this blog, this connects local jobs to local service professionals.
Wayup (formerly CampusJob) – jobs and internships for college students
Rather that for freelancers per se, this is more suited for students who are looking for a part time job to gain experience or spending money. Jobs available range from graphic design to bartender to DJ – and are of course around jobs which are most likely to appeal to students.
RemixJobs
RemixJobs is a mostly for web design and development freelancers jobs. It is based in France and most jobs are of course in the country. There’s other categories of designs, such as SEO/SEM, Marketing and others.
Workana: Hire the best Hispanic and Portuguese freelancers
If you are in Latin America, and would like to work in the region, Workana is the largest freelancer jobs professional community. There are all sorts of jobs available around web design and the creative industries.
OsProjectz – a market place of talented freelancers and jobs
Just Sign up as a Freelancer, and starts browsing from the hundreds of jobs available across a number of categories, and in a large number of countries.
Flagd – simplifies the communication between contractor and recruiter
Flagd attempts to simplify the communication between freelancers and recruiters.
Freelancers only hear about relevant freelance jobs, whilst recruiters only access available freelancers.
Creatives Freelancing
Here is a list of graphic design freelance jobs and other creative freelancer jobs.
Authentic Jobs / Authentic Pros
AuthenticJobs was founded with the aim of connecting talented web and design professionals to great opportunities for work. There are specific listing for freelancers. You can also use the sister site, Authentic Pros which essentially is a curated list of profiles / link to portfolios of sorts.
99Designs – great business starts with a great logo
There’s plenty of sites where you can get a logo designed. Creatives look for designing logos can start at 99Designs. The way it works is that following a design brief, a design content is created and as a designer you can submit great ideas for designs. You need to shine above the rest of win of course.
StudioD – Talent Network
StudioD is essentially a talent network for Creatives. When you apply to become a contributor, somebody reviews the type of content you create. Once they know what you are able to produce, they send you projects and partners where they believe this a good fit.
Behance JobList
Besides being the ultimate portfolio sites for Creatives, Behance also has a job board which gets plenty of traffic. There’s many posting for freelancer creative jobs, so make sure you keep an eye out on it.
Krop – find creative, design and tech jobs
Krop is primarily aimed at designers, creatives and the tech industy and is mostly based in the US. It’s not cheap to access it, but this of course is by itself a good thing – you won’t find time wasters and you can expect to find good work here.
CrowdSPRING – the world’s best creative team
The difference with crowdSPRING is that you compete based on how you approach a project. you submit your ideas before the project is awarded – thus it’s your creativity and approach which will land you a project.
Aquent – delivering quality talent
Aquent originated the idea of finding specialized temporary staffing for expert creatives and web designers. They screen the people who apply to work with them and then allocate designers to projects as necessary. Quite a reputable place to be, this one should be on your priority list.
The Creative Group – Job Search – recruiting for interactive, design and marketing talet
The Creative Job Group is a leading creative staffing agency, specializing in placing creatives and marketing talent with the best companies. You can upload your resume and wait to get placed, or you can have a browse through their currently available jobs.
MediaBistro
MediaBistro is essentially a job board for media companies looking for talent. Although not strictly creative jobs, there are quite a few creative and other media jobs for you to look through. All jobs are based in the USA.
CoroFlot
CoroFlot is also a career community focused specifically on the design and creative professions. It hosts hundreds of design jobs across the USA. As a designer you can also choose to host your portfolio on the site.
Folyo – finding a designer, made easy
Folyo is a hand-picked list of designers available for freelance jobs. If you want to be on the list, you can apply to become a Designer on the site.
DesignCrowd – get the perfect custom design, every time
DesignCrowd is a graphic design marketplace that gives creative people opportunities. Businesses requiring design work can post requirements or request quotes for logo design, business card design, advertising artwork and website design. There’s 100s of jobs available at any one time, so you should be able to fill many of those gaps you’ll have in between steady jobs.
Juiiicy – find freelance projects from the best designers
Juiiicy is an invite-only site for designers. When top-notch designers get queries they cannot serve at the moment, they will refer them to other great designers through this site. Of course, since it is Invite-Only, getting your foot in the door is going to be your biggest hurdle – although if you’ve got a good portfolio, you may ask for an invite.
LogoArena – host a logo design contest
LogoArena is a design content site where those who require a logo submit a design brief and set a prize amount, and designers submit their designs. As with all design contests, this is mostly advantageous for those submitting work, rather than for those bidding to get their design accepted so you are not guaranteed any income.
Smashing Magazine Jobs
Smashing Magazine has long been an influencer in the web design, creative and design niche. It’s no wonder that with such a large amount of traffic, they would create a job board for those looking to hire talent, so have a browse through. Most of the jobs are for professionals, though you’ll find plenty of freelancing jobs too.
Freelance Writing Jobs
Freelance Writing Gigs – Jobs for Canadian Writers
Well, it doesn’t get any more clear than that does it? If you are a Canadian freelance writer, you’re sorted. If you’re not, then you need to look elsewhere!
ProBlogger Jobs – jobs for bloggers
ProBlogger is one of the most popular resources for professional bloggers, or for those who to take their blogging to a professional level. It would be fairly obvious then that this would be one of the first places to get a blogging or writing job.
Bloggers can apply to jobs for free, whilst people posting jobs need to pay a fee of a $50 – there are quite a few good bloggers hanging around at ProBlogger.
Journalism Jobs
Besides regular jobs for journalists, this site has a specific freelancing category. Jobs are mainly in the US.
The Shelf
TheShelf per se is a product which helps brands get social influence. Of course this Social influence is achieved by getting real people to write about real products. So as a blogger, you can be one of those influencers. The Bloggers lists on TheShelf allows bloggers to add their site to the list of bloggers who are ready to collaborate with brands.
Traction – marketing made simple
Similar to The Shelf, Traction is a site for freelance marketers to meet with brands and advertisers. If you have a popular blog, or are a social influencer, you can sign-up in Traction as a “Marketing Partner” and start earning.
Proz – the translation workplace
Besides freelancing, you might need to get your content translated, and if you do freelance translations – the place to get translation jobs is Proz. There’s quite a lot of translators registered on the site, but there’s hundreds of sites online at any one time, so don’t get discouraged.
Development and Programming Freelance Jobs
Toptal – hire the top 3% of freelance talent
Toptal is another freelancer jobs site which is specifically aimed at freelance developers. Toptal does not allow everybody to register though – they have a very rigorous process to get accepted and only about 3% of applicants actually manage to get accepted to the marketplace. Toptal knows that most people don’t have time to sieve through the hundreds of jobs applications which the typical freelancing job gets – so they do the hard work of screening out applicants. If you make it on Toptal, then you’re guaranteed a good freelancing income.
Dice
Dice is another niche-specific job search engine, here you’ll only find technology jobs. This makes your task of finding freelance work somewhat easier since you won’t have to sieve though all jobs which are not fit for purpose.
Sologig – find engineering and IT jobs
Sologig is mainly focused towards Engineering and IT jobs. It’s not strictly aimed at freelancers (something which would be obvious from the name), but of course you’ll find freelancer jobs on the site.
Matchist – want to bring your idea to life?
The trouble with the sites we’re referencing for people living in the US, is that some of them tend to get overly saturated with foreigners. Whilst this is of course not a bad thing most times, it is a distraction for those who want to remain in the US.
Matchist targets specifically jobs and ideas to developers in the US. This ensures that if you don’t want to hire / work for / with foreigners, Matchist is the place for you.
TopCoder – challenge yourself. Get Paid
One of the largest technical communities online, it has been hosting technical competitions or hackathons since 2001. More than $70 millions in cash has been awarded, and every day is a brand new hackathon. These are essentially coding contests where you can register and go compete against other developers for the prize money.
WordPress Job Board
WordPress is not only the most common content management system around. It of course has spurned a huge community of work around it – anything from developers, to themes, to websites developed from scratch, WordPress has helped spawn several industries. The WordPress job board hosts jobs which are of course mostly related to WordPress.
Hirable – hire the best freelance developers
Hirable is a social site where freelance developers can get hired. After getting a free you can indicate your availability with a “Hirable” status, and opt to the “Busy” status when you are not.
Crew – work with the best designers and developers
Crew is all about high-quality creative work for freelancers who are handpicked a vetted and are then matched to projects. Apply here because there’s a bit of a waiting list to get on the freelancers list.
Gun.io – find the world’s very best freelance developers
Gun.io is another site connecting freelance developers to work. It has been delivering freelancers for companies like Amazon.com, Zappos and SolarCity. To apply as a freelancer in Gun.io, you’ll have to register with your Github account. You’ll then get matched to employers according to your skills and the jobs currently required.
Gigster – hire an elite development team in minutes
Gigster is aimed at creating excellent teams for development projects with fast turnaround times, using excellent developer talent from Silicon Valley and beyond. They connect you directly to project managers based in Silicon Valley who access to a vetted pool of developers. Companies can range from startups to top tech companies like
If you want to become a Gigster – you can apply here. Make sure you can prove your worth before you apply though.
Joomlancers
Joomlancers has been around for a very long time where Joomla freelancers can apply for Joomla specific freelancing jobs, such as developing Joomla modules and components, or tweaking existing components as necessary.
And you – where do you find freelancer jobs for when you are experiencing downtime? Tell us in the comments below.
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