Are you a full-time employee looking to venture out into something of your own? Are you looking for a job but haven’t found the right opportunity yet? Are you someone who needs to allocate time between work and family, but your full-time job isn’t allowing you to? Do you want to continue working full-time and have a side-hustle at the same time?
If you said ‘Yes’ to any of the above, you’re in the right place!
In this article, we’re going to talk about the steps that you need to follow in order to get yourself going in the world of freelance jobs in the UAE.
1. Self-reflection – start on the right note
When making the decision to get into freelancing, it is important that you understand your motivation behind it. You should be clear on what you want to achieve and how much effort you’re willing to put into it. It’s important to understand that freelancing is not easy, so you shouldn’t take it lightly. Yes, it gives you a lot more flexibility and freedom than working for someone else, but like all individual business endeavors, you may have to put a lot more effort into it. The benefits are yours alone but so are the risks. The decisions are yours to make, but you also have to be prepared to take complete accountability of the repercussions of these decisions.
2. Identify your skills
Next, you need to identify what your skills are and how you can convert them into a freelancing role. For some people, this is actually the first step, where they realize they are really good at something and then move onto step two, in fine-tuning this belief into something more solid.
3. Eat. Sleep. Research. Repeat
Once you have identified your motivation behind wanting to find a freelance job in the UAE and identifying which skills you can incentivize, you need to conduct thorough research into the specifics. At the end of your research, you should ideally have answers to the following key questions:
- What is the demand for freelance jobs in the UAE, in my selected profession?
- How can I provide a niche service in order to exceed my clients’ expectations?
- How much should I charge?
- What model of payment should I go with? And what modes of payment can I provide?
- What are the issues that freelance jobs in the UAE are faced with, and how I can prepare myself to handle such obstacles?
- Are there any initial costs involved and if so, what are they?
- What are the legal requirements I have to fulfill (if any)?
4. Publish your profile
This is an extremely important step. You need to get your profile out there. But hold up, that doesn’t mean you go ahead and publish mediocre portfolios on a thousand different websites and consider your job done. It means creating solid profiles of your skills and any work that you may have done in the past. Don’t hesitate to include any pro bono work that you may have done as well. After all, you may have used some of your best skills to help others for free earlier, but did not realize that you can actually monetize these services until you heard the Joker say, “If you’re good at something, never do it for free!”
Choosing a Right Platform to Find Freelance Jobs in the UAE
When you’re deciding where to register yourself, make sure to check the options available and read the reviews on each of them. This will help you understand the different experiences that people have had with each platform and be prepared for them. Websites like Xpertin provide you with a great space to sign-up and bid for freelance jobs in the UAE for free. Because it holds a deposit from the client each time a new milestone begins, it also guarantees your payment as long as you deliver as per the agreed milestones. You also find projects that you can bid on as a freelancer.
5. Work hard, bid harder
Once you have successfully signed up on a platform, you need to keep monitoring the projects that get posted. This allows you to bid on the ones that relate to your skills. Most platforms like Xpertin allow you to filter projects by selected skills so that you can bid on the projects that are relevant to you.
On that note, please don’t bid on every single project that is posted on a website because it just means that you will lose credibility as a freelancer. And when you do bid, please make sure your bid makes sense. For instance, you should not bid on projects that require expertise in Adobe Photoshop with comments like “I am an expert in Microsoft Excel” – this is a big no no!
6. Be professional
This goes for the entire lifecycle of your freelancing project. Make sure to add professional bid statements when you’re applying for a project, when you’re engaging with a potential client, during the actual implementation of the project, and even once the project is complete. This only makes the experience positively memorable for everyone involved, and you may have secured a potential repeat-customer in the long run.
7. Deliver like it’s your last hustle
Once you’ve secured a freelancing ‘gig’, please (for the sake of all your freelancing brothers and sisters out there) give it your best in terms of the work that you do, the commitment to timelines, transparency in communication, and principles with which you conduct your business.
8. Get feedback – both positive and constructive
Don’t shy away from asking from feedback. Often times, your clients will genuinely get caught up in their daily routines and forget to leave you a comment or two. But don’t let this discourage you. There is no shame in asking for feedback for the work that you put into a project. Be prepared to hear about your potential areas of improvement and use this to enhance your work in the future.
9. Make time for yourself
Throughout the process of carrying out all the above activities, don’t forget to make time for your friends and family, and more importantly, for your own well-being. This will allow you to take a breather and refresh your thoughts and creative process. In today’s day and age where stress has become such a hazardous problem for many people, it is important that we take some time to focus on our mental well-being, and this requires taking that occasional day or two off and getting pampered at a spa somewhere in the middle of the ocean – even if it’s only happening in your imagination, that still helps!
Read More Relevant Articles:
Why Dubai is One of The Best Places to Work as a Freelancer?
13 Reasons to Start a Freelancing Career Today
6 Productivity Tips for Freelancers
Image Credit: https://www.freepik.com/drobotdean


