Find Jobs Online with These Simple Strategies

As a result of spam ads and misleading websites,  African freelancers’ search to find jobs online can be difficult. It makes it even difficult because most international clients are sceptical about hiring African freelancers, especially Nigerians, on freelance job boards like freelancer.com, Fiverr and upwork. There is also a lot of competition that is why you need to carve out a niche for yourself. 

With these simple strategies, you will find jobs online hassle free

• Change the way you search for jobs online:

You can get more legitimate results, no matter what search engine you are using. The most common search terms for finding freelance jobs is “work at home.” Think like a prospective client seeking employees to work at home. By doing this, you will find jobs online that are satisfying to your search.

A few ideas for alternative search terms to “work at home” would be such keywords as “virtual assistant”, “freelance writer”, “freelance editor”, “freelancers needed,” and terms related to the type of freelance gig you are seeking. 

The most common types of home jobs are graphic design jobs, data entry jobs, accounting and bookkeeping jobs, virtual assistance jobs, transcription jobs, digital marketing jobs, and writing jobs.

By searching for these types of jobs online, you will find a more exact match. By adding “hiring,” “needed,” and “wanted” to the positions, the results will be more refined. 

• Update your online portfolios and social profiles:

LinkedIn is a great platform to use. When used well, LinkedIn can help you raise brand awareness. You can also design a portfolio for yourself using behance.net or clippings.me.

It’s an easy thing to forget to update your online profiles when you’ve mastered a new skill or started a new job. However, outdated information doesn’t leave a good impression.

Employers/clients can easily assume you’re not active and will not be worth engaging with.

In addition, people often search based on key criteria. If you don’t keep your information updated, you’ll be left out of relevant search results – for example, people may search by Industry, Past Experiences, Location and Skills 

• Seek out connections:

When you increase your online connections by one, you’re actually increasing your network by thousands.

This is why one of the greatest ways to increase engagement is to actively boost your connections online by engaging with your audience. Target influential individuals thought leaders, and other key professionals in your industry- they might be willing to outsource some tasks to you.

Here are some more tips on finding relevant connections online:

1. Connect your email accounts to find people in your email contact lists
2. Join groups – it allows you to connect with anyone in the group
3. Connect with anyone who engages with your content or content you’re mentioned in

Finally, something looks too good to be true, it probably is and it is best to follow your instinct and keep a realistic perspective when you want to find jobs online. Legitimate freelance jobs will look very similar to a regular job and the expectations, applications, and hiring process will be very much the same as a regular job. The only difference is you may never meet your employer/client face-to-face.

Flashy advertisements promising you huge sums of money for little to no work are 99.9% of the time a scam. Too many people far too often get suckered into these scams. Dear African Freelancer, you must protect yourself and use your best judgment no matter how appealing the offer appears.