How and with what to fill out a portfolio for a novice freelancer

To successfully start a freelancing career, a remote worker needs a portfolio. This is a set of works that relate to the projects of the artist’s specialty and show the level of his knowledge and skills. It is the portfolio that is used by the customer in order to give the first assessment to the performer, his skills and abilities. Based on what he saw, a decision is made about the competence and the ability to give the project a job to a freelancer. The higher the level of work in this portfolio, the higher the chance for the contractor to get a complex and expensive project to work.

What is a portfolio for

Portfolio – the face of a freelancer. Depending on the specialty, there may be different types of work. A designer, for example, will store his layouts, logos, sprites, icons there – everything he does every day. The same is true for other specialties. A web developer will compile his portfolio from a list of sites that he developed or participated in the development of.

It turns out that a portfolio is needed in order to find projects for work. Completed work can be added to the portfolio and thereby replenish and improve it. This circle works on an ongoing basis and plays into the hands of a freelancer. The more work you do, the better your portfolio will be. But there is one small nuance – where can a novice freelancer get the first work?

When a person first starts freelancing, they don’t have completed work yet and can’t add anything to their portfolio. How to be in such a situation? Let’s find out.

What to add to the portfolio of a freelancer without completed work

In many ways, this question depends on the specialization of the freelancer. There are specialties where there is simply nothing to add to the portfolio. Sometimes it is because the person’s work is “invisible”. And sometimes because showing the work to third parties can reveal the very idea and devalue the work for the customer. For example, if a person works in the field of information security and establishes protection for various systems. To show in the portfolio how he does it means to reveal weaknesses.

But if we are talking about ordinary professions that are often found in freelancing – web design, programming, copywriting – everything is very simple here. Such specialists should not have problems with portfolios.

Even if you haven’t done any work projects yet, don’t have any commercial experience, and haven’t faced real challenges, you can do some projects for yourself. Just go to the freelance exchange, find a customer whose project you like in appearance (it will be presentable and you won’t be ashamed to add it to your portfolio) and try to make it. The probability that the customer will choose you as a contractor will be extremely small, but you can try to offer him your services. In any case, you just need to take up this work and try to complete it within the specified time and exactly as described in the task.

By doing this work, you will be able to determine several important points for yourself:

1. How difficult is this or that type of work for you.
2. Are you capable of handling a project of this complexity.
3. Which projects you can take on and which you can’t.
4. How much work can you do in one working day.
5. How much can you earn in a week or month.

Such an analysis will allow you to better understand yourself. You will be able to determine what you are capable of and whether you can freelance at all. If you manage to complete the project without any problems, you will spend less time on it and get it ahead of schedule – this is very good.

What if you run into trouble while doing a trial task

It happens that such “trial” projects or first works take much longer than planned. This is fine. Even if you spend a lot of time or miss the deadline, or you don’t succeed, don’t get upset. This is not a reason to panic at all. The first works are carried out for a long time, they take a huge amount of time and effort. This is quite normal, since you do not yet have experience and have not yet developed the necessary skills. Everything comes with time, the main thing is patience.

Over time, any work that you do constantly is brought to automatism and you get everything much faster. The first projects are not an indicator of your real ability to work. They only help you learn and show you what you are capable of at the moment. Just one major project will allow you to understand how much you did not know about your work before. As a rule, such a project allows you to learn and master many new skills. As a result, you will be able to do the same work much faster in the future.

At first, a person takes on work that seems overwhelming or very difficult to him. Then, doing it, he learns and acquires new knowledge. After that, the freelancer realizes that the work he is doing is not so difficult and the next time he does it many times faster. A few months of practice will make him a good specialist, and a few years – an excellent professional. The main thing is to get that very first experience.

Doing work for yourself allows you to better understand what you are capable of, as well as fill your portfolio. And if you have a good portfolio, finding a good project to work with will not be a problem. Even if you have few or no reviews at all.

And if you don’t know where to start freelancing, you can always try your hand at writing term papers, graduation papers or essays to order on the Author24 exchange. This is a good opportunity to start your career and learn new things. You will not do the same projects, you will learn and develop.

When, after many sleepless nights, the diploma is finally ready, I want to pass it and forget it. But the university will not lag behind the student so easily. After all, the full text of the diploma was read only by the supervisor, and a whole commission will gather to evaluate it. Therefore, in many respects, his assessment depends on how the student defends his diploma.

So what is a successful defense?

• Competent protection text
• positive diploma review
• confident answers to commission questions

In the introduction to the course it is necessary to indicate many important points. One of them is methodology. The student is required to indicate what methods he will use in the study of the topic. This is not the easiest task, and often students cannot cope with this task themselves. In this case, you can contact us. Our specialists will write you a paper of any complexity, and you can discuss the price with them personally.

In the introduction to the course it is necessary to indicate many important points. One of them is methodology. The student is required to indicate what methods he will use in the study of the topic. This is not the easiest task, and often students cannot cope with this task themselves. In this case, you can contact us. Our specialists will write you a paper of any complexity, and you can discuss the price with them personally.

In the introduction to the course it is necessary to indicate many important points. One of them is methodology. The student is required to indicate what methods he will use in the study of the topic. This is not the easiest task, and often students cannot cope with this task themselves. In this case, you can contact us. Our specialists will write you a paper of any complexity, and you can discuss the price with them personally.

In the introduction to the course it is necessary to indicate many important points. One of them is methodology. The student is required to indicate what methods he will use in the study of the topic. This is not the easiest task, and often students cannot cope with this task themselves. In this case, you can contact us. Our specialists will write you a paper of any complexity, and you can discuss the price with them personally.

Speech structure

Of course, what exactly to say in the defense depends mainly on the topic of the thesis and on what exactly is written in it, but there are general recommendations that are suitable for everyone.

• First of all, we need to greet the members of the evaluation committee. (“Dear members of the attestation commission! Your attention is presented to the final qualifying work on the topic …”)
• Introductory part. Here you need to reveal the topic and identify the issues that are raised in the work.
• Relevance of the topic. At this stage, it is important to prove the relevance of the chosen topic and the degree of its development in other people’s works. Indicate the subject, object, objectives and purpose of the study.
• Theme disclosure structure. Here you just need to list the paragraphs that are in the work and briefly describe them.
• Problem statement. To confirm the relevance of the topic, it is necessary to state the problem and indicate the debatable opinions on this matter.
• Conclusions. At the end of the speech, the commission should hear the conclusions that the student came to in the course of writing the diploma, in which there are ways and methods for solving the stated problems.

On the one hand, it seems that it is much easier to write a graduation speech than the diploma itself. However, high-quality speech is a skillful squeeze out of the work, as well as its competent presentation. And it often happens that a diploma is written with the highest score, and a student gets a worse grade. Therefore, if there is a lack of self-confidence, you can order a speech on our website. And then the probability of failure due to bad speech will disappear. After all, we give a twenty-day guarantee for the work, and if something does not suit you, you can demand that the author finalize the order for free. We make sure that students are satisfied, so if the final version of the work does not meet the stated requirements, you will get your money back.

Formal requirements

When writing a speech for a thesis, you must also take into account that there are purely formal requirements.

• Time. Do not forget that there are many students, but only one commission. Therefore, the time for a defensive speech is regulated and ranges from 5 to 7 minutes. At the same time, you should remember about the time that will be spent on commission questions.
• Intonation. Where, no matter how on the defense of a diploma, is it important to win over listeners? Therefore, it is better not to read the speech monotonously, making accents with intonation.
• Style. When presenting a speech, it should be remembered that the main goal is understanding on the part of the commission. Therefore, you should not be too smart, but you can’t switch to colloquial speech either. In this matter, you need to observe the golden mean.
• Pronouns. As in the diploma itself, it is important to remember during the defense that although the author of the diploma is clearly spelled out, there are a lot of true owners of knowledge reflected in the work (the authors of all the sources the student relied on plus the supervisor), so first-person pronouns are not appropriate here.
• Questions. After the end of the speech, questions from the commission will inevitably follow, and you need to be ready for them. Suggested questions should be written down in the course of writing the thesis, work through all the questions that arose during the pre-defense, and you can also look at the questions at the end of chapters from textbooks on this topic.
• Pre-protection. In such a matter as defending a diploma, it is better not to be presumptuous and neglect pre-defense. On it, you can practice giving a speech and write down possible questions from the audience. This will allow you to feel more confident in the official defense.

Of course, these are only recommendations, and no one forces you to strictly follow them. However, the rejection of some positions during the defense will create additional questions from the certification committee, which is not always loyal. Therefore, it is best to think through all possible questions and answer them in advance in a defensive speech. Then the teachers will have a minimum of questions, and they will be grateful for the saved time.