What are freelance exchanges?

Recently, remote work has become more and more popular in our country. This is influenced by a large number of factors: the ability to perform work tasks from home, the absence of the need to use public transport, the opportunity to find a job in a capital company, living in the province and working on a personal schedule. However, new freelancers often don't know where to start - where to find their first clients and how to get orders. A popular way of looking for a job today is using dedicated freelance exchanges. In our article we will talk in more detail about what it is, as well as analyze what exchanges are.

First, you need to decide what the freelance exchange is. In fact, it is a platform for employing remote workers - searching for orders, tasks and customers. For fans of remote work with no work experience, this is the best way to start their activities to provide certain services. Freelance exchanges have advantages and disadvantages. You should evaluate the positive and negative traits in advance in order to know what to prepare yourself for, and what awaits you in the workflow.

Among the advantages of exchanges for freelancers are usually distinguished:

• the demand for a variety of specialists (lawyers, designers, copywriters, screenwriters, programmers, etc. will be able to find themselves within the exchanges);
• the ability to choose tasks that interest you and skip those that are not interesting to you;
• user-friendly interface;
• the opportunity to receive an order even without work experience.

The disadvantages of exchanges include the following characteristics:

• traditionally, the payment for freelance services within the exchanges is much lower than if the employee enters into an agreement directly with the employer;
• many exchanges work at the expense of commission deductions from orders or monthly contributions, respectively, the freelancer will have to spend personal funds;
• high level of competition;
• each exchange has its own rules and restrictions that will have to be obeyed.

You can observe the fact that both negative and positive properties are equally characteristic of freelance exchanges. However, despite all the negativity, it is often on the exchanges that freelancers find their first customers and receive their first fees. Accordingly, this method of finding a remote job remains popular and widespread. It is also worth noting the fact that due to the high demand for exchanges among freelancers, today there are a large number of such sites:

• universal (here specialists of a wide profile can find remote work, as well as those people who do not have any specialized skills);
• specialized (specific specialists are in demand at such sites: for example, there are separate exchanges for photographers, designers, translators, tutors, etc.).

To get the order you are interested in on the exchange, you must follow the rules of a particular site. Also, compliance with all requirements increases your chances of getting new customers and increasing earnings.

• First of all, you must indicate your qualifications and, if possible, confirm it with examples of work, reviews of previous customers or documents (for example, a diploma or educational certificate).
• It's also important to build a portfolio of your work. It should be regularly updated and replenished.
• If you want to be successful in the field of remote work, then you must constantly develop and grow professionally. This is the only way you can get fairly high fees, as well as interesting orders.

As mentioned above, today on the Internet you can find a large number of exchanges for freelancers (for translators, designers, beginners, experienced professionals, etc.). Consider several existing types of online sites for remote employment.

Programming is a fairly popular profession among freelancers. Accordingly, there are many ways for such professionals to find a job.

• "Habr Freelance" - this platform is one of the most popular within the professional community of IT professionals. Here you can find orders for both beginners and professionals with experience.
• "Work for programmers" - in fact, this site is an electronic bulletin board for programmers. Here you can search and post vacancies.
• Workspace - most often orders are published on this exchange regarding the development, optimization and support of online sites.
• Proglib - there are vacancies for programmers both in office work and with regards to freelancing.
• Modber - this site will be of interest to those IT specialists who are engaged in the development of 1C.
• VC - in its structure, this popular exchange resembles a news feed, where you can find vacancies in large IT companies.

To increase the chances of getting a vacancy or order, you should post your resume on each of the sites presented, and also regularly view the news.

Almost any person can become a copywriter and rewriter - for this it is not at all necessary to have specialized skills (of course, except for a good knowledge of the native language). In order to start looking for remote work, your attention should be paid to such popular sites.

• Etxt - on this site you can not only look for work, but also post your finished and written articles for their subsequent sale.
• Contentmonster - this exchange offers relatively high earnings for beginners who want to try their hand at copywriting and rewriting.
• Text - this site is one of the most popular. Here you can find both vacancies for beginners and expensive orders.
• "Glavred Exchange" is one of the most prestigious, as its developer is the popular author Maxim Ilyakhov. You can post your professional resume here.
• Miratext - if you want to work on this exchange, then you will have to pass an incoming literacy test. However, here you can find orders with high pay.
• Qcomment - this site is suitable for professionals who do not want to write voluminous texts. For example, on a website, you can make money by writing comments on various websites.

If you are just starting to work remotely and do not have highly specialized skills, then you should pay attention to the vacancies of copywriters and rewriters.

Today, remote work is popular not only among those who do not have specialized education, but also among highly qualified specialists. For example, a large number of exchanges for lawyers and accountants appear on the Internet.

• Pravoved - on this exchange lawyers can find practical application of their skills. On the site, users ask questions, and qualified specialists leave answers to them. In order to start working, you need to go through the registration procedure.
• 9111 Is a popular platform for lawyers, which works on the same principle as the Pravoved exchange.
• Junglejobs - Qualified accountants will be able to find a vacancy or project work on this site.

It can be concluded that over time and the development of technology, even specialists from such traditional areas of human activity as lawyers and accountants are switching to remote work.

Online artists and designers can get paid for their creative skills.

• Illustrators - on this site, new vacancies and projects appear almost daily, respectively, there is a high probability of employment.
• Behance - in fact, this site is a catalog of designers. It is used by experts from all over the world. If you have a sufficient number of skills, you have a real opportunity to find remote work in an international company.
• Dribbble - this site is suitable only for those who speak English, as the interface is designed entirely in a foreign language.
• Dizkon - this site regularly holds various competitions for designers with attractive cash prizes.
• Render - specialists in the creative field of a wide profile can find work here: for example, artists, animators, visualizers, etc.
• Gamedev - this site is suitable for designers of computer games.

Accordingly, within the framework of remote work, specialists of even non-traditional creative professions can find professional use for themselves.

If you do not have specialized skills or want to try yourself in different fields, then you should turn your attention to the following exchanges.

• Yandex Toloka - on this site you can receive money for completing simple tasks on the Internet.
• Wowworks - on the service, you can take orders for small services in a variety of areas (for example, courier delivery).
• Callcenterforum - this site is relevant among those who want to get a job as a Call-center operator.

As you can see, today there are a huge number of exchanges for a variety of remote specialists (both for beginners and experienced). However, among the exchanges, the best ones can be distinguished. Consider the rating of the top freelance exchanges in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

• FL - this exchange is one of the largest, but at the same time, it should be borne in mind that in order to fully use it, you will have to register a special PRO account.
• Upwork - this site is popular not only in the countries of the former CIS, but all over the world. It is versatile and suitable for any job search. At the same time, you should take into account the fact that you need to know English in order to use it.
• Kwork - on this site you can place a list of services that you are ready to perform for a certain fee.

As you can see, in the modern world, almost everyone can find a suitable job for themselves online. Specially designed freelance exchanges will help you with this.

You can watch a detailed overview of the most popular exchanges in the next video.