Recruiter sehen sich während einer Einstellungs- und Recruiting Phase hunderten CVs ausgesetzt und das oft unter hohem Zeitdruck. Deshalb stechen Bewerbungen hervor die knapp in 5-6 Sätzen auf die wichtigsten geforderten Skills und Erfahrungen, mit Bezug auf die relevanten Projekterfahrungen und der Rolle in der diese Skills und Erfahrungen angewendet und evtl. neue gewonnen wurden, eingehen.

Wie gehe ich beim Erstellen des Personal Statements am besten vor?

Sicher sind die Must-Have Anforderungen fast alle zu erfüllen und auch zu erwähnen in einem Personal Statement mit Bezug auf die Rolle und des konkreten Projekts in dem man tätig war und diese Anforderungen erfolgreich erfüllt hatte.
Zusätzlich erhöht man die Chancen wenn ein weiteres „Nice-To-Have“ Skill oder Erfahrung mit konkreten Projektreferenzen und Tätigkeitsbeschreibungen auch im Personal Statement erwähnt wird. Falls aus dem Projektangebot nicht direkt ersichtlich ist welche nun die Must-Have und Nice-To-Have Anforderungen sind könnte man anhand des Projekttitels diese Unterscheidung selber ableiten.

Unsere Erfahrung zeigt, dass bei 80% Abdeckung der im Projektangebot geforderten Skills und Erfahrungen im Personal Statement das beiliegende CV nur noch als Bestätigung des Personal Statements kurz analysiert wird. Dadurch wird der Recruiting Prozess erheblich beschleunigt und der Recruiter erhält vorab schon ein positives Bild von Ihnen alleine durch Ihr Persönliches Statement.

When a person can perform his tasks efficiently and nothing seems to take him out of his focus, we can say that this person possessed a Productive Mindset.

Mindset are mental attitudes, that is, the mentality or vision that each of us has in relation to life, and this influences how you organize your day to day life.

We, the freelancers, need to have a highly productive and ready mindset to undertake. If you can not get organized in your daily life, how much time will you have for a trip with the family or girlfriend, get a movie, travel, study, do your favorite hobby or take care of your health?

Let’s focus on those tools that will help you.

DEVELOP YOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND MINDSET

The following step-by-step guide for you to start developing your productive mindset:

FOLDER ORGANIZATION

Start by organizing your computer files into separate folders. Create a folder for each client and a subfolder for each part. Organize the sites in bookmarks, but all separated into folders, name categories. This makes it easier to find an important article or tutorial.

DAILY BACKUP

Keep a daily backup of everything you do. You can even store your data in Google Drive, which offers 15 GB of free space, and you have other options like OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud and Mega. This latter service option offers 50 GB of free storage.

FINANCIAL PLANNING

Use spreadsheets to track your expenses and earnings. You can create a simple spreadsheet in excel or free options like LibreOffice which also has excel spreadsheet software.

In addition to spreadsheets you can also opt for free online systems like quickbooks, which is a financial system, contains cash flow, reports and control of revenues and expenses. It is worth checking.

TASK MANAGEMENT

Have an agenda with annotated tasks. In addition to the pen and paper you can use free tools for task management, which are:

Trello (https://trello.com/)

Runrun.it (https://runrun.it)

Remember the milk (https://www.rememberthemilk.com/)

Asana (https://asana.com)

TIME MANAGEMENT

And in order not to lose focus while working, I suggest using two combined techniques:

• 1st – Organize your tasks in 1-3-5: Consists of listing your tasks in order of priority. 1 large task, 3 medium tasks and 5 simple tasks. This way you can prioritize the most important tasks.
• 2nd – Pomodoro Technique: This technique manages the productivity time, with it you can keep focus every 25 minutes with intervals of 5 minutes. Every 4 cycles you should take a longer break, between 15 and 30 minutes. These intervals are very important to rest.

To control time with the pomodoro technique you can access the site https://tomato-timer.com/.

CONCLUSION

These tools and techniques can help you manage time and organize your tasks, but avoid interruptions while working. Provide a work schedule and a schedule for the next day.

During the execution of the tasks avoid seeing whatSapp, answering emails, chewing on facebook, etc …

All these things can take away your focus and concentration. Spend a few minutes of the day to answer emails, view facebook posts and other little things that can get in your way. You can do this as the first task of the day by stipulating a half-hour, and then focusing on the most important tasks.

If you want to know what your own style of productivity, access this link (http://lpprodutividade.com.br/blog/work-simply-teste-productividade-personal/) and make a simple test.

Do you know what Networking is and why it is so important?

WHAT IS NETWORKING?

Networking is a network of contacts where people with common interests share services and information.

WHY NETWORKING IS SO IMPORTANT?

Through your network of contacts you can do your personal marketing and meet people who will bring you benefits, as well as knowing who you are and what you do! Here are the advantages:

Prospects

This is the best benefit a freelancer can get in a network of contacts! Your future clients need to know you and your services. Without them it is impossible to keep up the freelance career.

Business Partners

You will need freelancers to work on a particular part of the project, or when you are busy you can refer someone you trust.

Expand your Knowledge
By relating to people from other areas you will be learning about various topics and also passing on your knowledge.

Be Indicated

If you have done a well-done job for that job, the client can tell you to other future clients. Or even your business partner will point you to another Job.

HOW TO BUILD A PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING

I’m going to list some of the tools that can help you build a professional networking:

Linkedin

Linkedin is a social network of business relationships, its main objective is to interconnect groups of professionals who have the same interests. Briefly, it is an online resume.

That is why you must create a Linkedin profile, you will connect with professionals from all over the world, conduct your personal marketing and facilitate the search for companies.

https://www.linkedin.com/

Facebook Groups

Join facebook groups, there are several groups from all possible areas. Not only that but post information that can help the group and respond to the needs of the group.

You may encounter someone who has difficulty solving a problem where you have the ability to help them.

Coworking

Coworking is a shared office where professional freelancers and start-ups meet daily to work. They have a whole structure to attend to the autonomous public, telephone, meeting room, computer and most importantly, coffee can not miss.

At Coworking you can do your Networking with people from different areas and carry out your work without distractions or procrastination.

Watch the following video and learn more about coworking:

BeerOrCoffee

BeerOrCoffee is an application available for both android and iOS, with it you can invite other connected freelancers with the skills or knowledge of interest to have a coffee or beer and discuss about a project. Who made the invitation pays the first drink.

The application has more than one hundred establishments registered in the country like breweries, coffee shops, hotels and coworkings.

https://beerorcoffee.com/coworking

Events, Fairs and Classroom style courses

Participating in events and fairs for those who are shy is a bit difficult, but I give you some advice:

just focus on your goals

that the rest is happening naturally, when you least expect it, already made several contacts.

Friends, family and colleagues

Do your friends and colleagues know what you do? These would be the first groups that could tell you.

Keep in touch with your friends, invite them for a lunch, they can be your future clients or partners.

E-mail signature

With a beautiful and objective email signature, the people you communicate with by email know what you do.

It’s a great way to leave your contacts like facebook, linkedin, portfolio, so people can see your work and your mobile number (WhatsApp) for more direct contact.

Conclusion

Try not to settle for working only at home, the relationship with people is very important. You have several ways to communicate with them and increase your Networking! just have will power and go to fight.

By following these tips, you will always have work.

HOW TO BE A FREELANCER FORMALIZED

MEI – Individual Microentrepreneur, what is it?

The MEI is the small individual entrepreneur that has a billing of up to R $ 60,000.00 per year and that carries out one of the economic activities found in this list:

http://www.portaldoempreendedor.gov.br/temas/quero-ser/formalize-se/ativities-permitted

To know more about the MEI visit the site:

http://www.portaldoempreendedor.gov.br/

When you leave the company and become a freelancer you lose some benefits like: FGTS, health insurance, 13th salary, unemployment insurance and vacations. But like every good Brazilian citizen you need to make your IR statement.

With MEI, you are exempt from paying the IR and pay monthly 49 or 50 reais as a service provider, which are the taxes of INSS and ISS.

Rights

Duties

You can look for an accountant to register for MEI, by law the services are free, or make your own registration by the link:

http://www.portaldoempreendedor.gov.br/temas/quero-ser/formalize-se/formalize-se

Conclusion

You will become a legal person and you can issue invoices to your customers. Many companies stop hiring a freelancer for not being legalized, being MEI, the doors will open up much easier.

And we come to the end of this series

Thank you those who accompany a series and hope you have liked! But there is a lot more for you to open up the freelance career. It is important that you always seek more to enrich your knowledge. Go ahead always!

A big hug to everyone and until the next post.

And do not forget, if you want to find jobs that match your abilities, this is the place to shine! And it’s free!

Here are the main sections that a curriculum should have:

CONTACT INFORMATION

Enter information where the company can contact you:

• Your name
• Email
• Address
• telephone
• And an up-to-date, beautiful and relaxed photo, do not go putting a photo where you’re in a ballad with friends, or smoking, drinking, etc … Place a discreet photo or leave without a photo.

GOAL

Make a short and impactful statement of your professional goals and the area in which you would like to act! 2 lines would be an ideal size!

Example:

„Front end developer, in which I can maximize my experience in systems development and management.“

This session would be below your name at the top of the document. After your name, this is the first section that a potential employer will read.

EXPERIENCE

In this section, you must indicate the name of the company and its highlighted function, besides the other information such as the period in which it worked and the location of the company, city, state and a brief description of the activities carried out in the company.

Ex:

digital agency Paraleloz
Web designer
– Development of websites in HTML, CSS, Jquery, JavaScript, PHP and WordPress
– Development of layouts for websites and systems in Illustrator and Photoshop

You can also include in your resume completed projects of clients as a freelancer. But first make sure you have permission from the client to include such projects.

The best way to do this is when you close a budget or a contract. Put a clause in your budget requesting permission to include the project in your portfolio. So from the initial moment of work you will know if you can disclose it or not.

EDUCATION

In Education if you attended a college or any other specialization courses you must provide the name of the institution, city, state and in which year it was formed, in addition to information such as the name of the course and projects undertaken during the course.

SKILLS

The skills section tells you what we know how to do, for example:

• HTML5
• CSS, LESS, SASS
• GIT, GITLAB
• WordPress
• PHP and JavaScript
• Illustrator
• Photoshop
• etc…

You may also be adding the languages you speak! which in this case is a super differential.

These sections are the main ones a resume should have, but if you want to further enhance your resume you can add sections like: Projects, achievements, diplomas and courses, honors and awards, publications and references.

But be careful not to fill your trash curriculum! the more objective he is the better his chances of being called for an interview.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Your profile on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin end up being part of the professional screening, so you have to be careful with the messages you transmit.

If you do not want to be misunderstood, in the case of Facebook it is best to leave your profile in private mode.

Keep your Linkedin in line with your resume, which should always be up to date.

CONCLUSION

Before sending your resume to any company it is a good idea to show it to a friend. Ask for feedback! Check typos, so read and reread the document for typos and Portuguese. And good luck in your pursuit of dream job!

Before sending your resume to any company it is a good idea to show it to a friend. Ask for feedback! Check typos, so read and reread the document for typos and Portuguese. And good luck in your pursuit of dream job!

We emphasize on cutting-edge technologies to eliminate administrative overhead found in traditional recruiting agencies, which lack in service quality and efficiency.

Brokerme acts fully automated by applying advanced technologies such as smart contracts, automated assessments and inclusion of social footprint of freelancers to evaluate their soft- and hard skills.

Benefits for companies:

Companies get ideally suited freelancers with minimal administrative and communicational effort. Just by sending their project offers to brokerme, they receive freelancers right for the job within short time.

Benefits for freelancers:

Freelancers get their first project offers right after a two-click registration effort into their mailbox without any further steps.

And for the first time, we reward freelancers in two ways:

1. for every successful indication of our project offers
2. by forwarding their external project offers to us

How to quickly register

1 – Register

Making your registration is very simple and quick0. All you need to be part of our value streams is your name and e-mail address. Your CV is not needed at this stage. Moreover, our approach refrains from a time-consuming skill-intake, as well.

2 – Receive Offers

You will receive job offers in your mailbox containing two options: To apply for the job or indicate them to other professionals.

3 – Indicate Freelancers

If you are not available for a specific project offer you may indicate it to one or more professionals. As soon as the position gets filled, you will receive a reward via PayPal.

4 – Monetize your idle assets

Forward to us, your own project offers and those you receive from third-parties to this address freelancer@brokerme.club If we successfully fill the position you will receive a reward via PayPal .

What are you waiting for to be a freelancer Brokerme! Register now! 

A portfolio is a collection of projects you may have undergone in your career.

CREATE YOUR PORTFOLIO

First thing, there is not such a thing as the perfect formula for landing the perfect CV or portfolio,  you should always keep in mind, as a thumb rule, that everything that is made with love and care, tends stand out from your competition, giving you the chance to call out the attention of any potential recruiter.

Now, more than just carrying for the visuals of your portfolio, you should also have an extra care to the inline details, to show that you are able to carry some train of thought through your portfolio, by showing that the path you took throughout your career, has made a lot of sense, and therefore, you are the professional you claim to be, because you have chosen the best projects, paths and ideas, which when put together, makes the killer professional you are today.

There are tons of tutorials on how to get your portfolio decently put together,  here’s a great one by the way:

For the newcomers, who do not yet have much to show, you might ask.

Well, there are tons of ways you can chose to come up with a great looking, filled with projects portfolio in almost no time.

Think about that friend of yours who has been telling you for ages that he/she is in need of a website to expose his/her new idea. Perhaps the pizza delivery place down in the corner of your home.

You may also create on mobile app for your uncle, whom told you the other day about his cool idea he’s been thinking about lately. Or even bring yourself up one notch, by helping in building that charity institution a very nice website.

Most new ideas do not require a big amount of dedication, just to bring up one landing page to expose that idea. Some apps may start just with the bare minimum, or as we call in the IT business: a minimum valuable product.

While you won’t need to be the sole developer of any of kick-start ideas your network of friends might have, besides helping them to make their ideas come true, it will certainly add up to your portfolio having these extra projects as being one of the co-creator.

Talk to your friends! They have the idea, you have the expertise. One never knows what the future might bring to you guys.

Just keep in mind that the thumb rule is, regardless of what you do, do it with love and dedication, that will certainly have a huge pay off, because people out there will see it as a reflection of your the way you care about things.

Most of the time, it’s not about quantity, but about quality. Having that in mind, try to always keep your portfolio up to date, if you feel that a certain project no longer reflects who you are as a professional, take it out of your portfolio and get it replaced by another one that will stand out a better image.

Also, you do not need to have your own domain website to kick-start your own portfolio, but of course if you do, it will help people to connect your name with your projects.

Out there you can find tons of free, almost-free, or very reasonable priced ways to quickly have your portfolio ready.

Some free options I have found to be very handy are:

Behance (https://www.behance.net/). Besides offering a great way to quickly create one portfolio, these guys have tons of cool inspiration on how to have your portfolio more beautifully made.

Adobe portfolio (https://www.myportfolio.com/). This is a free plaform, though you may need to create your adobe ID.

Dribbble (https://dribbble.com/)

And, for the programmers, in case you do not yet have your GitHub (https://github.com/) account, it’s time to have it and start posting your projects there.

CONCLUSION

So, that’s all folks! There is a constellation of free tools out there you may choose to use in your favor, never be afraid of using them! You have only to win!

I’m currently a freelancer webdesigner. Until a short while ago I used to do freelancing jobs only during the spare time and on weekends, however, a couple of months ago I decided to leave the industry and fully embraced the responsibility and risks of working from home.

This is my first article, and also the first one from a series of How to become a freelancer. Let’s start with a very interesting topic: Develop Your Freelance Skills.

I intend to provide as many references, tools, as well as tips to auxiliate us all, beginer freelancers, and those who are already seasoned freelancers will certainly take advantage of it as well.

So, shall we begin?

Do I feel scared of leaving my former steady job? Heck yeah. However, during these 5 years of freelancing, after so many successfully finished projects I noticed that many new projects are a result of indications from former customers, and they are every increasing! Of course you have to be good with at you do, otherwise you can ruin your reputation.

DEVELOP YOUR FREELANCE SKILLS

A previous experience in any IT company will add to your expertise. Try to get to know how the lifecycle of the projects work in all the IT departments of the company.

Another way of getting to know how one project may spread its lifecycle though all the departments of one company is by studying the cases and whitepapers many known companies release on their websites

For both cases the idea is to keep always learning about projects’ lifecycle, so you can get the best possible overview of the big picture on what involves the project you might be part of. For that, there are plenty of  resources, from youtube channels, tech events, and so on!

Always get to invest more time in what you are good at! Further develop your abilities, meawhile you get to understand more in the broader sense, you’ll be able to get down to the nitty-gritty of some other areas, which are not your sole focus of study, but certainly will come in handy when time arises.

As a webdesigner, I need to understand a bit of many different areas, such as:

• The Digital Marketing: get to know how it works, the entire process of planning a digital campaign.
• UX – UI: also known as user experience. Get to know how the job requirements assessment is done; the gathering of information, all the way to the wireframe construction.
• Design: Find out how the UX team does their info gathering for the layout construction phase. In most cases it’s the designer that gets to wear the UX hat.
• Web and Development: it’s where the webistes and apps are built. It’s important to understand about what they are speaking, their tools, and so on.
• Customer service: Knowing, listening to the customer and knowing the time to speak, be polite, pass security for the client, know how to dress, etc …
• Sales: Make a budget, know how to price the value of a project and close a sale.

Getting to know at least a bit about these areas, will certainly help you a big deal when for instance, having a meeting with one of your customers.

Of course, you are not required to understand every single detail, and to have an answer for every single problem, but the professional who has this knack for a variety of aspects in the project thereof, will certainly be an asset, and will also greatly aid you when it’s time to send the projects estimates and pricing.

Another very important thing. Learn to speak a second language (in my case, English). Sooner or later you are going to need it. For non English speakers, knowing English nowadays, in most cases, isn’t even considered an asset, but a mandatory skill. In the IT field it’s one of the cases which English is the bridge language, used for a variety of tasks, from basic communication purposes, to even coding the company’s products.

Here below, I’m leaving a few extra resources which might add up to one’s knowledge acquisition:

• https://www.upinside.com.br/blog
• https://tableless.com.br
• https://marketingdeconteudo.com
• http://chocoladesign.com

Free online courses:

• https://www.codeschool.com/courses
• https://www.codecademy.com/
• https://www.schoolofnet.com/

Follow the series How to become a Freelancer:

• Freiberufler Werden Teil 1
• Freiberufler Werden Teil 2
• Freiberufler Werden Teil 3
• Freiberufler Werden Teil 4
• Freiberufler Werden Teil 5