The internet is an essential tool if you want to find freelance jobs as an architect.
Just to give you an idea, career sites are one of the top sources to find a job and 27.35% of freelancers have found a job opportunity there.
However, while career sites are a great way to find potential clients, there are many other ways to make yourself known and win the vacancies you like the most.
You just have to be willing to try different strategies, sites and persevere in your search.
1. Use LinkedIn
Through LinkedIn, you can search for thousands of job offers around the world.
National and international companies publish their job offers on this platform and you can create alerts related to architecture to inform you about new jobs and keep up to date.
As with other social networks, LinkedIn has a wall where news is added continuously.
Here you can find the latest updates and news from the companies, groups, and people you follow.
That will help you to be updated and know what is happening in your area, what are the trends, what companies are hiring, among others.
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If you want to enrich your LinkedIn profile, you can add multimedia content, this will make it less boring (and more interesting) than just having text. You can include photos, images, videos, and infographics. As long as everything is related to your professional profile.
2. Create A Portfolio Website
A portfolio website is an excellent means for potential clients to contact you on the web and hire you directly without intermediaries.
By having a web page, you will be exposing yourself in the search engines, which means that when someone googles to find an architect, it’s very likely that they will bump into you.
Building a portfolio website does not have to be a complicated process and if you check which are the best online portfolio websites for architects, you will surely find an excellent option for you that also fits your budget.
Another thing to take into account is that by having a portfolio website, you will project a much more professional image and you will transmit much more confidence to potential clients.
3. Use Job Platforms
Job platforms are one of the best places to start finding clients and a secure source for projects and job openings.
There are a large number of different websites that you can use to find new projects, and each one of the best freelance websites for architects offers different advantages and benefits.
On the other hand, they are a great place to find vacancies specifically for architects.
Here are some of the most popular and useful platforms you can use:
FlexJobs
On this platform you can find full-time and part-time remote jobs, all offered by excellent, well-known companies.
FlexJobs is a very reliable website since all offers are previously reviewed by the staff, so you will not run into scams. However, to enjoy all these benefits you must pay a monthly fee of $ 14.95.
Upwork
In Upwork, you will find hundreds of offers for architects and a wide variety of projects, which you can do from home and that will help you increase your experience as a professional.
To start you should create your profile, fill your portfolio and start looking among all the job offers, which ones are the best suited to what you are looking for.
If someone contacts you, they will look at your profile, therefore, you must take good care of this section of your account and keep it updated.
Showing your best work and highlighting your professional experience can help you stand out from other profiles.
Freelancer.com
Here you can not only apply for job offers but also participate in contests, which consist of invitations to do a job and award a monetary prize to the winner.
This platform has a large community of architects and employers, so you should try to stand out in order to compete with other freelancers.
As with Upwork and other similar platforms, as you do jobs and get good results, you will receive good comments and ratings, which will help you increase your reputation on the site and receive more job proposals.
Guru
At Guru, architecture is among the main sections of work. You can even navigate between different architecture-related niches, such as sustainable design, 3D interior design, hotels, and space planning.
If you try hard enough and grow your reputation within the platform, you can become part of the top architects.
When building your profile, be sure to include those skills that can make you stand out from other freelance architects, such as AutoCAD, architectural modeling, prototyping, among others.
Here you will find quality clients that will make you grow as an architect and professional.
Take into consideration the fees charged by each platform and the protection they offer freelancers in case of scams or problems with clients.
4. Send Cold Emails
Cold emails are messages that you send directly to potential clients and in this case, also to architecture agencies or companies related to the niche.
In these messages, you must introduce yourself, tell who you are and what you do, your experience, and explain why you send that email.
Either because you are interested in working for that person or company, because you want to make yourself known or because you want to make your services available.
It’s important that the recipient of a cold email feels that you have taken the time to investigate who they are, what they do, and what their philosophy is regarding their activity.
Put their name in the subject box and write the content of the email in a way that explains why you have written to them and how you think the two of you can benefit from mutual cooperation.
Short emails that present a clear, specific, and concise proposal present a higher response percentage than those long ones in which the content is developed over several paragraphs.
In a few lines, you have to introduce yourself and show that you can solve a problem, satisfy a need, or contribute something of value to your recipient.
Every time you work with a new client, save their email and send an email greeting them attaching the last article you have written on your blog or any other interesting topic. This just so they remember you without feeling like you’re pressuring them.
Source: woorise.com
5. Create A Blog
This is something that can be part of your portfolio website if you wish. By having a blogging section on your website, you can write articles of interest that attract the attention of users linked to your niche or potential customers.
By publishing articles on topics related to architecture, people will perceive you as an expert in the niche, an experienced professional.
This is something that will undoubtedly improve your reputation and attract many employers.
Having a blog will also make it more likely that they will find you on the internet.
If you optimize your articles following the SEO rules, when someone does a search in Google or another search engine on architects or subjects you have written about, it’s very likely that you will appear among the first results.
6. Take Care Of Your Personal Brand
Everything that is published on the Internet is accessible to anyone. Search your name and see what appears; as it’s not uncommon for your future recruiters to do so.
If you don’t have an internet presence or your presence is related to topics that you would prefer to keep out of your professional profile, create a blog, make yourself a personal page, or increase your activity on professional social networks.
Take actions that help position yourself as an expert in the field and allow you to associate a good image with your profile.
7. Use Social Networks
Social networks are essential to make yourself known and expose your work.
Media such as Instagram and Twitter will help you get to know and get involved with a community of architects who also have the same purpose as you, to find work, clients and grow their online presence.
There you can publish interesting content related to your work niche and also repost what others publish, interact with their posts and thus you will begin to establish connections with others.
This will be useful for you to start making colleagues and that they can recommend your work or request your collaboration for a project.
Don’t limit yourself to traditional social networks, you can use other alternatives such as Reddit or Quora.
There you can participate in forums, answer questions related to an architecture topic that you master and so consequently leave your mark for months and years to come.
Answering these types of questions will earn you recognition and respect within the community, as it will demonstrate your knowledge and experience.
Try to maintain a respectful and friendly relationship with the other members of the community and thus you will also earn their esteem.
8. Join Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are very useful for connecting with other colleagues, finding work, and keeping up with industry news.
As in other social networks, here you must interact to make yourself known and grow your reputation.
Try to engage in friendly conversations and keep an eye out for project openings or opportunities.
Apart from using Facebook groups, you can also create your own fan page to publish projects you have worked on and to publish interesting and useful content that users want to share.
By doing so you will reach a much wider audience.
9. Diversify Your Search
Don’t focus on looking for work in a single channel, such as a job portal. Use the different channels that exist such as specialized social networks like ArcDog and Archello, blogs, company websites, etc.
Not all job offers move through the same channels, if you diversify your search, you will be able to find a greater number of offers.
10. Optimize Your Job Platforms Profile
If you have already created an account on a job platform but have not yet been successful with any application, your profile may be the problem.
You must fill out your profile entirely so that your potential clients get to know you better and so generate more confidence in who you are, what you do, and what your level of experience is.
Here are some tips to improve your profile on a job platform:
- Use a profile photo that looks professional and use the appropriate clothing for it, a solid color background, or without distracting elements, with good lighting, and that projects your personality.
- Be specific when explaining your academic background. Include the dates of your studies and if apart from your architecture career you have done any courses or other activities.
- Explain your work experience and check it if possible. Architecture project employers will want to see and check all the projects you have worked on.
- In general, job platforms allow you to create a portfolio for clients to see your work. Don’t leave this area unfilled and upload your most attractive, important projects and those that best represent you.
11. Take Online Courses
Taking online courses will increase your knowledge, and this is something that recruiters will always take into account since they will want to work with the best-prepared architect possible.
Some options you can try are Skillshare, Udemy and Coursera. Also, on these platforms, you will be able to make very useful contacts both with professional colleagues and with the trainers themselves.
These relationships will enrich your network of professional contacts and, who knows, they may become future coworkers. This online networking may open doors to future collaborations or job recommendations.
Don’t forget that it’s attractive for companies that their employees or potential candidates are in constant search of learning to contribute to their work teams. If you are training, you can let the recruiter know or include it on your resume.
12. Never Lie About Your Experience
Use true information: Honesty when developing your professional profile is very important, especially when looking for work online.
Don’t invent work or academic information when applying. This can be counterproductive when taking a job interview.
It makes no sense to lie about your skills and experience just to find a job since if you get the position, you will most likely not know how to fulfill what they expect of you.
If the client discovers that you lied about your abilities, this will greatly affect your reputation and it may even happen that the client makes their dissatisfaction public and that other potential clients avoid hiring you.
13. Respond Quickly
Just as you may be in a hurry to find a job, it’s likely that employers will also want to find the ideal freelancer without major delays.
Try to respond quickly to the messages that you receive, since in the time it takes you to respond, the client may decide to speak with another freelancer.
Some job platforms usually include in your profile the estimated time it usually takes you to respond, and this can be seen by clients and feel discouraged or more interested if they see that your answering time is long or short.
The faster you reply to your messages, the sooner you can discuss the job offer and start working. For this, you can download the mobile app of the job platform you use and thus respond quickly to all your messages.
14. Network
Despite the effectiveness of all the very useful tools that you have already read about, 85% of job positions are filled thanks to networking.
This means that having friends or colleagues who inform you of new vacancies or jobs is essential to find work online.
For this reason, you should invest time in social networks and meet other architects, so you will be informed of events for architects, companies looking for professionals, or job vacancies in general.
In the same way, it’s recommended that you never neglect your relationship with old clients, since they can recommend you to other potential clients or look for you again when a new project appears.
You can also keep your family, friends, and former university classmates informed about your search for architecture projects. It never hurts to have extra help.
Source: theedigital.com
Plan a daily schedule to submit job applications, research vacancies, and see how the proposals you’ve submitted are progressing, so you can evaluate how your job search is going.
15. Be Active And Don’t Stop Looking
There are many people with great potential who have been rejected dozens of times before accessing a job.
This can be for many reasons: it was not the moment, the curriculum was not well presented, among others. But to be successful in your search for online projects you must be very persistent.
Keep in mind that the more job applications you submit, the more likely you will be contacted.
Your active search for projects should be something you do every day, you can even take it as part of your workday even when you don’t have a formal job yet.
In some job platforms, you will have to buy bids to be able to apply for job offers and it’s worth investing in this so that you can send all the applications you need.
16. Get Professional References
Professional references will help you stand out and be taken into account.
These references can come from other bosses, co-workers or clients and there they can talk about your work experience, how good a professional you are and what it is like to work with you.
In case you don’t have work experience yet, getting references from your teachers is something that will also help you a lot.
On the other hand, if you use job platforms you can get references from the clients you get there and that will help you improve your reputation and project more reliability.
17. Have Your Goals Clear
Although your main interest is to find a job, avoid despair and accept anything that is not even related to what you want to do or your job expectations.
Of course, when you start looking for a job, you should start from the bottom, doing jobs that you may not like very much and that don’t pay very well, but try to target those areas in which you would like to work.
For example, if you want to specialize in AutoCAD, look for offers related to that area and offer competitive prices so that clients prefer to hire you.
If you start to accept any job proposal that is very different from what you really want to do, it will take you much longer to become an expert in the area you want and the work experiences you accumulate will not be very useful.
Define short, medium, and long-term goals to keep yourself motivated. These work goals can be to have a certain number of clients, work for a certain company or start any venture you have in mind.
The Internet Can Be Your Best Ally
With proper use, the internet can be your best option to find incredible job offers and excellent projects that you will love to work on.
Although it may seem difficult or confusing at first, keep in mind that it’s possible to find architecture jobs online and that if many of your colleagues have achieved it, you can too.
You must increase your online presence and use all the tools that are at your fingertips, such as an online portfolio, a blog, job platforms, and especially social networks.
By using all these tools you will not only be able to find a job but also grow your reputation and credibility as a professional and also meet other architects and develop your network.