I have been passively looking for a job next to my studies for longer than five years. The opportunities were few and unsuitable for my needs because I was looking for a job that wouldn’t consume all my time.

By the summer of 2018, I actively started a job hunt. I sent my CV to every employer I came across with a vacancy, and the results weren’t very satisfying. Very few employers contacted me, and those who did gave me unattractive offers and endless working hours. Months started to pass, and summer vacation was almost over, yet I was still unemployed, it was devastating.

Just when I had lost hope trying to find a summer job this year, I stumbled upon a gem: Ureed.com.

I’m a full-time medical student, a creative content creator and translator, and I had never even heard about freelancing before.

One day, I tweeted about how difficult trying to find a job can get and I asked if anyone could offer me any opportunities. A distant friend sent me a message recommending a freelance platform called Ureed.com.

The first thing I did was to google the world freelance, and this was the first result: “A freelancer is considered a self-employed person who: Pays their own self-employment taxes. Doesn’t have any employees. Sets their own rates. Works remotely at their own location, wherever they choose.”

The idea was tempting, so I decided to sign up and see first-hand how this platform works. It was my first encounter with the world of freelancing, and it was exciting, but at the same time very challenging. So many people would be pitching on one project that deep down, I thought why would they choose me? I even had difficulties understanding the terms used on the platform, like bidding and pitching.

But pitching is how it all started. I started pitching on projects related to content creation, translation, medical writing, and editing, but all I received were rejection e-mails. This situation went on for around 6 months. But I knew an employer out there would see my potential and hire me, I just didn’t know when.

When things started to change

By the beginning of the new year, I got hired for my first project on Ureed.com. The timing was not ideal as I was working on it during my exams, but I managed to get the job done. That’s when I learned my first lesson with Ureed.com: it’s all about time management.

And so I received my first payment and a rating of five stars. And the rating was the beginning of something much bigger.

From that moment on, my hiring frequency and rates dramatically increased, I completed almost 10 projects with an average rate of five stars. I earned around 2500 dollars from freelancing – on the side! – alone in the past 18 months.

It’s also important to note that my journey towards self-development was just getting started. I began to read online on how to excel at creative writing. I also took translation courses and learned a lot about SEO and content marketing. It was a radical experience because I got to get in contact with the real world, as a student, and through only my laptop screen.

I knew my journey of self-development was just getting started. Being self-taught can be both challenging and incredible. At the beginning I thought: why would anyone want to hire me? What tangible experience do I have? But my work on Ureed.com helped me prove that I can be both self-taught and professional, and that the future of work will be less reliant on certificates, and much more reliant on real, valuable experience.

The impact of Ureed.com also went past my professional life; it helped my personal development as well. Freelancing helped me regain my self-confidence and self-esteem. Every rating and every good review an employers wrote planted a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction inside me. Being unemployed can be frustrating and stressful, but after trying out freelancing on Ureed.com, I understood that not getting hired was not my fault and that it says nothing about my value. I learned that the turnover rate at most companies was below average, and that all of that is now exacerbated because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The things I learned

It only takes one job to change your perspective about freelancing. People think no one makes money from freelancing, but that’s completely false. The key is to be patient enough and to interpret rejection as an opportunity that pushes you closer towards self-development and improvement of skills. It’s like planting a seed; you have to nurture and water it frequently so it will bloom, and you have to weather the stormy days for it to thrive.

Defying the monster of unemployment is possible if you’re determined to do so. It requires courage, and an openness to get out of the box of traditional employment systems and instead take a dive into the exciting world of freelance. But it’s worth the risk. For me, I was able to triple my income by freelancing as a full-time student, and it wasn’t even that difficult because I could control the what, when, and how of it all. I have no boss and no crazy working hours, only a deadline and an expectation to get the job perfectly done.