10 tips to go from no experience to Top Rated Plus on Upwork

Either find one specific, rare skill that can be used in one or several fields, or find a combination of two or more skills (travel video editor, recipe writer, guided meditations voice-over actress, ...)

Is there a non-obvious, valuable thing you could provide that people haven't thought of but would be interested in? I offer comedy writing services; most people never thought about the existence of this job but some of them sure would love to add some humor to their content.

You become Top Rated Plus by earning $5000 on one single contract (or $10,000, depending on the skill category).

Spend several hours a day doing this if you can. It will be boring. I guess you could outsource this.

I had a great gig going on for a couple of months, I knew I should probably keep applying to other gigs just in case but I kept postponing it. Then my client disappeared in New Orleans and was eventually found dead in the Mississippi river.

I was only doing writing work, and then when I suddenly got contacted out of nowhere to make funny video ads, I realized I could do that too. I learned how to make basic videos on Canva and realized it was pretty easy. I could have kept expanding my skills by learning how to do actual video editing if I had been more interested in it.

Take a look at speech writing Projects. How much are people charging and could you charge more for something more specific? Maybe you could specialize in corporate speeches or motivational speeches.

If it doesn't take too much time and the client included enough information in his job posting, you could just do the work before applying in order to prove them you can do it. For example, maybe they're looking for a ghost writer to write a 250-word picture book. That's doable.

If it's too much work, you can just create a short sample.

However, once contact has been made, I don't recommend accepting free work.