A horrible piece of advice I see given to many people starting out in UX is to go look for freelance work (if you already have freelance work opportunities, that is a different situation altogether). I'd say 9/10 times these fresh designers with no prior experience end up rushing on to marketplaces like fiverr and upwork to start bidding on a handful of freelance contracts.
Similar to the topic My first job in UX is as the sole designer of a small team... I feel lost, it is incredibly hard to start out freelancing in this industry with almost no guidance. While it is totally possible to make a career out of freelancing contracts in UX, it is very hard to START for many reasons.
Unfortunately, there is no secret to finding well-paying clients with interesting work. At least for for those new to the industry. There is however, some general criteria that helps a freelance UX designer stand out, so let's start with that.
Let's start by putting ourselves in a potential client's point of view. For the purpose of this post, I have whipped up a simple persona. Meet Jen.
Sure, Jen is only one of the many different types of potential clients on these freelancing sites. She is here because you need to ask yourself. Why would someone look to hire a freelancer on a freelancing website instead of an actual employee?
Most likely it would be because they:
1.) Don't have the financial or time resources to hire a full-time employee
2.) Have a one-off project where they only need someone for a short period of time
3.) Don't know anyone in their current network that they trust to do the work to their standards and they don't have the skills and/or time to do it themselves (if they could they would do it themselves).
So going back to Jen, you will see she fits into these boxes.