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I am fresh graduate in computer science with no industrial experience, other than tutoring.

But I have decide to work as a freelance web developer. I am trying to build portfolio in-order to showcase my skills.

But I am hoping to develop two websites from the scratch using Django and Ruby on Rails. And finally host them.

Does developing one website from framework would be enough to get the first freelancing job? or should I do couple of small projects from each framework?

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

My objective is to find clients locally and on freelancing platforms.

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  • People generally choose the one with the best freelance history. Bad luck for you. No matter how many you do, you'll have significant disadvantage.
    – SmallChess
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 4:53
  • @SmallChess I know a person who start without any freelance experience or working experience. Now he is doing quite well. Yes beginning is hard. If people who always pick people with best freelance history, they will be no opportunity for new ones.
    – user18473
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 4:59
  • You might want to add in your question where you want to find customers?
    – SmallChess
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 5:01
  • @SmallChess You are suggesting to make a post on a freelancing platform?
    – user18473
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 5:03
  • No. I meant how'll you want to find your first customer, important for a good answer. Upwork? Personal network? Local newspaper? Meetup? If you try on Upwork, without history will kill you.
    – SmallChess
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 5:04

3 Answers 3

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Please note the number of websites you make is secondary to the quality you have. A single high traffic website you have is much more important than 100000 nobody-care useless websites. If you want to do it, please focus on quality and try to make it useful.

I don't know about your local area so I won't comment, I'll focus on online platforms. No, making one or multiple websites won't land you a job magically. If that was the case, everybody would be able to get a freelancing job - if you can make a website, other freelancers can also do that.

Please note website development is extraordinary competitive, you'll compete against 100+ freelancers everytime when you make a bid, most of them will have better history and experience than a fresh graduate.

I'm not here to discourage you, I'm just here to point out facts. If you find yourself difficulty in securing your first job online, please spend your efforts on building a truly useful and popular website. If you can do that, you'll find getting freelancing jobs much easier.

Number of projects itself won't land you your first web development job.

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  • It seems to be finally it boils down to the quality over quantity principle. Thank you for reminding me that.
    – user18473
    Commented Oct 24, 2017 at 5:27
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Most clients won´t know or care which fancy technology you use and what framework. Some may have heard some buzzword and say things like: We want to use Wordpress, my son said everyone is using it, it´s the best or it has to be in java such nonsense.

They also probably wont know how to tell qualitative differences, like how compatible your designs are on different platforms etc.

They will mostly buy on 1: Price and 2: Do they like what they see.

Learn to speak in their lingo so you can educate them on what you offer does better than others. If you can show them some sites that look quite differently from each other, you can increase the chance that they like on of these. If you have some templates ready, maybe you can even be competitive with your price. A happy customer is a returning customer and the extra-wishes will come. So you´ll just have to build up you client base.

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  • What is your advice in the case, where existing development company hiring some freelancers to do a project which should be done using particular framework?
    – user18473
    Commented Oct 26, 2017 at 8:42
  • My experience is, if a customer requests me to do work using a specific technology and I say I have experience in this technology, it is never questioned. I did not ever experience any customer who wanted to see proof/ examples where I did apply this specific technology. But I didn´t freelance in web development myself but business application, so things may be different on your end.
    – Daniel
    Commented Oct 26, 2017 at 8:47
  • If you search for freelancing platforms, there are job postings stating that they need some one with experience in this tech and that tech. And for starters like me, I think projects with those tech are valuable.
    – user18473
    Commented Oct 26, 2017 at 8:54
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Agree with what others have stated above. Clients generally won't be concerned with what technology you use to get the job done, as long as it works efficiently and effectively, gets them customers, and looks amazing.

1 project may not be enough to showcase your skill set. It may appeal to certain prospects and earn you contracts but adding more projects will definitely help show your capabilities.

Best,

Matt Frey

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  • What is your advice in the case, where existing development company hiring some freelancers to do a project which should be done using particular framework?
    – user18473
    Commented Oct 30, 2017 at 16:30
  • In that case, if they're requesting a specific framework then you should use it.
    – matt6frey
    Commented Nov 1, 2017 at 3:51

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