• The Zealancer service facilitates a direct contract between client and freelancer. This negates the need to use an expensive service of any recruitment agency that charges commissions for the entire duration of the contract (and extensions).
• The client's use of the Zealancer service is free of charge. This offers the client an enormous saving compared to the agency fees of 10-40% for the equivalent service.
• Also no fees on contract extensions or reassignments.
• The transparency of the system allows quick comparison of freelancers and fosters a competitive environment to ensure freelancers offer their services at the best possible rates.
• Fast search facilities.
• No negotiations about hourly rates as these are stated up front and governed by clear rules of using the system.
• Direct contract between client and freelancer (without intermediate party).
• Free services: Sample personalised contract, sample personalised invoice, escrow service, free telephone advice, articles, news etc.

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• Through Zealancer, clients come directly to freelancers, saving freelancers time and money.
• Zealancer provides a highly cost effective and professional alternative instead of sourcing assignments through agencies.
• Higher average work rate throughout the year, on average 2.2 jobs (50 days each) per freelancer per year.
• Assignments are entered into without the need for lengthy contract negotiations (often within a telephone conversation).
• Direct contract between freelancer and client (without intermediate party).
• Free services: Sample personalised contract, sample personalised invoice, escrow service, free telephone advice, articles, news etc.

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The business model utilised by Zealancer has been developed in collaboration with Prof. Reinhard Selten, Nobel Prize winner of Economics.

It is based on the principles of a completely transparent market place where both freelancers and clients have a comprehensive market overview ensuring optimum competitive pricing strategies. As both the profile and hourly rates of all freelancers are known, supply and demand pressures ensure that participants make the best market pricing decisions.

This is completely in compliance with the game theory as predicted by Prof. Selten. Accordingly, specialist freelancers in short supply can demand optimal rates whereas freelancers with skills that are more commonly available will need to be more competitive in pricing their services.

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Clients pay optimal rates because the relationship is directly between the freelancer and client removing the need for an expensive agent to act as ‘broker’. Typically, on a 3 months contract, the Zealancer fee to the client is 1.0% of the freelancer's total turnover. This compares very favourably to the fees charged by an agent, of between 10-40%, on the equivalent turnover. Clients are also able to buy better in as they are able to directly compare the freelancer’s hourly rates against others available in the market at the time. On the other hand, the freelancer enjoys a higher utility rate resulting in a net increase in annual income.

The following example (a programmer with 60% work load) shows how utilisation and hourly net income can improve:

Example Calculation	Conventional	With Zealancer
Acquisition expenses (p.a.):	800 hours	100 hours
Time on project (p.a.):	1,200 hours	1,900 hours
Total (p.a.):	2,000 hours	2,000 hours
Hourly rate:	NZD 80.00	NZD 60.00 (-25%)
Gross income (p.a.):	NZD 96,000	NZD 114,000
Acquisition cost:	0 (not considering expenses for travelling, lost time, etc,)	NZD 1,140 (10 introductions)
Net income (p.a.):	NZD 96,000	NZD 112,860
Net hourly rate:	NZD 48	NZD 56 (+ 17.5%)

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Freelancers are motivated to ensure that their profile is up to date and accurate. The flat fee paid by the freelancer for each introduction, motivates them to be very accurate in their presentation of their skills and capabilities. Any exaggeration of capabilities would result in increasing unnecessary fees due to low conversion rate of client introductions to active assignments.

In addition, complaints from clients would be seriously examined, possibly reducing their quality rating and in extreme cases might result in the removing that freelancer's profile from Zealancer' system.

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Freelancers can leave names and email addresses of referees with Zealancer. When a prospective client requests an introduction to the freelancer, the contact information of the freelancer's referees will be available to the prospective client in order to validate skills and past track records. Freelancers are also able to update their references at any time via email.

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The freelancers listed at Zealancer can be incorporated in different economic forms. Besides freelancers, they could also be sole traders, limited companies, etc.

All listed profiles must, however, refer to one specific person. Therefore, profiles representing a complete team are allowed, as well as fictional people or interchangeable employees.

Entrepreneurs and temp agencies can offer their own personnel at Zealancer and invoice the clients based on their own calculation. In this case, the name of the actual employee must be entered during registration, while the address and account data of the company must be entered. In the registration entry form, please enter the following at 'additional information': 'The company xxx (contact person Mrs. yyy) accepts the billing for its registered employee towards Zealancer and towards the client. In the publicly visible Zealancer profile, the indirect billing is indicated by additional hint like 'management and billing this ‘freelancer’ is provided via a personnel service provider in New Zealand at no additional costs.'

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1. The client chooses the most appropriate freelancer on our website free of charge.
2. The client requests an introduction by entering his contact information and project details on the webpage.
3. Zealancer checks the request for formal correctness and sends an introduction email to both client and freelancer. Also, an additional SMS notification is sent to both parties informing them about the introduction request and providing contact details.
4. Client and freelancer contact each other and discuss details of the potential assignment. This initial contact should not take more than one hour and must not be charged by the freelancer.
5. If both parties agree, the client hires the freelancer directly. If no separate agreement is stipulated, the terms and conditions of Zealancer apply. The parties may choose to use our sample contract.
6. Zealancer charges the freelancer an introduction fee of twice the freelancer's hourly rates. This introduction fee is charged regardless the introduction results in an assignment or not. In case of an unprofessional client that does not have a genuine requirement (no real need), the freelancer must contact us within 14 days in writing and the introduction fee will be waived. The client might be banned from further use of Zealancer services.
7. Client and freelancer might contact each other again at any time later and start new or follow-up assignments. Since Zealancer charges only a one-off fee, no further fees arise for follow-up assignments between freelancer and client.

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The clarity of the freelancer's published profile stating hourly rates, skills and capabilities allows clients to look through available candidates and select the most appropriate freelancer for the required task. Therefore, there is no need for the client to interview a larger number of freelancers saving time and money for both client and freelancer. Our introduction statistics prove the success of this procedure:

• 78% of all clients ask for an introduction to one freelancer only, 17% request introductions to two freelancers.
• Only 5% of the clients wish to be introduced to three or more freelancers. In this case, only the first selected will be introduced.
• 37% of our introductions result in active projects - significantly more than other introduction approaches.

Should the client find that the nominated freelancer is not suitable, then, they are free to select another one for introduction.

If you wish to be introduced to more than one freelancer, we can offer you, however, that you pay the introduction fee on behalf of the freelancers. In this case please write in the project description: 'I wish to be introduced to more than one freelancer per project task and will pay the introduction fee of two hourly rates on behalf of the freelancer.'  ◄ Back to FAQ 

The purpose of Zealancer' service is to facilitate a direct contract between clients and freelancers. Historically, less than 10% of agency introductions result in work for the freelancer which is far below the 37% success rate normally enjoyed on Zealancer.

Accordingly, freelancers who pay for the introduction, prefer not to be introduced to contracting agencies. If the contracting agency is serious about the introduction request, they may put in a request and nominate to pay the introduction fee on the freelancer's behalf.

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When viewing the freelancer profiles you will see a rating from one to three yellow stars. The star rating is based on feedback clients provide on the quality of work undertaken by the freelancer, as the freelancer's business conduct towards Zealancer (reaction speed, payment behaviour, ...). Also, the quality and completeness of the freelancer profile are taken into account when awarding the stars. For example, the existence of a portrait photo, a work sample or if reference donors are listed can determine whether a freelancer has two or three stars.

While most of our freelancers have a rating with two stars, only our best 15 percent have a top-rating with three stars. As the stars are constantly recalculated, they reflect the most current freelancer rating.

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Clients can send us an email to info@zealancer.nz with their feedback, which will be visible on the freelancer's profile. Their comments can acknowledge or reward good work, but can also motivate weaker freelancers to produce better quality work.

It also helps other clients in their evaluation of freelancers for their projects. Feedbacks should succinct limiting it to one or two sentences, for example: 'Quick in understanding complex tasks and highly creative and effective in solving problems.'.

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Maybe freelancer and client are working together for the first time and not sure who should carry the financial risk, either:

1. The freelancer first completes (a part) of the project, but runs the risk that the client may not pay, or
2. The client pays first, without knowing whether the freelancer will ever deliver an acceptable result.

An alternative offered by Zealancer is an escrow service. It is easy to use without requiring advance notification:

1. Before begin to work on a project, the two parties agree on the deposit amount.
2. The client transfers the appropriate amount to our bank account (010530 - 0233696 - 00) with 'Trust deposit of A. Smith for freelancer B. Miller' as reference.
3. Zealancer informs both parties that the money has arrived on our account.
4. Once the project is completed, the client informs us and Zealancer transfers the amount to the freelancer.
5. In the very rare case that client and freelancer cannot agree, both parties might clarify the payment via arbitration or through the court. Zealancer will then transfer the amount according to the arbitration or court's decision.

There are no fees for using our escrow service. No interest is paid on the deposited amount.

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To expand beyond our current operations, we are constantly looking for motivated, market driven entrepreneurs to operate Freelance-Market as our licensees. This way, we are currently operating marketplaces in Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland and a specialized marketplace for engineers.

Please go to www.freelance-market.com to find-out how you can become a licensee in your country or industry segment.

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By registering with Zealancer you are empowered to enter into a direct contract with clients without the need of an expensive recruitment agent to broker the introduction. Our clients reach freelancers by requesting an introduction. The introduction fees are twice the freelancer's rate and on average amount to approximately only 1% of the total revenue generated by the freelancer. This offers significant savings compared to 10 - 40% commission charged by agencies. The average freelancer:

• Receives 6 introductions to new clients per year.
• 37% of those introductions turn into an assignment.
• 30% of all assignments leading to follow-up orders.
• The average project duration is 50 man-days.
• If you do not get an introduction from us within 12 months, we are happy to refund the registration fee immediately.

(Calculation based on our regular user survey. Data vary depending on specialisation, experience and reliability of the freelancer.)  ◄ Back to FAQ 

An average freelancer receives 6 introductions per year. Freelancer who take the time to ensure a clear and accurate profile and who have priced themselves aggressively against the market, however, can receive an introduction a week.

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A flat-rate introduction fee is far cheaper for the freelancer. Removing the need of ongoing checks and accounting saves time and money that Zealancer forwards to its freelancers, that is a direct consequence of Zealancer' transparent business model. The fees charged by Zealancer represent only 1.0% of the total income generated by introductions. This is much less than 10 - 40% ongoing sales commissions charged by agencies over the entire duration of projects (including extensions).

The flat-rate fee per introduction has some clear advantages:

• There is no need for ongoing reporting in order to calculate monthly invoices.
• Freelancers' expenses in finding the contracts remain low. According to our surveys, 37% of all introductions lead to an assignment* (i.e. on average, freelancers investment accumulate to approximately 5 hours per new client).
• Relationships between clients and freelancers are totally under their control, no need to report or cheat.
• Accurate and realistic freelancer profiles. As the freelancer pays the introduction fee, they are motivated to ensure that the information provided in the profile is accurate and realistic. Profiles that are overstated or inaccurate would result in the freelancer paying unnecessary introduction fees.

*: Average conversion rate. Our most professional freelancers get up to 80%.

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The fee charged by Zealancer is for provisioning of qualified introductions to clients who are looking for skilled freelancers. It is up to the freelancer to make the most of that introduction. The most successful freelancers have been able to clearly articulate what they do best in their profile and have offered their services at a competitive and realistic rate.

Historic analyses have figured out that on average 37% of all the introductions result in active assignments*. This approach offers the freelancer a much higher level of success than other acquisition approaches such as going through agencies, direct tenders or self-acquisition. Still, 63% of all introductions do not result in an assignment. Our research, however, indicates freelancers requires 2.7 introductions average for new assignments. This means, on average, freelancers pay fees of about 5 times their hourly rates in order to get assignments.

The introduction of professional freelancers to clients has proven to be a very efficient approach which:

• Offers professional freelancers an effective marketing medium that supports freelancers to find contracts.
• Clients and freelancers form a direct relationship dropping the need to constantly keep us informed.
• There is no incentive to be dishonest or to conceal projects.
• Freelancers with clear and realistic profiles as well as competitive hourly rates are rewarded as they have a higher conversion rate from introduction to assignment. As a consequence, they proportionately pay lower overall fees per contract.
• The introduction fee is only twice the hourly rate what turn out to be only 1% of the average total revenue generated from the assignment. This is far more cost effective than comparable commission based fee schemes.

*: Average conversion rate. Our most professional freelancers get up to 80%.

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Our most active freelancers receive up to 4 introductions a month. On average freelancers on Zealancer get introduced only 6 times a year. In case you receive to many introductions you can pause your profile at any time. Further on we promise to bill you no more than just one introduction a week.

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Freelancers are required to clearly state their hourly rate for their services. This approach ensures included acceptance of that rate by the client removing the necessity for time consuming price negotiations. The transparent nature of Zealancer ensures competitive pricing whilst providing clients with an easy-to-use mechanism of comparing freelancer rates.

The hourly rate is therefore binding, i.e. freelancers are committed towards their client by this hourly rate. The hourly rate is specified as a net amount (excluding GST) and without travel costs / expenses.

If a freelancer has different hourly rates for different tasks, the highest hourly rate must be specified in the profile. Situations where a lower hourly rate is charged can be described in the profile in the ‘miscellaneous’-section. E. g.: 20% lower hourly rate for projects over 100 hours. The introduction fee which we charge to you will always be calculated on the basis of the hourly rate that is published in your freelancer profile, independently if you actually charge a different rate to your client.

Other payment models that a client could choose from can also be described in ‘miscellaneous’-sectiion. E. g.: Alternatively, the payment can be based on a 10% sales commission.

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Freelancers can register several times, if completely different services are offered (e.g. programming and graphic design). We recommend freelancers register according to their main skill.

However, if freelancers want to register under a second category, we allow freelancers to create more than one profile. When registering, please write in the “Additional Information” field 'Registration of second profile - no registration fee'.

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Under the caption 'Additional information' in your profile you find the opportunity to make statements concerning the kind of projects you would undertake. By using this facility, you can ensure that clients have a clear idea of your constraints and the areas your are interested in.

Examples of statements under 'Additional information': 'Only projects of at least 3 months duration', 'Up to 20 hours a week only' or 'Will only work in CBD or North Auckland area'.

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From time to time you might not be available for new clients. To ensure you do not get billed unnecessarily and we do not disappoint any of our clients it is important that you 'pause' your profile.

That can be done easily by sending a brief email to info@zealancer.nz or login and we 'pause' your profile until you are noting us being ready to receive introductions again.

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Despite our best efforts to filter our clients' requests, we cannot always prevent unprofessional clients from using Zealancer. Should you experience an introduction to an unprofessional client, we ask you to inform us.

According to our latest survey, 87% of our freelancers were satisfied with the introductions they received. Only through your feedback, we are able to monitor the calibre of our requesting clients.

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• Under www.zealancer.nz/registration/ you can logon with your freelancer number and password. Then you are able to review your profile including all of your previous introductions and update any information. If you forgot your password, you can request a new one there.
• Alternatively, you can email us at info@zealancer.nz and we are emailing your profile data. Also you can then send us an email containing your update requests.
• To see how your public freelancer profile appears, simply enter your freelancer number in the section named ’Find a freelancer’ (top left of the web page).
• If you wish to deactivate your freelancer profile, please send to us an email with the request for deactivation. We then will immediately remove your profile from our listing. N. B.: In many cases, it might be better for you to pause your profile. If you decide to de-pause your profile after some time you can do so free of charge.

Please keep us up-to-date of your availability, changed skills and changes of your contact information. If you are working and temporarily unavailable then simply ’pause’ your entry until you are ready to start looking for your next contract or assignment. Update, suspension or deactivation of your profile is free of charge.

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It is your choice whether you submit a picture for display on your profile. It is our view that a picture improves your chances of an introduction, as the client has a better first impression of you.

Additionally, your profile will be featured in the section “New Freelancer” on or homepage (only freelancers with a portrait picture will be shown there).

When you sign up as a freelancer, you will be asked if you wish to upload your picture. Freelancers who are already registered can send us their picture by email, and we will update their profile on their behalf.

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Average Zealancer freelancers receives approximately six introductions per year. The introduction frequency depends on various factors including but not limited to qualification, expressiveness and clarity of the profile, hourly rate and offered services. While some freelancers are introduced once a week, there are others who are requested less than once a year.

To get the right number of relevant introductions for you, make sure you follow these hints:

1. Improve the distinctiveness of your freelancer profile and point your singularity out. Look closely at your profile and compare it with the profiles of other freelancers in your area:
   • Emphasise your specific skills and experiences.
   • Distinguish yourself from the offerings of other freelancers.
   • Do not use acronyms and terminology that are only understandable by experts - many clients seek experts for certain tasks and are not necessarily familiar with internal terms.
   • State your capabilities in a clear and neutral way, avoid phrases that are unclear and sound like selling propositions.
2. Be more specific if you want to receive fewer introductions. Represent your skills more broadly to be introduced more often.
3. Limit your profile in order to receive more relevant introductions. For example, ’Miscellaneous: Only projects that exceed 20 hours’. Expand your profile (e.g. work locations) to be introduced more often
4. If you have several different skills, you can create more than one profile on Zealancer, e.g. as translator and as financial expert.
5. Increase or reduce your hourly rate. A reduction of 20% typically results in doubling your requests.
6. If you are currently not available for work, it is important that you temporarily 'pause' your profile.
7. You can write an article for the monthly Zealancer newsletter to promote your special service.

All profile changes are -of course- free of charge. Just send an email to info@zealancer.nz.

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Zealancer puts a high effort into finding potential clients for our freelancers. By the following measures, we manage to attract several thousand interested visitors a day to our Internet market place:

• Cooperation agreements with industry associations and professional organisations
• PR towards the business press and trade journals
• Communication in Internet portals and web communities, such as Facebook and Wikipedia
• Direct communication with decision makers in HR and procurement departments
• Advertising in print media and on the Internet, such as Chamber of Commerce Magazine, Google and Yahoo
• Listings in Internet search engines (many top positions in Google)
• Monthly Zealancer newsletter
• Links from several thousand other portals and web pages
• Presence at trade fairs and conferences.
• Care and support for our customers (a large portion of our new customers come from personal recommendations).

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Zealancer makes a serious effort to ensure all introductions are to genuine clients only and review each request for legitimacy and relevance. We also limit our introductions to no more than one freelancer per project thereby ensuring that the client selects the most appropriate candidates for the task. If however, you are introduced to a client without a real project need then you will not be required to pay the introduction fee.

A non-genuine request might consist of one of the following situations:

a)	Despite several attempts the client could not be reached.
b)	The client requested an introduction even though there was no real need or intent to appoint a freelancer at that time. For example this would be the case if the client never had a real budget for the project.
c)	The client is not an ’end customer’ but a project broker.
d)	The requirements of the client differ significantly from your Zealancer profile.

If one of those circumstances exists, you must inform us within 14 days. The introduction fee will then be cancelled, and we might bar the client from further activity via Zealancer.

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There are no sales commissions. Besides the unique introduction fee of twice the hourly rates there will be no additional costs.

You do not need to report your revenues and repeat business. Not even in case of project extensions, follow-up projects, long-term projects or moving into permanent employment.

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www.zealancer.nz/website/john-example shows an example of a free-of-charge Internet page, which Zealancer can create additionally to your freelancer profile. As this page does not contain obvious hints towards Zealancer, so you can use it for your own marketing purposes (if you do not have your own Internet site).

P. S.: Please let us know if you do not want your own Internet page and we will switch it off immediatelly.

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The freelancers are requested from companies of all sizes - from a one person business to large corporates. Examples of companies using the services of the Zealancer-group are:

ABB, Allianz, American Apparel, American Express, AXA, Bosch, Dassault Systemes, Denso Automotive, DuPont, Fresenius, Fujitsu, IDG Media, Jaycar, LCC Telecom, McDonald's, NTT, NZL-Group, Philip Morris, Renault, Siemens, SLS, Toyota, Volkswagen.

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On average a freelancer receives about 6 introductions per year (the frequency depends on the particular profile). In the profiles of each freelancer you can see directly how many times they were introduced.

Even if freelancers are never introduced to a client, they are not subject to a financial risk, because we do not charge any monthly fees (we only charge per introduction).

Also the one-off registration fee should not be a bad investment for our freelancers: If you do not get an introduction from us within 12 months, we are happy to refund the registration fee immediately.

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• For registration as a freelancer at Zealancer a nominal fee of twice the hourly rate will be charged. Calculation example: A freelancer with an hourly rate of $40 will be charged a registration fee of $80 + GST.
• The registration fee ensures that only professional freelancers are listed. This way, we limit the number of freelancers, which increases the likelihood of a project for the listed freelancers.
• If you do not get an introduction from us within 12 months, we are happy to refund the registration fee immediately.

P.S. Since we manually edit and optimise each profile, the registration fee is done below cost. Freelance-Market generates about 90% of its revenues through the introduction fee, which is only charged if we actually introduce the freelancer to a client.

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Registered freelancers are welcome to submit a guest post for our monthly Zealancer-Newsletter, in order to inform the customer about their service. To be successful, we recommend the following:

• Focus on topics which are interesting and relevant for our readers. You can, for example, give valuable tips from your special field, write about a very unusual assignment, or you show how you could solve a special challenge in an elegant way.
• Pure self-presentations of your skills do not fit into a newsletter. Such things can be read already in your Zealancer profile.
• The article should not be longer than 20 sentences.
• For your reference have a look at previous articles submitted by our freelancers at www.zealancer.nz/news.
• Please send your article to info@zealancer.nz. We will publish it free of charge in our email newsletter and at www.zealancer.nz/news.

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In addition to the popularity of the service offered and the hourly rate, the content of your freelancer profile has a significant influence on your frequency of introductions. By the following measures, freelancers were able to increase their number of introductions up to tenfold:

1. Portrait photo: Freelancers with portrait pictures are requested twice as often. Even an average photo is still better than none.
2. Provide references: If your previous customers are willing to provide information about your services, you can enter their contact details in your profile. In your profile, the number of your reference providers are displayed for all to see. The contact details of the reference providers are of course not publicly visible, but are only communicated to the customer in the case of a project introduction.
3. Detailed profile information: Provide detailed and specific information on your areas of focus, experience and additional skills. Emphasize your very specific skills. No one would choose a graphic artist specializing in architectural visualization who only writes ’Making beautiful graphics’.
4. Work sample: You can add a work sample to your profile to convince customers about your work quality and work style. For example, graphic designers often upload brochures, copywriters present their most demanding texts, coaches present videos of their work and mechanical engineers show their complex design plans.
5. Positive customer reviews: Positive and negative feedback from customers is displayed in the freelancer profile. Convince your customers with the highest level of professionalism and invite them to give us feedback.
6. A final tip: Please compare your profile with the profiles of particularly frequently introduced freelancers in your category.

To change your profile, please send us an email or log-in via https://www.zealancer.nz/login.  ◄ Back to FAQ 

There are basically two ways of matching freelancers and requesters:

A) Listing the freelancers by skills and hourly rates: The client then chooses the most suitable freelancer for the project.
OR
B) Listing the clients' projects: The freelancers then decide for which projects they want to bid and decide on a price. Then the client selects the most suitable freelancer.

While some of our competitors use option B, Zealancer is based on option A as we believe that it has some advantages:

+ The client does not need to specify the project in great detail before talking to the chosen freelancer.
+ The project can start immediately as the client does not have to wait until all the bids come in.
+ Freelancers do not always have to check for countless possible projects and give their bids.
+ Freelancers do not have to bid on projects that are not well specified.
+ As the freelancers are paid a fixed hourly rate, there is more flexibility to adapt the project during implementation. The same is true if the client wants to extend the project or wants to rehire the freelancer.

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