Get an Internship or Low-Paying Work to Build Your Portfolio

Get content writing internship or low-paying work to build a portfolio.

In the last couple of posts, I explained ways to build a solid portfolio as a content writer. My last post was about using Medium and Quora to have some articles under your name. Once you have written some articles on Medium and answered some questions on Quora. The next step is to start looking for some work. Initially you can start looking for content writing Internships whether paid or unpaid. Additionally, you can also look for low paying content writing work.

On LinkedIn, I have read several posts talking about not taking unpaid internships. Even some successful freelancers suggest not taking the low paying work. Compared to those suggestions, what I suggest to new writers is completely opposite. I encourage beginner content writers to get any work they can get whether it is an internship or a low paying job.

I would say don’t even think about getting paid for a few months. Your goal should be building a portfolio first. Once you have that you will leverage it in upcoming months. If you got some pay that’s even better as you got paid for learning a skill. In a skill like content writing there is nothing better than writing some content. It will harness your skills more than anything else.

One important suggestion I have for all the beginners is although you are not getting paid make sure you are getting credited for your work. You will find clients who will ask to join you as an intern or pay very low. And when you submit the article they will publish under someone else's name.

Say no to the roles where you are not being credited for your write ups. Your only reason for taking an internship or a low pay job is to build a portfolio for yourself. If you are not getting that, what's the meaning of doing such work? I have seen many beginners making this mistake and even after working for years they don’t have anything to show under their name.

Being an employer myself I prefer to hire someone with content published under their name. It gave me the confidence to hire them. What it means is you should focus on getting your content published on your name right from the very first offer you get.

You can take ghostwriting works later in your career when you have enough author pages to showcase your skills and you have become a pro in this field. But at the initial stage if you work as a ghostwriter you are ruining your chances of becoming a highly paid writer in near future. So, this is all I wanted to share in today’s post. Start reaching to site owners and you will soon get your first role as a writer. If you don’t know how to look for clients then in coming posts, I will explain it in detail.

With this post, I have already shared two of the ways to build a portfolio. If these ways didn’t work for you, In tomorrow’s post, I will write about the third and last way to build a portfolio which is starting your own blog. So, please stay tuned for it.

Thanks!