Most freelancing advice comes from other freelancers. That’s useful, but it means you rarely hear from
the person on the other side of the table: the one reading forty proposals at 9 pm, deciding who gets the project.
I’m that person a few times a year. I run a payments startup in California, I work with India-based
freelancers on design and content, and before this I spent years at BCG and Amazon, where hiring and
staffing people was part of the job. What follows is what the hiring side actually notices, in the order we
notice it. None of it requires more talent than you already have. Most of it is about removing doubt.
Table of Contents
The bar moved, and it’s not about skill
The World Bank estimates that 154 to 435 million people worldwide now do online gig work, and
demand for it in South Asia roughly doubled between 2016 and 2020. When a US client posts a project,
the applicants are not just from your city. They’re from everywhere.
Here’s the uncomfortable part: at the shortlist stage, most candidates look equally skilled. A client
skimming profiles for ten minutes cannot measure talent. So we screen for what we can measure:
evidence, specificity, and reliability. That’s good news, because all three are learnable.
Proof of work does the first round of talking
The last time I posted a design brief, proposals started arriving within hours. Almost all of them opened
with years of experience and a link to an everything portfolio: logos, wedding shoots, apps, banners.
The designer I ended up working with sent three links, each one close to what I was building, with one
line on what problem each project solved. Shortlisting her took under a minute.
Curate per pitch, don’t dump. If the brief is a fintech dashboard, your travel-blog screenshots do negative
work, because they push the relevant thing below the fold. On marketplace profiles HunarBox included,
the top slots are prime real estate: put your most relevant and most recent work there and cut the rest.
And always send links that open in one click. Attachments get opened last, if at all.
The first message decides more than the portfolio
The message that wins does four things in under 120 words. It names something specific from the brief.
It shows two or three relevant links. It asks one question that proves understanding.
And it states when the client will see the first delivery.
The template message (“Dear Sir, I can do any work perfectly”) ends the conversation, and not because it’s impolite.
It signals the sender didn’t read the brief, and the client quietly extrapolates: if the proposal is copy-paste, the work might be too.
One genuinely good question does more for you than eight claims of experience. It’s the only part of a proposal a client can’t skim past,
because it makes them think about their own project.
Reliability is the actual product
What a repeat client is really buying is predictability. The freelancers I keep working with share three habits.
- They reply within a business day, even if it’s just “got it, will look at this Thursday.
- They flag slips early, while there’s still time to adjust, instead of confessing after the deadline.
- They keep a short running note of what shipped and what’s open, so I never have to ask “where are we?
That last one sounds trivial. In my experience it’s the biggest single difference between freelancers who
get rehired and freelancers a client liked but quietly stopped calling. Talent wins you the first project. This wins you the retainer.
Your evening is their morning. Use it.
Freelancers often treat the timezone gap as a weakness to apologize for. Handled well, it’s the opposite.
US East Coast mornings are your 6:30 to 10:30 pm. West Coast mornings start at 9:30 pm IST (that’s
during US summer time; add about an hour in their winter). So you can do focused work all day while
your client sleeps, then overlap for an hour in your evening to sync, hand off, and get answers.
Clients know this arrangement is possible. They don’t know you work this way until you say it. Write it
into the proposal: “I overlap with US mornings until 11 pm IST.” Then deliver overnight, their time. A
client who wakes up to finished work twice will start planning around you, and that’s how a one-off
project turns into a standing arrangement.
Make payday boring
Nothing wears down a good working relationship faster than messy money, in either direction.
On your side: invoice in USD, on the schedule you agreed, with the correct account details every time.
Then check what the route is costing you. The exchange-rate margin is usually bigger than the visible fee,
so compare the rupees that actually arrive against the Google rate for that day. If the gap is wide, it’s
worth a conversation about how you get paid.
On the client’s side: make paying you effortless. This part is my day job, since my company Sliq Pay builds
US-to-India payments, and the pattern from the hiring chair is consistent. When paying someone takes
two minutes and lands the same day, invoices get approved fast and the relationship stays warm. When
every payday means wire forms and follow-up emails, the client starts dreading the admin, and that
dread leaks into rehire decisions.
Before your next proposal
- Three samples matched to this specific brief, linked, one line each.
- First message under 120 words, with one question that proves you read the brief.
- Your overlap window and a first-delivery date, stated plainly.
- A clean USD invoice template with your payment details, ready to go.
- After delivery, ask about the next project. Rehires usually start with someone asking.
The takeaway
You can’t out-credential a global field in a ten-minute skim, but you can out-specific it. Evidence over
adjectives. One sharp question over eight claims. Predictability over promises. The freelancers I keep
paying, and keep recommending to other founders, aren’t necessarily the most talented people who
ever messaged me. They’re the ones who made saying yes feel safe.
Frequently Asked Questions – Hire Indian Freelancers
Q1: What do clients look for most when hiring freelancers?
Ans: US clients prioritize reliability, concrete proof of work, and clear communication above all else. Instead of generic portfolios, they prefer to see examples of projects that align precisely with their specific requirements.
Q2: How can Indian freelancers take advantage of time zone difference?
Ans: Indian freelancers can sync with US clients in their evenings (US mornings) and by working overnight they can deliver their projects in the morning. This predictable schedule makes it much easier for clients.
Q3: What should be included in the first message (proposal) sent to the client?
Ans: First message should be (under 120 words) and point-to-point. It should contain something specific related to the job brief, 2-3 relevant links, and a genuine question about the client’s project.
About the author: Yogesh Kansal is the founder and CEO of Sliq Pay, a US-India cross-border payments company. He was previously a Principal at Boston Consulting Group and a product manager at Amazon Web Services, and he has hired and worked with freelancers and contractors on both sides of the US-India corridor.
