Coming up with an original title for your freelancer profile on Upwork or any other freelance platform is crucial as it is usually the first thing that others see about you. Sometimes potential clients do not click on your profile simply because your title looks like some of the worst freelancer profile title examples.
As the basics of making your Upwork profile title look reasonable are explained in detail in Freelancer Profile Writing 101, what’s left for me to do is to make sure your profile doesn’t appear the same as others. There are many pitfalls, and the most dangerous one is demonstrating unsubstantiated expertise that just looks funny… like calling yourself a “superhero”!
It’s not just that bad Upwork profile titles are common. They are everywhere! So, here are the most over-used or otherwise horrible descriptive words that should not appear in your Upwork profile title.
The worst freelancer profile title examples… honestly
There’s no limit to people’s ability to copy examples, even the bad ones! But why not because so many of the freelancers using some of these words that describe superiority in some way make big bucks!
But because of their popularity or their ridiculousness, they should not appear in your profile title.
‘Rockstar’
Calling yourself a rockstar is probably the stupidest thing you could do. I mean… it doesn’t work from any perspective. Not only is it one of the worst kinds of boasting about yourself, but it is also one of the most overused words in this category.
See? Here you go! This is how you can find rockstars! Here is a step-by-step guide for finding rockstars on Upwork. (BTW, why is it that almost all people calling themselves rockstars never appear to have great track records or high rates? It must be a coincidence, right?)
Step 1: Type ‘rockstar’ in the Talent Search.
Step 2: Click on page 2.
Step 3: Change the page number in the URL from 2 to 500 (the max. number of search results).
Step 4: Check the results whether or not the last page is 500.
So, it seems there are more than 500 pages of rockstars on Upwork. The search shows 10 results per page, so it’s at least 5,000 rockstars. How great is this, we are all rockstars!
The search result seems to show those with that word in the title first. The last results seem to have the word elsewhere on the profile page, including the freelancer’s description, work history, employment history, reviews, or portfolio items.
If you use the same approach for searching for the number of freelancers who use some other keyword, the edited page number 500 will turn to the last available page number automatically.
‘Superstar’
Superstar is just funny, right? Yet, there are loads of freelancers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars on Upwork with that word in their titles. Perhaps it is not as common as ‘rockstar’, but funny nonetheless.
It’s all about the level of boasting that others would perceive about you.
Superstars on Upwork. Yeah, real superstars.
‘Superhero’
Searching for superheroes on Upwork is quite ambiguous as there is an entire industry in the creative space working on actual superheroes. Comics for instance. Yet, there are plenty of people whose title includes the word ‘superhero’ and as you might have guessed, their track records rarely reflect the impression.
There are a lot of superheroes too and many of them are artists.
‘Wizard’
Everyone likes magic, right? But perhaps calling yourself a wizard isn’t the best move. Unless you’re very old, have a long beard, and are never late. 🙂
The only image in my head when I read the word ’wizard’…
Yet, there are plenty of wizards on Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/ab/profiles/search/?page=500&q=wizard
So many wizards!
‘Ninja’
Being a ninja is the coolest thing, but aren’t ninjas supposed to be invisible or otherwise not seen? Well, these ninjas seem quite easy to spot!
Unfortunately, so many things are named ‘ninja’ something, like NinjaTrader and its NinjaScript that the search result includes many profiles of really good freelancers who specialize in those ninja things.
Also, Ninja seems to be a popular first name in some places. Nonetheless, there are plenty of self-proclaimed ninja freelancers around!
Ninjas on Upwork do not yet know how not to be seen.
Probably they should learn how not to be seen directly from the Monty Python guys…
‘Guru’
Guru is also a popular one. Too popular to make your profile appear different from others. The search result goes to page 500: https://www.upwork.com/ab/profiles/search/?page=500&q=guru
But never mind, many of these “gurus” seem to make quite a bit of money on Upwork.
All the gurus on Upwork…
‘Kick-ass’
Seriously, this one is the best! I can only think of Kick-Ass, the movie, as I mentioned in the original LinkedIn post! 😀
This is how every freelancer calling him/herself “Kick-Ass” something looks to me.
Anyway, many seem to do it. Here’s the Kick-Ass VA from the title of this article, ready to… sell Kick-Ass merchandise maybe?
How many “Kick-Ass VAs” do you think you could find on Upwork?
Go see it for yourself. Here’s the search string for your convenience: https://www.upwork.com/ab/profiles/search/?page=500&q=kick-ass
Fortunately, there are only 49 pages of kick-ass freelancers on Upwork at the time of writing this. 🙂
‘Badass’
This is something the search doesn’t give any results for perhaps because it is considered bad language, but I’m sure someone has this in their title too. You better not call yourself a “badass” either.
In fact, it’s better to leave all asses off the title just to be safe. Unless it is an ‘assessor’ or something. 😉
‘Extraordinaire’
This is a fancy word for ‘special’, isn’t it? Does that make you fancy? Not really. Too many people use it too.
Some of these ‘extraordinaires’ seem to make big bucks… or perhaps they just grind long enough.
Other totally overused bad Upwork profile titles
Then there are loads of other profile titles that tend to turn off potential clients. I could try to list all of them, but let’s settle for a short list of the worst ones.
‘Professional’
There’s nothing wrong about being a professional, of course, but by making that word appear in your title you only highlight unprofessionalism. Are you implying everyone else doing freelance is not a professional?
‘Expert’
There are so many experts out there these days that this is probably the most overused title there is.
And it’s not only that…
Calling yourself an expert makes you look like an “expert” these days. You know, like those guys who approach you on social media calling themselves “digital marketing experts” and demonstrating absolutely no marketing skills, digital or otherwise.
“Expert”… rrrright!
But I have to admit, I used that word in the title of the first version of my Upwork profile! 🙂
In my defense, I can say that freelance sites like Upwork were much less crowded in 2015 than they are now. There were far fewer “experts” out there… also, I used a little twist that most “experts” didn’t. My title was “Ph.D. level Kinect expert”.
Summary
Let’s recap. If you want to give a professional impression in a way that few others do, avoid using these descriptive words in your profile title:
- ‘Rockstar’
- ‘Superstar’
- ‘Superhero’
- ‘Wizard’
- ‘Ninja’
- ‘Guru’
- ‘Kick-ass’
- ‘Badass’
- ‘Extraordinaire’
- ‘Professional’
- ‘Expert’
None of these bad Upwork profile titles do the work for you. Some of them are too common to help you appear unique and some sound too ridiculous to be used in reality.
After seeing the most overused and the worst freelancer profile title examples, you should be fine to make your profile stand out.
Good luck!
