How to land a remote or freelance job in 2025

Olamide is popular for his extensive acumen as a freelancer and his work as a digital skills advocate and  for guiding a lot of starters looking to make their mark in the freelance or remote work scene. His over 7-year experience in marketing and as a freelancer spans years of working with global brands and building his own agency and he never misses an opportunity to share his knowledge with newbies and budding talents in the field.

During this conversation, he shared tested and trusted tips for finding, applying to and landing remote jobs and freelancing gigs. He also responded to questions from a couple of attendees and provided quality insight to all in attendance. In this post, we summarise the key points from his session and highlight the best lessons to take home for newbies hoping to cut their teeth in the freelancing or remote work industry.

You can listen to the full recording of the session on X here.

Setting the scene

Olamide starts the session by sharing extensively on his experience as a freelancer who has worked remotely for brands across the United Kingdom, Canada, USA, and for individuals all over the world. He describes freelancing as a doorway to freedom that has allowed him onboard and work with different clients operating in a variety of industries.

“I think of freelancing as a business at this stage of my career because that’s exactly what it is. Today you have up to 10 clients and tomorrow you’re racing against time to onboard one client. The rollercoaster of emotions, of highs and lows, is one of my favourite things about being in this space and it is this very factor that shapes and strengthens you as a freelancer.”

He then proceeds to share his strategy for getting on projects with clients: getting long-term clients. “This way you can be assured of work for a sustained period of time, while you continue to maintain your freedom.”

How to find jobs online

After a brief introduction of Cenoa by Country Manager (Nigeria), Feri, Olamide launched the conversation into the next phase—finding jobs online. He explains that apart from freelancer marketplaces like Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, etc., freelancers can leverage the power of social media to find great jobs. He outlines a three step process to using social media to find jobs.

1. Leverage Social Media: It is not uncommon to find people sharing job ads on LinkedIn, Twitter and IG these days, so these platforms are great for finding suitable jobs and freelance gigs. He suggests that by filtering your feed, you can find ideal opportunities on these platforms as much as on the freelance and remote work marketplaces.
2. Learn the art of Lead Generation: Olamide points out that one of the best skills to have as someone looking to find jobs online is lead generation skills. You need to know how to find the right person to speak to and how to reel them in, categorise them based on potential and sell your skills to them.
3. Pitch your services: At this point, Olamide points out that it is not enough to generically apply for a job like hundreds of others. You need to pitch your skills and sell yourself to your leads to the point that they see the point in hiring you.

How to create the perfect pitch

After highlighting the process of finding the jobs, Olamide moved on to creating the perfect pitch for your skills to ensure a higher potential for success.

• Do your research: Before sending an application or pitch to a brand or company or lead, you need to know their business well enough to be able to tailor your skills to their needs. It is not enough to be the best writer in the world, you need to be able to demonstrate how your writing skills can help a particular company or business increase their visibility on the search engine. Research helps you prepare a solid pitch and ensures that you’re not wasting your time and the time of your lead.
• Show your value: Don’t bore your audience with details of your past work. Experience is great and can help your leads see what you have done in the past. But it is much better to show how you will be valuable to the business by connecting your skills to their business need.
• Personalise your ideas: When presenting your ideas on how your skills will contribute to the success of a company, it is important to use language like “we” and “our” to show responsibility and ownership even though you’re not yet a part of that project or company.
• Close with a clear CTA: A clear Call-To-Action helps ensure that your lead knows what exactly to do next in order to learn more about your work experience, or learn more about what you can do for them. A CTA in this case could be something like “I would like to speak more with you about this opportunity. Can we get on a call tomorrow by 2pm?” or followed by a link to schedule a call. This helps you guarantee that a lead who is convinced can immediately take the next step towards working with you.

The session closed with a few specific questions on how to carry out job searches using platforms like LinkedIn and how to find someone within a company to reach out to for referrals and recommendations.

Interested in getting the full gist of the session, listen here.