Are you making the most of the EFA member directory? Are you using your EFA membership to market yourself to the max? Your directory listing is a powerful promotional tool that is part of your membership package.

When it comes to getting work through the EFA, most of you are familiar with the EFA Job List—where clients of all types advertise open positions for freelancers. Many of our members get a lot of their work from the Job List. But did you know that potential clients also use the EFA directory to find and contact members? Many members report getting good assignments from clients who hired them after searching the directory for freelancers with the specific skills and expertise they were seeking.

Here’s how it works. Upon joining, all active members are included in the directory (the default information is your name).

From there, you can customize your directory entry with the information you choose: your business name, contact information (email address, telephone number, physical mailing address), skills and specialties, brief promotional blurb, and your résumé or CV. We urge members to prepare some sort of description of their services and experience (like a mini-bio). Including a résumé or CV is up to you.

Remember: members are responsible for keeping their information up to date. It’s a good idea to check your directory profile a couple times each year to make sure all of your information is up to date and accurate.

Note: If you are concerned about spam, you can choose to not publish your e-mail address in your profile. You can still make it available to potential clients (but less accessible to spammers) by placing it in your PDF resume.*

If one of the reasons you joined the EFA was to get work, we recommend that, in addition to monitoring and responding to opportunities on the Job List, you make the most of your Directory profile. To learn more about the EFA Member Directory, check out our hiring page: the-efa.org/hiring/.  To modify your directory listing, visit your Profile page.

If your particular skills or specialties are not included in the search options, let us know by contacting us at info@the-efa.org.

Potential clients can search the directory by skills, subject specialties, location (state or outside the USA), freelancer’s name, keyword, software and hardware capabilities, or any combination of these options.

Adapted from an article by Cassie Tuttle, former EFA Membership chair

(This article originally appeared in The Freelancer, Jan/Feb 2015)

*For a view on how to recognize and respond to certain types of would-be scams, see member Tekla Szymanski’s  2018 article on her website.