The biologist turned freelancer

A wife of a policeman and a mother of two, Sharon de Dios has been a freelancer for nine years already. With a five-star rating at Freelancer.ph, she is sought-after by international clients looking for web copywriting, social media consulting, and virtual managing services. What her clients do not know, however, is that De Dios graduated with a Degree in Biology, Major in Genetics from the University of the Philippines in Los Baños.

Before she chose to become a “full-time freelancer,” De Dios who is now 38, worked as a medical indexer for a New Jersey-based company, which set-up a satellite office in Manila as one of the earliest business process outsourcing (BPO) ventures in the Philippines.

De Dios dedicated seven long years with the BPO via a home-based job until one fateful day.

She recalled, “We were asked to come in the next morning thinking it was only for a meeting. When we got there, we were handed our checks. We were told it was our last day and that we were not to report to the office anymore.”

She continued, “I was traumatized yet I realized that I was dispensable. You were not valued despite everything you’ve done. And I was just starting to build my life then. In a snap, paano na?”

At the time, De Dios had just settled in Bulacan with her husband and then two-year-old son. Despite losing her longest job, she decided not to jump in to another one in Manila.

She explained, “My first son was only two then, and I could not leave him alone while I worked. So I thought, ‘What will I do now?’ What if I become an Avon lady?’”

Thankfully, a friend suggested she try online freelancing via Get a Freelancer.com (the former name of Freelancer.com). Her initial job was copywriting, considered an entry level service.

“Of all the listed jobs, I thought that was the only thing I could do. My background is so different I didn’t have an idea about programming and other computer-related skills,” she admitted.

De Dios soon discovered that she was actually good at copywriting. But while she excelled at it in the next two years, she realized she still needed to learn other online freelancing services thus the “decision to branch out to other projects.”

“I’ve always been upfront with my employers that I didn’t actually know [other services] but that I learn easily. I was just lucky to find employers who were willing to teach me, maybe because they already learned to trust me when I was still a copywriter,” she shared.

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