Here is what I did:
I applied to 10 jobs at UpWork everyday.
After 2 weeks or so, I thought it is impossible to get a job with empty profile. (Even though I had LinkedIn with 8 years of Java experience, I think it does not matter when your UpWork profile is empty). At last I got some job from a student, and earned $50, after that I got some more small jobs for $100-$1000 fixed price, finally I got hourly job at $35/h. I think it took less than a month, but you need to be dedicated. After you have some jobs in your profile everything is MUCH easier. It is 1.5 years since I'm on UpWork and I earned around $200K so far.
>I think it does not matter when your UpWork profile is empty
I would be tempted to find a local client and offer to do something small, but real, for free...provided I fronted them the fee to pay me via UpWork. Just to bootstrap the reputation/experience on the platform.
From the perspective of someone on the other side (a hirer of freelancers) I do hire people with empty profiles provided you show me you know what you are doing. Read the proposal carefully and put in some time and effort into showing you can do the job well on time and budget.
Interesting. I didn't know you could make so much on UpWork:
"John Shipp, a senior web developer in Brule, Nebraska, who charges $166.67 per hour on the platform, joined it in 2011, before it changed its name to Upwork. About 80% of his business came through Upwork in the first quarter of 2016, he says."
i did the same thing in upwork, at first i propose to job posts everyday until i got my first job, then finding on the next job is much faster.
But until now i didn't get $35/h. So far my biggest rate per hr is only $13.
