Analytics for Freelancers and Jobseekers

5 min readMay 7, 2016

I’m fascinated by analytics and statistics. It’s interesting to see who has interacted with my online presence, how long they spent checking me out, what they were looking at, where they are from.

When I’ve applied for jobs or freelance gigs, I make use of online analytics to see if my resume was reviewed, my portfolio was looked at, or if my writing had been read. Some of the analytics are fairly obvious and some of it requires a bit of investigation and some assumptions.

It can be discouraging sometimes, I must admit. There have been times when I’ve seen an organization all over my online postings, reading several pages of my website and spending a lot of time doing so — but a call never comes. So, back to the digital drawing board to try something new. And, then there are those who never appear. After spending countless hours filling out automated application systems, writing a personalized cover letter, gathering design and writing samples, attesting to my race, gender, physical status and my non-criminal record, and then, finally, hitting that submit button only to get no feedback at all. Oh well.

Following are the analytics tools I have used to track responses to job applications or freelance opportunities. There are, of course, many others, but these are the ones I like.

Behance

Behance Stats

For my creative services work, I use Behance as my portfolio site. I have a few others, but this is the one I like best. Behance has a very easy-to-read stats dashboard. I can check to see how many hits I received on my work and on my user profile. I know that, if I applied to a job or freelance gig, and I suddenly get a lot of hits, I’ve made an impact.

LinkedIn Profile Stats

I love LinkedIn! Not only does it have a lot of great content, but it’s a very good tool for checking out the people checking me out. I am surprised, however, that there are many organizations that don’t make full use of LinkedIn. I am often puzzled why a hiring manager wouldn’t go straight to my LinkedIn profile, because that is where I have the most of my information and samples. A good feature of LinkedIn is the Who Checked Your Profile stats. Unless they choose to remain anonymous, this gives you a good indication that there is interest.

Gmail

Hubspot for Gmail

Gmail is may favorite email system and doesn’t require or need a mail client like Outlook or Apple Mail. HubSpot has a handy app called Sidekick that reveals who opened your emails, clicked your links and how often. It’s not perfect, but it gives you a good indication that your message has been received. The free version limits the report to 200, though, but that’s usually good enough.

SlideShare Stats

SlideShare

SlideShare, like Scribd, is a presentation site. I have a few multi-page portfolios and marketing plans posted here. I liked Scribd better, but there reporting stats seemed to have changed and now I find SlideShare to be much better. This isn’t all that informative, but it does show which projects get better traction.

Twitter Analytics

When Twitter first appeared, I thought it was dumbest thing ever. I ignored it for a few years, but now I am finding it to be my favorite social media site. Another benefit of Twitter is Twitter Analytics. With this tool, I can see which of my tweets are getting around and which are failing. I’ve been studying photo vs. non-photo, hashtags, keywords, etc. I find that tweets that involve colleges get a big response. I re-tweeted something from Colgate University and received more than 1,300 interactions in one day! My re-tweets of Utica College have done quite well and I’ve received 1,893 impressions (so far) on a tweet of a report I wrote on risk assessment for my class at Utica College. I also use WhoUnfollowedMe — a site that connects to a Twitter account and reports who is following and who dares to unfollow! Here’s the link. I’ve only been using this for a few months, so I’m still learning.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics-City

Ah, here’s the main event! Google Analytics has, well, a lot of analytics. Here, I can see how many hits I got on my website and where they are from, how much time they spent reading my stuff, time of day, and most importantly, their domain. This is important, and revealing, when I’ve applied to large corporations or colleges. If I see a hit from “college.edu” after submitting a freelance bid or applying for a job, I know that I have at least gotten their attention. I can also see what pages of my site they looked at. Sometimes its some old blog post, but usually its my skills or resume page. Then, I go through my other analytic tools and follow the trail. It’s so cool!

Personal Website: www.macharyas.com

Macharyas.com

Of course, Google Analytics is of no use without a website. I’m lucky (I guess) to have a unique last name. There are not many of us Macharyii out there, so getting a domain with my name was easy. I use this as my base of operations for all my social media, portfolios and analytics. This is a good place to write posts about graphics, analytics, advertising, marketing or whatever else might run through my mind. I have also posted several of my technical papers that I’ve written for the MS program in Cybersecurity and Computer Forensics at Utica College. My site is built with WordPress and hosted by GoDaddy and works quite well.

This is not a complete list of analytic tools available, but are simply the ones I use and like.

Thank you for reading — Jeff Macharyas

Originally published at Jeff Macharyas.