Hello, colleagues. An update is coming to the member directory and new categories have been added. Find a moment and go to your profile Account & Settings > About. Then scroll through the new and old fields to discover more categories. These are to make you more visible to your ideal clients and to help clients find proper matches for their projects. The directory will also have a new Directory Search page. We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, get ahead by making your profile ready to go now!

Hello, colleagues. Here are some hot tips for updating your profile in the new Member Directory.

1) Your old profile was carried over from the old platform, but it likely lost some formatting. Proofread carefully for missing spaces and miscellaneous characters--especially apostrophes. Check out some other profiles for ideas on how to spiff up your bio section.

2) Your full birth date is a required field, and the platform default is to make it public. If you do not choose to share, change the setting (see security icon to the left of the field) to Private (image of a red lock). If you are uncomfortable with providing your birth date at all, consider providing an alternative such as the commonly used placeholder 01/01/1900.

3) You must provide a Country Code for your phone number (not, as you might think, location) or your changes will not be saved. This is a very common tripper upper.

4) Directory search results will display your name, location (if your setting is to make it public), and a gigantic headshot. You may, alternatively, display a logo. We do not recommend leaving an empty space, as it may possibly be a disadvantage to you in the case of a potential client overwhelmed by choices leaving aside incomplete-looking hits. To upload a headshot/logo, hover your cursor over the little postage stamp looking frame in the left-hand box (above Connections, Groups, Photos, etc.) of your profile form. An edit icon will pop up. Click that and you'll get an upload dialog. You can upload directly from your computer.

5) IMPORTANT: The Directory refreshes periodically, not immediately, so it may take up to 8 hours for your edits to take effect.

6) Please make sure your email address is current and the one you want EFA correspondence to go to--you do have the option to make this field private to prevent scrapers. There is another field available for your business email address, if you have one you are more comfortable making public. If you don't want your email scrapable at all, consider including it as plain text (for example email @ provider dot com) in the bio section of your profile.

7) You really want to take your profile for a trial run. To see what potential clients see, sign out of the website and scroll down to Member Directory on the landing page, or click the hamburger and pull down the Hire a Freelancer menu. Then search for yourself in the Member Directory. Remember to give it 8 hours for all changes to take effect.

8) When your profile displays, you will notice it's on the second tab, with an Activities tab sitting on top of it. You can't switch the tab order, but you can hide the Activities one by going to Information & Settings and unchecking the Enable my Profile Activity Feed.