Your profile does the selling. Three sections carry almost all the weight.
Professional Details
This is what matching reads. Complete every field:
Highest qualification · University · Key skills · Publications or portfolio · Field of expertise · Years of experience · Professional summary · Supporting documents.
The professional summary
Name the methods, designs, tools and populations you have actually worked with.
Works: "Health economist, 8 years. Mixed-methods and health-economic evaluation, STATA and R. Systematic reviews and meta-analysis, several in low-resource settings. Comfortable with messy observational data."
Does not work: "Experienced researcher passionate about delivering quality work on time."
The first is checkable and matches to briefs. The second says nothing.
Key skills
Be specific. "Multilevel modelling", "NVivo", "PRISMA systematic review", "propensity score matching". Not "data analysis" and not "research".
Publications
Link real, findable work. A client who cannot find a listed publication will assume the rest is inflated too.
Photo
A real face, well lit. Not a logo, not an avatar.