Decrease in number of invites and responses to job posts

[sa_india]

Hi,

We have been an agency focused on IoT solutions development since we joined Upwork in 2015. With 121 projects later, we used to get at least one invite per day and the response rate to our job applications were around 60 to 70%. All this suddenly changed in April 2021. We are not getting as many invites - the ones we get are mostly small and irrelevant, we are not getting any response to our bids. The only area where we are getting responses is where the client has a very low budget and where our LoRa-Chirpstack skill matches. Basically we got just one relevant response.

From 60 % to nearly 0 is hitting us hard. Just checking if anyone else is facing this issue.

Being a company with 30 people working, this sudden change is affecting us badly. We are an end to end IoT solutions development company and anyone chacking our profile can see the number of projects we have done successfully in the area. Now we are not getting any response to bids in the very same area, where clients used to be impressed with the number of projects we had done in IoT.

Waiting to hear if anyone else is facing this issue.

Thanks,

Sheeba

[austin-wilcox]

I haven't been here that long roughly 2 years but yes. My profile visits clearly show there's some kind of issue. I'd understand a slight decrease but to go from 150+ to 25 drastically seems very weird. 

[pgiambalvo]

Agreed. Same here.

[cyber_sec007]

Very interesting, in the last 3 years, I had thought that my profile view is by default low because of the category and rate I'm in (information security/high rate), and the only thing I have identified: If I submit proposals my view goes higher if I don't submit (because there is nothing interesting, or I'm busy) goes low. Seeing 100+ views shows that I have picked the wrong trade.

Also, I think the whole statistics thing is just not working properly. I don't know if you guys remember, but about 18 months ago Upwork did a beta thing "who viewed your profile" which showed the client category who viewed the profile as well the job if they posted any. It was buggy, laggy, and without further notice Upwork just killed it.

Then about 2 months ago they come up with an updated, little bit more interactive version of the "my stat" page, showing some advanced statics. It was buggy as hell, showing wrong numbers, now they said they need to fix it, but there is no news about it.

So I think there are some issues with the whole thing, and I'm not sure if these numbers 1) show the reality and 2) can be trusted.

Ideally, we would see who viewed our profile, and for what search term. But, I understand why they want to do it: clients in the client forum complain about freelancers "bagging" them for work in high numbers, also it would open a door to take the job outside of Upwork (like knowing a person's name, and the company name and contact them directly/Linkedin, etc to do a sale pitch).....