Insight on how Job Success Score is calculated

[Preston H]

Nicola, you have impressive skills and a very nice profile page. Your problem is that you have zero job history on Upwork. Having even one job, with positive feedback, will help you get further jobs worthy of your background.

You need to focus on getting and finishing SMALL FIXED-PRICE jobs, until you land a few and get on the playing field, so to speak. Your job applications will show up better and be more attractive for the plum jobs you're going for once you have some positive stars and job score numbers next to your name.

[Amgad H]

Nicola, I don't have any tips for you but I wish you best of luck

The first job is usually the hardest to get, and more often it's a job you wouldn't do for any other reason. Mine was testing a website for $10 as I recall, almost 8 years later and still not slightly funny.

[Hugo C]

A couple of weeks ago I have requested explanations of why my Job Success has radically dropped from 100% to 67% after finishing my last contract. And I got the extremely poor (and almost offensive) answer that in order to keep the safety of the procedure I could not get any further explanation about it. 

My latest contract lasted 14 months and it ended due to lack of agreement with the client for newer versions. I even got good feedback, but suddenly my success score dropped radically due to this "secret" Job Success System, and therefore my chances of getting new clients have been reduced dramatically. 

 I got more than 4 years with ODesk, over 6800 hours, a 4.00 feedback star. In the "SQL Test" I'm 19th out of 49200 test takers, In ASP.NET 225th out of almost 15000 test takes. But with all that background I must endure that someone who never worked or participated in any of my projects define my success score as he or she pleased.

Let's face it, nobody excepts the clients and colleagues have the right to determine if our work has been succesful or not.

What I really hate about is the secrecy which allows me to consider it is totally untrustworthy, and why not, dishonest, because I have no way to know how I'm being evaluated. Just look at this link https://support.upwork.com/entries/23103173, it says:

(successful contract outcomes - negative contract outcomes) / total outcomes

But who and how determine the successful or negative contract outcomes? A secret system used by a secret person who never participate on the project.

Consequently, I'll be requesting the cancellation of my account because I no longer trust UpWork. Like I said to the (un)support team, I really missed the old days in ODesk where the rules were very clear. I'm totally dissapointed with UpWork which should be encouraging professionals instead of blocking them.

[Valeria K]

Hi Hugo,

I understand your frustration with your Job Success score. Note however that we do value public and private feedback we receive from the clients you worked with. That's why the client's evaluation of whether the job was completed successfully or not and whether they would recommend you are included in the score even if no money was paid on the contract. According to the feedback you exchanged with some of your clients, the outcomes of some of your projects were not good and that was reflected in your Job Success score among with other factors.

Thank you.

[Mariska P]

i have 88% js but i have all 5 star reviews. 

if a client said they wouldn't hire me again does it have a section to say why they wouldn't hire again. for instance: 

because there is no more work

because the applicant didn't score high on a test

etc etc

why a client doesn't hire a freelancer should be included in that. 

if there's a section for job recommendations and if the client says he would not recommend then that should not be included on the score if all the other sections were postive. sometimes clients are vengeful. 

how will freelancers be able to appeal the results? 

[Darrin O]

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@Mariska P wrote:

i have 88% js but i have all 5 star reviews.

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Yeah, well I got you beat at 82/5.  

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how will freelancers be able to appeal the results? 

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You can't, and so you have to treat the platform appropriately.  Upwork only harms themselves when they make it more difficult for professionals to find work here.

[Mariska P]

well you do have me beat Darrin, and you're thriving so I guess I shouldn't worry so much, but I'd still like to have the powers that be allow us to see the ratings that the clients give us... 

do the clients see our ratings to them? I can't even remember if we have questions like 'would you recommend this client' or 'would you work with this client again'... etc.... 

[Darrin O]

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@Mariska P wrote:

well you do have me beat Darrin, and you're thriving so I guess I shouldn't worry so much

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I would not say I'm thriving on Upwork.  If this ship were running smoothly, I'd be getting an order of magnitude more  work than I have.  I don't think the problem is my JSS directly, though, so I'm not much for tilting at that windmill.  As far as I'm concerned, anything Upwork is doing that keeps me from working more is a bigger problem for Upwork than it is for me.

But I appreciate that is not necessarily true for everyone.  If you do a lot of business through the site and the clients in your field of work base a lot on the JSS, the results are going to be brutal.

[Sheila P]

After migrating over from Elance, I expected to see a success rate on Upwork but I'm basically invisible.  I only completed one project on Elance, so I should have a 100% success rate instead of a [null] value.  Is this a time lag thing or will I never see my reputation information and have to start from scratch?

[Valeria K]

Hi Sheila,

I understand that it's important for you to have your Job Success score displayed on your profile. However, you will need to complete more jobs in order for the system to have enough information and calculate your Job Success score.