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Replacing 5-Star Average Feedback with Job Success Score

garnorm
Community Member

Hi all,

We remove 5-star average feedback entirely, and display only your Job Success score throughout most of the Upwork site. 5-star feedback given per contract will remain displayed on your Work History.

 

We’re making this decision because we’ve seen Job Success scores help top performing freelancers win more contracts. This means clients are having better experiences and coming back for more, which in turn benefits the marketplace and generates more opportunities for freelancers overall. The score helps freelancers at all levels stand out from the competition by presenting clients with a complete picture of their differences. This is an opportunity to help freelancers continue to grow their businesses that we can’t pass up.

 

Additionally, you can learn more about Job Success score and how it's calculated in our help article.

540 Comments
raou
Community Member

Hello 

 

to be honest, This is not Fair with Freelancers because Job Sucess rate depend on Clients hidden feedback and Freelancer do not know about these feedbacks. If Client give 5 Star feedback on freelancer profile and give bad Hidden feedback, Do you not think, this is double Standard and unprofessional,And how freelancer trust on Job Sucess rate, While as they do not see Clients Feedback.

 

Thank you 

 

Regards

Rao 

cornelmanolescu
Community Member

Exactly as you said, i have all my ratings and feedbacks 5 star and "Excellent" from my clients, but somewhere along i find myself with around 10% down on my Job Sucess rate, i don't know why, when, how, it just happened , and since then, i only managed to get like 4% . That's not fair, All this should be visible, because you can't rate a freelancer 5 star but Anonymously you give him like 50%  .

jasna-m
Community Member

This is exactly my case. I have two contracts paused by client and one is paused by UpWork. If I don`t have active work for one week my JSS will be decreased for 5%.

At this moment I have JSS -93%, but probably it will be down the next week.

 

Maybe, some freelancers have benefit from high ranking. I don`t. There are so many better ways to give general picture about someone`s work. Unfortunately, UpWork choose this one and we all have to accept it.

 

tunnel_sd
Community Member

I'm really starting to hate Upwork now. I've seen many others experiencing like me. At first, my JS was 100% and feedback was 4.96

 

After merging elance profile, my job success bumped down to 92% dramatically. I'm not top rated yet, but It really harms to my mental situation while working.

 

Now I still have a 4.96 rating. Upwork will blindly hide that from my profile which toatally doesn't make sense.

 

Now for the new freelances, who are just started working on small projects and those who have lower JSS, just run away and find you home somewhere else. Upwork doesn't need you anymore.

 

Really a blind decision by upwork. This totally doesn't make any sense. Now all freelancer's profile will look lake a  Cheeseburger without cheese. Hat's off upwork...

makeyourmark
Community Member

"And one more thing : for only JSS every "no feedback given" job must be count as success job."

 

Pavel - I completely agree. Unless a client specifically takes the time to provide negative feedback then it should be counted as successful - even if no feedback is given.

 

Why should freelancers be punished because some clients are too lazy to provide feedback? I've had several clients who have said they'd provide feedback "tomorrow" only to fail to do so. That is something that's beyond our control.

 

However, my job success score is currently 100%. I feel I've worked hard to achieve that but I also feel there's an element of luck behind it. The majority of my clients have provided feedback and it has been good. But what if I have a few clients who just can't be bothered? I guess the JSS is negatively impacted if there's a certain % of clients not providing feedback on a freelancer's profile.

 

So my advice (because I'm assuming Upwork will press ahead with this regardless of what we, their money-makers, think) is to try to apply for jobs with clients who have a history of providing feedback. If you see too many 'no feedback given' notices then I think they're best avoided. If we all do this, then those clients wouldn't get as many applicants and perhaps then Upwork would do more to encourage them to leave feedback.

gz99
Community Member

As always, Upwork just does whatever the hell it wants without giving any explanation (and no, "many clients told us" is not an explananation). 

Do you guys even understand that you are biting the hand that feeds you? And you just never stop. First the murky JS, now this. As soon as we find alternatives, we will leave and never look back. That's what happens when you screw people who actually pay your salaries.

apels_
Community Member

I have zero opinion on the 5star system removal as I do not care, but I do want to know what will happen to the "top rated" badge that I recently got on my profile, as I do like that and it shows employers that I definately can get the job done.

evetodew
Community Member

My very humble opinion as an active (for about 1 year) Upwork freelancer is the following:

 

I don't care about the 5 star rating displayed proudly in my portfolio. You may keep it or remove it, but definitely keep showing it in the work history. It personally helps me send proposals to the proper clients (and I go through their employer's history.)

 

What I am deeply concerned about, and I had sent messages to Upwork about it, is (I wish I could shout it out loud) Please, please, fix your job success rate formula. It's terrible!! I've explained it to them many times. Once I ended a recently started contract with a client, only because the system withdrew some money falsely, and Upwork suggested he close the contract, and reopen a new one with me. Once the contract is ended so soon after only a few hours tracked, my JS dropped badly. As if it's my mistake!!!

 

Since then, with every little change, like low activity on a contract (because the client doesn't have work for me), I have to be punished for that. The rating grows very slowly with a few percentages over a month, but can drop with 10% over 2 weeks.

 

I stopped caring about the JS. The only negative I see in the entire picture is that people are fighting for work like on a cockfight. It's a fierce battle, where everyone bids lower and lower, just to get some work, but then I see that the work itself suffers. The good and highly paid contractors will always be hired by prestigeous corporations and companies, but they are very few, and the highly qualified contractors are many. They can hardly find work on a daily basis. So... they just have to work outside Upwork.

 

Unfortunately, Upwork is turning into a low-quality freelance platform and I am very sad about it.

 

@Upwork, please, don't focus on rates and scores like in high school. Improve your system so you have high-quality freelancers and decent clients. Pick up your own rate and prestige. The competition shouldn't be among people who bid at $4 per hour. Competition should be on a completely different level. Recently I began bidding lower than my own (also low) hourly rate, just so I can find work. And mind you, I am experienced. Clients outside of Upwork pay me more. But every customer knows 'Oh, we'll find a low-paid guy, he'll do the job for us'. Forget about quality. Cheap job is never quality job!! That's what I know!

 

I am sorry at the turn Upwork is taking and promoting cheap fights among its freelancers, as if we're some low-lifes... Anyhow, I'm beginnning to rant. My point was made above.

 

P.S. I've been promoting freelancing to my boyfriend and he recently took the idea at heart. He one day told me that he looked through Upwork and found how many people (I won't mention nationalities, but most of know what I mean) bid at such incredibly low rates. He is a software engineer with 7-8 years of experience. I don't think he wants to be paid $5 per hour, or even $15 just so he can find a job on Upwork. Again, I'm telling you - you need to keep the quality people, not the low-rated guys. My boyfriend doesn't want to be paid low when he can get a high-paid job elsewhere. Also, with the changes I see, I actually recommended him another freelance agency. I'm sorry, Upwork. I get more and more disappointed with you, and I may switch sides soon as well.

jedlarosa
Community Member

I would like to share my experiences on why I don't like this JOB SUCCESS too. Even though I'm a top rated who have 96% Job success with a total of 91 jobs. I have been using upwork(odesk) for 5 years with most of my jobs are long term. Until I met a client from china with her assistant few months ago.

 

This asssitant is really hard to get in touch with her during the development of my project with them. When the project is almost done. I can't contact the client's assistant anymore for a number of months! I already emailed her many times and still I haven't heard from her for almost a year now! Then suddenly, the assistant's boss ended my contract without notifying me on why she ended my contract!

 

contract.png

Just for your information. The total amount of this fixed price contract was $540. 

 

This end of contract without feedback resulted my JOB SUCCESS SCORE FROM 99% to 96%! I know 96% wasn't bad but for me. It really hurts!!!

 

This is not my fault and you upwork staffs telling us that JS will represent to clients that JS will be the one to measure how good or what kind of quality does this freelancer can offer to clients? Is that what you are after? QUALITY SERVICES/SKILLS from a freelancer? To make clients happy? So that they can easily hire the right freelancer for their project?

 

I DON'T THINK SO! 

 

Your algorithim in JS are not that accurate to seperate 3 different kinds of freelancers here:

1. Expert

2. Moderate

3. Poor

 

You guys should have consulted the freelancers first before you decide by yourselves! 

 

Anyway, back to my story. Thank God, that the client's assisstant came back to me after I accused them in dispute wherein her boss tried to refund the work that I have done so far to their website (90% done).

 

**edited for Community Guidelines**

 

 

I was wondering. What if I had a different situation than this? Wherein, the assisstant was fired by her boss who doesn't speak in english and can only communicate in chinese? And this client ended my contract in an instant without messaging me??!?!?!?!!!! OR HOW ABOUT THAT THESE TWO PEOPLE DOESN'T CARE ANYMORE AND JUST LEAVE ME BEHIND WITH A CONTRACT THAT HAS NO FEEDBACK AT ALL?!?!?!?!? 

 

MARKING MY JS TO HAVE A -3% PERFORMANCE RATING FOREVER!!!

 

WHO IS THE FAULT IS IT PEOPLE?!??!? ME OR THE CLIENT'S ASSISTANT???? 

 

This JS is really worst! I would prefer that the star rating will not be remove!

This JS is really one sided who only benefits clients only! How about the freelancers? 

 

WHERE IS THE JUSTICE THERE????

 

TELL ME?

 

I'm really frustrated whenever I remember this incident with this two people. Even now, I'm still trying to get in touch with the client's asssisstant and trying to get them create another contract with me. Until now, they haven't even create another contract with me even though I already worked on their website without any active contracts with them! I don't even know if they are really serious finishing my project with them as I have already finished their project at 100% last week ago but it's already 1 week have passed again and still they don't have a response from my last email!

 

Now everyone, is the JS really worth it? Who is the fault is it that my JS went down 3%? 

Is it me or the client's assisstant?

 

If you are thinking me that I'm the one who is responsible that my JS went down 3%. Then are you saying that my services and skills are not that good? What if these two people decided that they are not interested anymore. Even though I completely followed their instructions 100% and gave them a high quality website and the only problem is the communication I had with them. How will you fix the -3% penalty on my profile????

 

If that happens, WHERE IS THE JUSTICE THERE PEOPLE?!?!??!?!?!?

 

 

 

 

 

ruben-yeghikyan
Community Member

Hi all,

I have 8 closed contracts and 7 of it was closed with 5.0 and good feedback. Anyone can explain me why my job success is 59%? And how 59% JSS will help me to get new jobs?

UpWork is a good place for clients only. In most cases we(freelancers) haven't any info about client, but clients can see all info about us. When we accept offers from the client and it ends not successful, it will be downgraded our job success. But before accept we haven't any info about clients, and in most case job description is too short and doesn't explain all requirements and not detailed.


This is a really bad idea. Hope you will return feedbacks soon.