Bids - if you don't receive enough quality bids...

[msimon_pm]

Hi Clients (and recruiters, Upwork product developers),

If you ever wondered how do your job posts, wording, specification, and your activity influence what kind of bids you'll see, read on. How to make searches better targeted and more focused, as of December 2023?

• Freelancers pay with "connects" for sending you bids or clarifying questions, and these cost $0.6 to $3 each, without boosting

• Update(s) of the job description, like adding a software's name as a requirement after posting, means most of the bids so far received, become junk and thus, hidden

• Your choice of a specific time zone narrows down the listed bids on your screen. Great for an 8am to 5pm data entry or customer service desk job, contraproductive on consulting/HR/IT/AI etc. projects

• Your activity is visible/searcheable for freelancers, the following signs may make experienced freelancers to think twice about responding to your job post:
  • the majority of job posts on your account were never awarded - you can cancel or close the job post(s) and doing so, you show respect of the freelancers' efforts and you refund the connects to the freelancers 
  • 50+ active bids? - you can click on the down thumb next to bids you don't like, pushing down the number of active bids
  • you indicated that you need one freelancer, you hired one and left the job post open - if you want to test a hired freelancer, best to start at the beginning of the job post creation with "I need more than one..."

Wishing you a Happy New Year with lots of viable projects,

Monika

[the-right-writer]

• While I appreciate your interest in helping,  a couple of your comments are incorrect.
•  
• Freelancers pay with "connects" for sending you bids or clarifying questions, and these cost $0.6 to $3 each, without boosting

I have no idea where you found this, but it is incorrect. Connects are $ .15 a piece.

Why would the client care if freelancers want to pay for advertising?

• Update(s) of the job description, like adding a software's name as a requirement after posting, means most of the bids so far received, become junk and thus, hidden

This is also not accurate. Where did you find this information?

[msimon_pm]

Thanks for your kind reply, Jeanne. Something maybe got lost in translation, English is only my third language

1. it is correct that 1 connect costs $.15, but 1 bid costs 8 or 16 connects (or more)

2. only those clients should care who need good freelancers with specific skill sets

3. once you update your job post selecting specific software, language, location or any other criteria, all bids from freelancers whose profile settings don't meet your (new) criteria won't be listed among the bids - sure, you can go to the end of the visible list, and click on viewing those bids that are not a "perfect match" according to the algorithms, but I only do so when I am desperate to find a specific knowledge-experience-mindset-mentality combo which I need

If you know about any other things that can help make Upwork work better for both clients and freelancers, please help me to learn new tricks

[the-right-writer]

Miscommunication happens, so no worries 🙂 

Keep reading the forums, for freelancers and clients. New subjects pop up frequently.

[msimon_pm]

Yes, new subjects pop up frequently, Jeanne.