Feedback to Management: Unhappy and Aggravated by Upwork’s Overstepping Interference in How we Hire

[b79a0e12]

I have been a huge fan of this website and community since it was still oDesk (the good old days), but these past few years ever since the rebranding to Upwork, the quality and service have dwindled unbelievably, i.e., the busy downtime of the website. Nevertheless, I have always brushed it aside as no big deal.

However, due to recent personal experience, Upwork has crossed the line.

The thing I can’t tolerate is how Upwork is now interfering in how we, as employers, hire our freelancers when we, employers, have our own screening and filtering process.

I have posted a job, and it was the same job in the past and screening and filtering like I have always done by allowing freelancers to submit a very meager sample of the writing work I’ve given to them for preview. To my shock while I was busy in the middle of hiring candidates, the job post was deleted and I found out my account was disabled when it was never a problem at all of this time prior. I was now told of this new Upwork’s violation in which requesting samples are against the TOS.

Yes, I understand that some bad apple employers will abuse the whole free samples to get free work done without paying freelancers but still end up using them. Yet, there are other employers who honestly and legitimately need to see how potential hirees will perform, and the only way to do that is for them to do a quick sample.

Apparently, now employers will need to hire applicants just in order to see if they’re qualified or not, hence, sampling.

The problems are written all over the wall.

This will waste previous amount of time and money by having to now go through hiring applicants who may not even be a perfect fit and costing us employers money to pay for work that may not be usable.

If we have over 100 applicants, hiring all 100 of them just to see if they qualified is ridiculous and impractical...not to mention the astronomical cost of money out of employers’ pockets wasted that may not end up finding any right applicant.

Besides employers, this will also negatively affect freelancers causing lower completion rate with increased “job INcompletion” due to the “NO SAMPLE POLICY” so employers will have to hire freelancers to see if they can do the work, and if the work can’t be done obviously a cancellation will commence afterward and as a result of incompletion, harming the freelancers completion rating.

Not only with the increased in incompletion rating, but there will also be another side effect of increased in negative feedback for both parties. If a freelancer can’t complete the work, but the employer still has to pay for incomplete work or useless sample to assess freelancers’ qualification but end up not hiring them after all to do the initial posted job's work, that will lead to more negative reviews.

Before...we had the FREEDOM to choose how we hire people, but the problem now is that Upwork has taken something akin to a dictatorial inference in how we can choose the people we want to work with, thus discouraging and de-optimizing our workflow.

All I’m asking is to give us back the FREEDOM and FLEXIBLITY in how we choose who is the best person for us to work with.

Let employers and freelaners choose how they decide who they want to work with, but, of course, provide guidance or warning but never interference.

One example of that is the way Upwork always stress to employers to never release payments to a freelancer until the work is 100% satisfactory to our liking, and that Upwork is not responsible for any payment after being released from the escrow.

Why not give that same individual responsibility to freelancers as well? Let them decide whether or not to voluntarily provide samples when employers asked them with Upwork always there providing guidance or warning based upon employers’ reputation and feedback.  In fact, some freelancers even immediatley provide free sample without asking, so there shouldn't be a problem with employers asking and freelancers having the right to decline.

Overall, instead of restricting us, allow us the room to breathe...because it is our project, our business, our baby, etc., that you think you know what’s best and how we should best apporach it...but that’s far from the truth.

This “No Sample Policy” is a step back to something of a virtual totalitarian-society work environment.

In the end, this will eventually cause more harm than good.

[prestonhunter]

Heath:

I can assure you that Upwork's strict enforcement of the "no sample" policy is NOT YOUR FAULT.

You are a genuine client, an ethical, responsible person.

But Upwork has had a big problem with people who are not like you. They are not even "clients" in any real sense. They are simply scammers. They post jobs and trick freelancers into working for free, sometimes for weeks or more than a month at a time, without ever having any intention of paying them. They hire nobody. They bring no revenue to Upwork, and they cause a great deal of distress for the Upwork user community as a whole.

If all clients were like you, this would not be an issue. Unfortunately, for every client such as yourself who has a distinctive "screening style," Upwork has heard from hundreds of freelancers who were asked by scammers to work for free.

If it helps, for planning purposes, Upwork is not going to start allowing clients to ask for free work. But the good news is that you can set up contracts with freelancers for very small amounts of money.

Sorry about the bad people who make this policy necessary.

[prestonhunter]

Also: portfolios.

[b79a0e12]

That's my issue of why let a few bad apples ruin it for everybody? At least, only allow such fredom for those who have an established strong outstanding profile - not for new or abusive employers.

Setting small contracts was another thing that I said is going cost both time and money for employers or higher cancellation for lower completion score for freelancers.

[petra_r]

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@Heath J wrote:

Setting small contracts was another thing that I said is going cost both time and money for employers or higher cancellation for lower completion score for freelancers.

---

 Why would it lead to "higher cancellation?" You hire the most suitable 5 or 10 for a test, and you pay them. Sorted.

As for "costing time" - Not really, the time is just more fairly distributed.

Instead of 100 freelancers wasting their time doing free work, and you having to drudge through 100 samples, you do a preselection and weed it down to 5 or 10.

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Heath,

Just to confirm that asking for free work from freelancers is a violation on our TOS. You can read more details about this in our Terms Of Use under 4. Prohibited Site Uses. 
Petra and Preston posts are correct. You will need to set up a small paid contracts if you would like to receive a sample work from the shortlisted freelancers, or ask them for example of their previous work. You can also view previous work in the Portfolio section on the freelancers profiles. Thank you! 

[petra_r]

Requesting free "custom" samples has been forbidden for literally years. Nothing new about it.

If you never had an issue previously chances are you just didn't get reported for it in the past.

There is another aspect: Chances are that most of the people you really want to hire have taken the time to have a portfolio on their profile and have demonstrated their writing ability by penning a thoughtful, relevant proposal. Such people are usually in demand, and would rather spend their time working and earning money than wasting it writing samples.So by requesting custom (instead of generic, which is allowed) samples, you likely weed out the very people you WANT, because they simply have no need, or the time, to work for free. Especially not for smaller contracts.

It's not that difficult. Of the "100 proposals" at least half will be immediate "No way" candidates. Decline.

Look at the quality of the proposals of the remaining ones. That will again weed out at least half.

Look at the profiles and portfolios of the rest. That will again weed out a decent chunk.

Hire what's left (a handful?) for a short trial and pay them. Problem solved.

[b79a0e12]

Take this for example, there are people who only have great people skills, know how to be interviewed with flying colors, and have had professional help polishing up their resume and profile (and nothing else)...does NOT equate to performing well on the job.

Most of the best workers I have hired, typically in tech-field, were not the most polished or well-spoken individuals during interviews because they’re doers not talkers. While on the other hand, the truth can be said for those on the opposite side of the spectrum who are way too-overly polished professional in order to compensate or hide a lack of skills. Based on experience, this is especially common for freelancers who are really just the agency salesperson/rep with the nice professional communication skills, while the actual real person who does the work may not have strong communication skills...so when you are thinking you are actually hiring the INDVIDUAL who is doing the real work, he/she is actually the third-party middleman or COMPANY who re-outsources the work to somebody else who has the skill but not the presentation and charges you more then takes the cut difference.

[reinierb]

@Heath, just stipulate in your job posting(s) that you will only work with individual freelancers. 

Farming out work on hourly projects is strictly forbidden, and can get a freelancers' account closed in short order. It is possible for a freelancer to subcontract work on fixed price contracts, but only with your explicit consent. If you notice that someone else is doing the work without your knowledge and/or consent, report the freelancer. 

As Petra said- problem solved.  

[b79a0e12]

That's the thing Reinier, we won't always know.

This is similar to the "upfront payment" dilemma of whether employer should pay a freelancer before even doing the work and risking never even recouping the money, but Upwork seems less stringent or lackadaisical regarding such practice of leaving it up to the employer's best judgment with zero liablity on Upwork's part.  But when employers asked for showcase of how potential hiree shall perform on our job, we get punished for it. It's almost like a double standard.

You simply can't assume freelancers will take on a specific work the way an employer want just because they did other works imppecably according to somebody's else critiera in their portofolio, different from another employer's criteria.

[petra_r]

One of my (main) clients used to do unpaid testing. They hire literally thousands of people and spend Millions. They changed that process to better initial screening and selection and PAID testing.

Both the quality of the people hired and the retention appears to have gone UP!

Bottom line: These are the rules. They are in place for good reason, and I would encourage you to embrace them. NOT requesting unpaid samples will get you better applicants, who will currently either report you or simply click the "back" button and ignore your jobs.

[b79a0e12]

Who is this client?

Not requesting samples will attract MORE applicants, but NOT neccessarily better applicants.

That's the point, you want to filter the large pool of applicants down to a smaller group from which you can make a better selection.

I will say that I had done paid testing when it came to bigger important job on a tight schedule, and it resulted in unnecessary huge expenses and multiple duplicate variations of the work even though I only needed to hire ONE applicant was enough for one variation of the work.

You know what, this is getting nowhere.

At least I tried to give my honest feedback, but you guys are so closed-minded and hesistant to be open to accomondate employer's need but instead repeating that your rules are the best for everybody with no help whatsoever.

[g_vasilevski]

Hi Heath, 

Thank you for your feedback I have already shared this with our team. 

[b79a0e12]

Thank you Goran. That means a lot to me and to other potential employers who may also feel the same way.

[purplepony]

Heath, in case you don't know the only Upwork employee who has responded to your posts is Goran V.  You can tell the employees as there's a green circle with Up inside of it to the right of their names.  The rest of us are Freelancers; at least one is a Freelancer and a Client.  Even though we're not employees we're sincerely attempting to be of assistance to you.

[versailles]

Heath's posts raise few comments. Some have already been voiced, but I would like to emphasize some points.

I don't want to give much hiring advice to Heath, especially if he has been successful in screening people the way he has been doing it so far. However, trying to find a screening method with a funnel effect may be a better idea than asking 100 people for customized samples.

Here's the deal, by doing this, Heath immediately deters very good professionals from applying. Since the free test scam has reached such proportions here, many like me would immediately disregard a job post asking for an unpaid customized test. This is actually a problem for the client (who is not an employer by the way), a problem that they may not even be aware of.

Farming is also an issue for Heath. Many people pose as freelancers but are actually salespersons who buy and resell work. We call them farmers. We have actually a richer vocabulary to describe them, but it would be inappropriate for this forum. This is the client-side version of the free work scam that freelancers are experiencing. I think Heath is hiring developers. I'm not one, a developer like Preston may be better placed to provide advice on how to filter out developers, but I think that a call, a video call actually, is a good way to go. I would want to speak with my developer and ask them questions about whatever tech I'm using. Mainly to assess their expertise but also to see if it's them on the profile photo.

Sure, devs are shy people (😀), often. Many would run for the hills if they are asked for a video call, but as long as this requirement is clearly stated in the job post, it means that the actual applicants would probably agree with it.

[resultsassoc]

Heath,

Unpaid work isn't allowed. If you don't like that, go elsewhere. You can solve the problem with putting in time before posting to identify the handful of freelancers most likely to succeed, and inviting them to an invitation-only. If you want a custom test, pay for it.

Most of my job posts are on G***, which is much more transparent. They are usually invite-only to freelancers with portfolios. I limit the number of invites to ten and state that in the body of the job. Freelancers still send in "sponsored" responses, evidently not realizing that the pond is already very small, and assuming incorrectly that I am easily distracted by bright shiny objects. That's my first filter. I respnd to every applicant, keep everyone informed of progress toward hiring, and tell freelancers why they were not selected.

I don't need a sample since I've seen the portfolio. I may ask for a deeper description of the approach, and if it's a complicated job I pay freelancers to prepare an estimate of hours charged and duration of the job. One enterprising freelancer responded to a fixed-price job involving comparative research with a sample of the deliverable using dummy data. I used him for the next several similar jobs.

We cannot carry weapons on board planes not because we're likely to shoot someone, but because even one passenger with a box cutter can kill everyone aboard. Bad apples ruined it for all flyers, and bad apples ruined it for all clients o UW.

I do not ask for a deposit. Most of the work I accept is complex with a great deal of data collection from the client before I produce anything. I do ask that the first phase be data collection and analysis, with a price.

[renata101]

---

@Heath J wrote:

If we have over 100 applicants, hiring all 100 of them just to see if they qualified is ridiculous and impractical...not to mention the astronomical cost of money out of employers’ pockets wasted that may not end up finding any right applicant.

---

 Heath, 

This seems overexaggerated. Of course you don't have to hire all 100 of them. You would simply go about the selection process as you normally would and invite, say the top 3 people to do a paid sample.  And it doesn't have to be an enormous sample. That's fair. People who encourage fair business practices don't mind this. And the added plus is that you show talented freelancers that you're someone with whom they would want to build a relationship because you're not out to get a lot of free work out of them. If you feel the time required for this is too much, maybe you should rethink your process. Freelancers don't alway appreciate high-pressure work with short deadlines, but clients are frequently posting this type of thing on the board. And for astoundingly low budgets. 

We see posts like this frequently as well:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Scammer/m-p/495463 
 

[wendy_writes]

Heath, as a FLer I have never and will never submit a free sample. My portfolio does that if a buyer is savvy enough to take the time.

U's policy of zero free samples is smart and I, for one, am thrilled that it is being actively enforced.

[charles_kozierok]

"That's my issue of why let a few bad apples ruin it for everybody? At least, only allow such fredom for those who have an established strong outstanding profile - not for new or abusive employers."

Unfortunately, it is the "bad apples" that end up "setting policy" in far too many areas of life. Least common denominator and all that. I'll give you one small example... I live near the mountains in New England. They passed a law requiring all trucks to use chains in bad winter weather. Why? Because every year, some truck driver with no clue attempts to go up the mountain and gets stuck, shutting down the highway for hours and wasting local resources to get them unstuck. After several years of this they finally said "enough" and now make everyone put on chains -- even though the vast majority of good drivers probably don't need them.

You may not be aware of just how bad the free sample problem has been in the past. I've seen ebook authors invite dozens of qualified editors, ask each to edit one page as a "sample" and effectively get the entire book done for free. (With horribly inconsistent style, but someone like that doesn't care much about quality.) Designers have frequently been abused, with clients asking for sample designs from expensive providers, stealing the one they like and paying someone cheap to replicate it. And so on.

I think differentiating between new and established providers makes sense to some extent, but I doubt Upwork will do it. For one thing, one could argue that an established provider should know the system better and not need to rely on unpaid samples. For another, it would require Upwork to make a value decision about who is allowed to do this and who is not, or create some tangible "boundary" that would be hard to define and easy to abuse. But mostly, Upwork doesn't get their cut on work that isn't paid, and getting their cut is their (overwhelmingly) primary priority.

I'm curious.. as an established client, you should be good at assessing applications and reviewing profiles. I mean, any client should be able to look at the profile of someone like myself and immediately get a good idea of what I can do without requiring a paid sample.. is there a reason this doesn't work for you?

I recently was hired by a company to do editing. They hired me for $5 to do a sample, liked it, and then set up additional milestones.

Think of this RL analogy: the applications are resumes, and the paid samples are interviews. You don't grant interviews to everyone; you shortlist a few top candidates and interview them. Interviewing takes time and that costs money. A paid sample is basically the same thing (only substantially cheaper).

[charles_kozierok]

"That's my issue of why let a few bad apples ruin it for everybody? At least, only allow such fredom for those who have an established strong outstanding profile - not for new or abusive employers."

Unfortunately, it is the "bad apples" that end up "setting policy" in far too many areas of life. Least common denominator and all that. I'll give you one small example... I live near the mountains in New England. They passed a law requiring all trucks to use chains in bad winter weather. Why? Because every year, some truck driver with no clue attempts to go up the mountain and gets stuck, shutting down the highway for hours and wasting local resources to get them unstuck. After several years of this they finally said "enough" and now make everyone put on chains -- even though the vast majority of good drivers probably don't need them.

You may not be aware of just how bad the free sample problem has been in the past. I've seen ebook authors invite dozens of qualified editors, ask each to edit one page as a "sample" and effectively get the entire book done for free. (With horribly inconsistent style, but someone like that doesn't care much about quality.) Designers have frequently been abused, with clients asking for sample designs from expensive providers, stealing the one they like and paying someone cheap to replicate it. And so on.

I think differentiating between new and established providers makes sense to some extent, but I doubt Upwork will do it. For one thing, one could argue that an established provider should know the system better and not need to rely on unpaid samples. For another, it would require Upwork to make a value decision about who is allowed to do this and who is not, or create some tangible "boundary" that would be hard to define and easy to abuse. But mostly, Upwork doesn't get their cut on work that isn't paid, and getting their cut is their (overwhelmingly) primary priority.

I'm curious.. as an established client, you should be good at assessing applications and reviewing profiles. I mean, any client should be able to look at the profile of someone like myself and immediately get a good idea of what I can do without requiring a paid sample.. is there a reason this doesn't work for you?

I recently was hired by a company to do editing. They hired me for $5 to do a sample, liked it, and then set up additional milestones.

Think of this RL analogy: the applications are resumes, and the paid samples are interviews. You don't grant interviews to everyone; you shortlist a few top candidates and interview them. Interviewing takes time and that costs money. A paid sample is basically the same thing (only substantially cheaper).