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2a05aa63
Community Member

Freelancer's responsiveness

I've hired some tutors over the last years via Upwork, and I was impressed how many freelancers don't reply on the same day when you are interviewing them. (I'm not talking about interview invitations, but actual chat interaction during the interviews). Some even vanish after sending one message, when you are writing to them essential part of the job and reply few days later. 

Sometime I was willing to hire them, but they were so passive about it, it just made me not want to work with them. 

Is it common for freelancers to behave like this? On one hand I see 50% of community post about "I'm not getting hired. help!" and on the other - freelancers being so passive you don't want to hire them.

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kinector
Community Member


Viacheslav K wrote:

Sometime I was willing to hire them, but they were so passive about it, it just made me not want to work with them. 

Is it common for freelancers to behave like this? On one hand I see 50% of community post about "I'm not getting hired. help!" and on the other - freelancers being so passive you don't want to hire them.


Common? Yes. Sadly.

 

It's usually those who are not doing freelance for a living, so the day job, studies, or something else in their lives takes all the energy. This is what makes "freelance" sound bad to many.

 

Simply don't hire hobbyists. Unfortunately, it is a bit hard to know who is who before hiring and working with them. 🙄

 

Perhaps the most recent Upwork history tells you most about what you can expect. The other way is to hire people to do small projects first to test the water.

 

This platform is not short of dreamers and wantrepreneurs, unfortunately.

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11 REPLIES 11
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Viacheslav,

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I don't have an answer to your question as to why this happens. However, this is definitely important feedback for us to be aware of as we continue working on better educating talent and clients about best practices around communication, interviewing and other aspects of using the platform.

~ Valeria
Upwork
kinector
Community Member


Viacheslav K wrote:

Sometime I was willing to hire them, but they were so passive about it, it just made me not want to work with them. 

Is it common for freelancers to behave like this? On one hand I see 50% of community post about "I'm not getting hired. help!" and on the other - freelancers being so passive you don't want to hire them.


Common? Yes. Sadly.

 

It's usually those who are not doing freelance for a living, so the day job, studies, or something else in their lives takes all the energy. This is what makes "freelance" sound bad to many.

 

Simply don't hire hobbyists. Unfortunately, it is a bit hard to know who is who before hiring and working with them. 🙄

 

Perhaps the most recent Upwork history tells you most about what you can expect. The other way is to hire people to do small projects first to test the water.

 

This platform is not short of dreamers and wantrepreneurs, unfortunately.

You should be aware that the people that you hire may live in other time zone than yours, and that his time of working may not be standard. But the freelancer should communicate his availability time range.


Lucio Ricardo M wrote:
You should be aware that the people that you hire may live in other time zone than yours, and that his time of working may not be standard. But the freelancer should communicate his availability time range.

24 hours is enough to fit into a reasonable hour to reply.

ceefaeca
Community Member

That is so true. Mainly because people apply for jobs but don't know how to do it! I posted a job once from my client account and someone literally sent me this cover letter:

 

"interested"

 

that's all!! This was the cover letter.

 

I wanted to search for someone who can help me put my CV in the LaTex template (which I created) and couldn't find even a single person. I did approach to someone and they took forever in replying. When I read anything like "I cannot find job" here on this community forum, I prefer to visit the person's profile usually to see what they are doing. In most cases, people don't understand how this platform works.

 

That's why I feel, it is very simple to get jobs here if one knows some basics and act professionally. 

I guess you can find all kinds of cases. As a freelance I always cherry-pick my proposals so that I can spend time on them, do some research and point out approaches or quoting if I can do that straight away.

 

It usually happens that you spend an hour or more doing all of that and you don't even get a "Thank you" note.

 

"My Stats" even tells me that I'm less often interviewed than others, so either the other freelancers put up a better cover letter than me or my potential clients usually don't like to read too much or this metric is flawed.

And as counter-intuitive as it may sound, "My Stats" also tells me I'm hired more often than most of the others.

I'm still trying to figure out how those two metrics fit each other.


Marc C wrote:

I guess you can find all kinds of cases. As a freelance I always cherry-pick my proposals so that I can spend time on them, do some research and point out approaches or quoting if I can do that straight away.

 

It usually happens that you spend an hour or more doing all of that and you don't even get a "Thank you" note.

 

"My Stats" even tells me that I'm less often interviewed than others, so either the other freelancers put up a better cover letter than me or my potential clients usually don't like to read too much or this metric is flawed.

And as counter-intuitive as it may sound, "My Stats" also tells me I'm hired more often than most of the others.

I'm still trying to figure out how those two metrics fit each other.


1. As a freelancer I have never expected a thank you note for submitting a proposal. I don't spend a second thinking on proposals once they've been sent, until a client lets me know they want to talk. 

 

2. Spending an hour on every proposal is unreasonable and not sustainable. And as you can see, not very successful for you. I spend about 10 minutes on a proposal. I get interviewed and hired more often than my peers. 

 

3. The stat of hiring says that for the times you are interviewed, you are hired more often. So your peers are interviewed more often. However, when you are interviewed, you are more likely to close the deal. That's good. And it points to your proposals needing more work, because obviously when you get interviewed, you're more likely to close the deal. So you need to work on getting past the proposal stage and into the interview stage. 

Yes, it makes sense the way you relate both metrics, I can see it now. Thank you very much for the explanation. 

 

And thank you very much also for the tips on how to be more successful, but I really don't think having a lower interview rate (40%) means my proposals need more work.

 

My profile is also viewed more often than others (63%), which I assume it means the clients do like my proposals a bit more than average, otherwise they wouldn't be checking it. So I'm confident my proposals serve well their prupose, which I think it is not the immediate interview but being checked out.

 

In my opinion, I don't get as many interviews, because my profile is not attractive enough for my potential customers. I'm sure I could work on improving it (badges, more sample projects, catalog,..) but some will still not like it enough for two reasons: my brief career at Upwork (one month old, so few reviews and few earnings to back my skills and expertise) and my lack of an engineering academic title (I apply for web development jobs).

These are also the reasons why I think I have to spend extra time and effort on my proposals and eventual interviews, so that they end up inerviewing me despite my  obvious profile handicaps.

 

The ones who don't mind hiring someone new and don't mind hiring someone without an academic title related to the services offered (or simply don't check the profile) end up hiring me more than average (88%).

 

Given all conditions, I'm actually very happy with all my rates, including the interview one.

 

But the unresponsiveness the original poster mentioned does happen both ways and it is not such a big deal either way. That was my point.

a_lipsey
Community Member


Viacheslav K wrote:

I've hired some tutors over the last years via Upwork, and I was impressed how many freelancers don't reply on the same day when you are interviewing them. (I'm not talking about interview invitations, but actual chat interaction during the interviews). Some even vanish after sending one message, when you are writing to them essential part of the job and reply few days later. 

Sometime I was willing to hire them, but they were so passive about it, it just made me not want to work with them. 

Is it common for freelancers to behave like this? On one hand I see 50% of community post about "I'm not getting hired. help!" and on the other - freelancers being so passive you don't want to hire them.


I'm not sure if this answers your question at all, but Upwork messaging, in my opinion, is asynchronous. Unless I've agreed to a set interview time, I am answering messages between completing all my current clients' work. Now, if I am obviously engaged in active back and forth with a client, I will let them know before I just stop responding that I will have to return to the conversation later. When a client sends a message, I respond when I am able, and typically not on weekends, unless it's a quick response to let them know I'll handle it on Monday. 

 

As a client, I sort of expect the same. If we are actively having a chat text conversation, I sort of expect they will let me know if they are stepping away so I don't sit and wait for a response. If I'm just sending a message, I don't expect them to respond right away. 

 

What I think you are referring to is that you are in the middle of an active conversation and they just stop responding? Maybe it would be helpful at the start of the conversation to say "Do you have 20 minutes or so for an interview via Upwork chat/text messaging to see if this is a good fit?" That way they know you are expecting them to actually respond during this time? 

 

I mean, maybe they are just confused. I generally don't interview freelancers (or do interviews myself) through messaging. I set up interviews via messaging but I use the Zoom integration. 


Amanda L wrote:


I'm not sure if this answers your question at all, but Upwork messaging, in my opinion, is asynchronous. Unless I've agreed to a set interview time, I am answering messages between completing all my current clients' work. Now, if I am obviously engaged in active back and forth with a client, I will let them know before I just stop responding that I will have to return to the conversation later. When a client sends a message, I respond when I am able, and typically not on weekends, unless it's a quick response to let them know I'll handle it on Monday. 

 

As a client, I sort of expect the same. If we are actively having a chat text conversation, I sort of expect they will let me know if they are stepping away so I don't sit and wait for a response. If I'm just sending a message, I don't expect them to respond right away. 

 

What I think you are referring to is that you are in the middle of an active conversation and they just stop responding? Maybe it would be helpful at the start of the conversation to say "Do you have 20 minutes or so for an interview via Upwork chat/text messaging to see if this is a good fit?" That way they know you are expecting them to actually respond during this time? 

 

I mean, maybe they are just confused. I generally don't interview freelancers (or do interviews myself) through messaging. I set up interviews via messaging but I use the Zoom integration. 


The way of chatting you describe is correct!
But most people were just replying very slowly in general. Like the answer to "When are you available to start/for a videocall?" will come in 2-3 work days after asking without even an apologing or explaining the delay. I do understand that after you work some time, the freelancer won't reply in the first 5 minutes of sending a message, but I'd expect people to be as swift as possible during interview, when the job will be closed when they finally decide to reply.


Viacheslav K wrote:

Amanda L wrote:


I'm not sure if this answers your question at all, but Upwork messaging, in my opinion, is asynchronous. Unless I've agreed to a set interview time, I am answering messages between completing all my current clients' work. Now, if I am obviously engaged in active back and forth with a client, I will let them know before I just stop responding that I will have to return to the conversation later. When a client sends a message, I respond when I am able, and typically not on weekends, unless it's a quick response to let them know I'll handle it on Monday. 

 

As a client, I sort of expect the same. If we are actively having a chat text conversation, I sort of expect they will let me know if they are stepping away so I don't sit and wait for a response. If I'm just sending a message, I don't expect them to respond right away. 

 

What I think you are referring to is that you are in the middle of an active conversation and they just stop responding? Maybe it would be helpful at the start of the conversation to say "Do you have 20 minutes or so for an interview via Upwork chat/text messaging to see if this is a good fit?" That way they know you are expecting them to actually respond during this time? 

 

I mean, maybe they are just confused. I generally don't interview freelancers (or do interviews myself) through messaging. I set up interviews via messaging but I use the Zoom integration. 


The way of chatting you describe is correct!
But most people were just replying very slowly in general. Like the answer to "When are you available to start/for a videocall?" will come in 2-3 work days after asking without even an apologing or explaining the delay. I do understand that after you work some time, the freelancer won't reply in the first 5 minutes of sending a message, but I'd expect people to be as swift as possible during interview, when the job will be closed when they finally decide to reply.


Oh yes, that's unreasonably long in regards to setting up an interview. If they take that long to respond to a request to set up a time, I've moved on already. As a freelance, if a client responds to my proposal to set up a time, even if I can't meet right away, I let them know my availability right away. 

 

Maybe you've just hit a patch of freelancers who haven't really established professional standards for themselves yet?

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