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1b17ceaf
Community Member

Hiring

do i hire more than one frelancer untill someone accepts?

29 REPLIES 29
prestonhunter
Community Member

You may be confusing "offering" (or "sending a Hire offer") with "hiring."

 

If you click the green "Hire" button by a freelancer's name, this does NOT cause the freelancer to be hired.

 

The green "Hire" button sends an OFFER to the freelancer.

 

The freelancer hasn't been hired yet. The freelancer will see your offer. The freelancer must click an "Accept" button. At that point, when the freelancer clicks the button on their end, the freelancer is actually hired.

 

It is possible for you to click the "Hire" button for 10 different freelancers. But none of them has accepted yet!

 

Then one accepts.

 

Then you can WITHDRAW the offer for the other nine freelancers.


Or you could NOT withdraw the offer. You could hire MULTIPLE freelancers for the same task, if you want to.

 

Maybe five freelancers will DECLINE your offer, and four more will accept your offer.

 

There is no limit to the number of freelancers you may hire.

Unless you’re prepared to actually pay more than one freelancer, I would advise you to make only one offer at a time, then allow the freelancer at least 24 hours to accept the offer, and if they don’t, then withdraw the offer and send an offer to a different freelancer. Because if 2 freelancers accept your offer but then you cancel the contract for one of them before they receive any payment, then you will hurt their Job Success Score.
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"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

John, you are looking out for the freelancers, which is admirable.

 

But if a client does not want to hire multiple freelancers, it is a simple matter to withdraw hire offers after one freelancer accepts an offer. If the client does that, then there is no impact whatsoever to the freelancers who were not hired.

 

Also, if a client hires a freelancer and decides he does not need her services, all he needs to do is pay a $5.00 bonus payment, and there will be no negative impact to their JSS due to having a zero-pay contract.

 

I have had that happen to me as a freelancer, and I have done that for other freelancers as a client.


Preston H wrote:

John, you are looking out for the freelancers, which is admirable.

 

But if a client does not want to hire multiple freelancers, it is a simple matter to withdraw hire offers after one freelancer accepts an offer. If the client does that, then there is no impact whatsoever to the freelancers who were not hired.

 

Also, if a client hires a freelancer and decides he does not need her (??) services, all he needs to do is pay a $5.00 bonus payment, and there will be no negative impact to their JSS due to having a zero-pay contract.

 

I have had that happen to me as a freelancer, and I have done that for other freelancers as a client.


If the client does not want to hire multiple freelancers than they should not send multiple offers.

 

The client sends out 10 offers, and its all well and good saying "just withdraw the others once one freelancer accepts" but what happens if no one has accepted, the client goes to bed, gets up the next morning and they have inadvertantly hired 10 freelancers that are all expecting to start a new project for the client?

 

Yes they can pay $45 to protect the freelancers JSS scores, but they shouldnt have to and i dont think its something that many clients would do.

 

Unless the client wants to hire more than 1 freelancer they should not send more than one offer at a time. 


Jonathan H wrote:


If the client does not want to hire multiple freelancers than they should not send multiple offers.

 

Unless the client wants to hire more than 1 freelancer they should not send more than one offer at a time. 


Thank you for having common sense.

OBVIOUSLY in any universe other than on Planet Preston that is the correct answer.

 

Preston used to cheerfully suggest hiring a bunch of people on hourly contracts and then closing the contracts of everyone other than the first to submit and similar "profile-slaughtering" nonsense.

 

Say the contract is even just a miniscule $50 - should the client really tie up $ 500 in Escrow funds and send 10 offers to random strangers, with losing money on every escrow return as currency fees if not in the US?


Utterly ridiculous.


Petra R wrote:
Thank you for having common sense.

OBVIOUSLY in any universe other than on Planet Preston that is the correct answer.

 

Preston used to cheerfully suggest hiring a bunch of people on hourly contracts and then closing the contracts of everyone other than the first to submit and similar "profile-slaughtering" nonsense.

 

Say the contract is even just a miniscule $50 - should the client really tie up $ 500 in Escrow funds and send 10 offers to random strangers, with losing money on every escrow return as currency fees if not in the US?


Utterly ridiculous.


Indeed!

 

I had not even considered the consequences on the client side if making multiple hires (having to pay multiple milestones for each offer)!

These are excellent points from Jonathan and Petra.

 

I was answering questions about how the Upwork system works physically. It is good to be aware of how things work.

 

I was not recommending any specific method of hiring.

 

For the record, sending multiple simultaneous hire offers to freelancers is NOT meant as a “recommendation.”

 

I pointed out the ramifications of doing so, offered pointers about when doing so could be appropriate, and how doing so could be done.

 

But I do not recommend doing so generally.

 

Obviously the main situation in which a client would send multiple simultaneous hire offers is when everyone he sends an offer to is someone who he legitimately wants to hire, and when he intends to hire multiple freelancers for the same task. I have hired and paid up to twenty freelancers for the same job.

 

Participants in this thread have clearly indicated not liking the idea of sending multiple simultaneous hire offers when a client only wants to hire one person.

 

I agree that there are problems with this concept. But that does not change the fact that it is physically possible to do so. And it is possible to do so in a way that does not negatively impact any freelancer’s JSS. That does not mean it is a good idea. But I can see situations where a client might do this for what they feel are legitimate reasons.

 

 


Preston H wrote:

I was answering questions about how the Upwork system works physically. It is good to be aware of how things work.


Well, i think the OP was asking the usual/normal way to deal with hiring, not what is or, is not possible with the system. I have no doubt that they are probably more confused now than when they first asked Smiley LOL

 


Preston H wrote:

I agree that there are problems with this concept. But that does not change the fact that it is physically possible to do so. And it is possible to do so in a way that does not negatively impact any freelancer’s JSS. That does not mean it is a good idea. But I can see situations where a client might do this for what they feel are legitimate reasons.


No, this is not correct - the only way to NOT impact the freelancers JSS (negatively) after they have accepted your offer of work, is to hire all of those that accept (even if its just for a nominal fee). This involves funding multiple contracts and hiring all the freelancers that accepted for an agreed fee.

So if the client only wants to hire ONE freelancer it is not possible!

 

 

 

 

I clearly described multiple ways in which it is possible. Paying everyone who accepts the hire offer is one way. Withdrawing all remaining offers after hiring one freelancer is another way.

 

You are correct that sending multiple simultaneous hire offers is NOT the normal way to hire.

 

If my explanation of how hiring works made that unclear, that is my fault.

 

I hope this is clear enough:

 

If you want to hire only one freelancer, I recommend sending a hire offer only to one freelancer at a time.


Preston H wrote:

 Withdrawing all remaining offers after hiring one freelancer is another way.

This is not a viable way, if you have sent multiple offers you have no control over how quickly people respond and threrefor cant assume that you can just withdraw the other offers. 

 

 


Preston H wrote:

 

I was not recommending any specific method of hiring.

 


So if client asks a question and you write multiple paragraphs spelling out how he could do this, that, or the other, how is that NOT a recommendation? Maybe you don't see it, but believe me, most people will think that you're advising them to take a certain course of action, otherwise why bother posting a response at all?

 

Christine: I see what you are saying.

 

The original answer was an answer with an illustration meant to explain the physical mechanics of Upwork’s hiring system. It was a not recommendation about how to hire.

 

My original post in this thread was an answer to the original poster’s question. It helped the original poster understand how hiring works.

 

This thread grew to have many posts from many participants. I can definitely see that there is concern about how the answer could be misconstrued.

 

The thread as a whole now discusses these topics in detail, with concern from all for how various actions would impact both clients and freelancers.

 

I think anybody reading this thread would learn a lot if they didn’t already know these things.


Preston H wrote:

 

The thread as a whole now discusses these topics in detail, with concern from all for how various actions would impact both clients and freelancers.

 

I think anybody reading this thread would learn a lot if they didn’t already know these things.


Yes, there was eventually a detailed discussion, but nearly 6 hours went by in between your response to the client and John pointing out the ramifications. Within that time, the client may have seen your response and hired a bunch of freelancers already, thereby putting their JSS scores in jeopardy. So, that's on you. 

 


Christine wrote:

 


Preston H wrote:

 

I was not recommending any specific method of hiring.

 


So if client asks a question and you write multiple paragraphs spelling out how he could do this, that, or the other, how is that NOT a recommendation?

 


I think what we're seeing here is a concept called "backpeddaling furiously after being caught giving positively foul advice by pretending it was not advice, just a list of what is technically possible."

 

It's like telling a blind person at a cross road that they can cross, just to watch them get run down by a nice big truck and saying "Well, I never told him he SHOULD cross, I just said that he CAN. He never asked if he could cross SAFELY!"

 


Preston wrote:

I have hired and paid up to twenty freelancers for the same job.

 


Twenty, eh? Wow. Impressive.

Which job was that as Upwork is clearly obmitting it from your client history,

 

 

re: “Which job was that?”

 

Thank you for asking.

 

I hired exclusively through Upwork for this:

http://www.database-design.org

 

...hiring over a dozen Microsoft Access specialists to write content, plus six or seven designers, whose submissions I combined.

 

A few people I hired never turned in any work within the deadline. But most did.

 

This is a good example of the type of project where a client would intentionally want to hire multiple freelancers simultaneously. I wanted many different perspectives on the same questions.

 

And I wanted many different ideas for the design. These were hourly contracts, so everyone was paid for their time. This way, no money was tied up in escrow.

 

For the content writing, I don’t recall off the top of my head if I used a single job posting or a couple revisions. May have been a single version. But obviously the visual design and writing was done through different job postings.

 

There are lots of other jobs I have posted to hire multiple freelancers, including multiple penetration testers, and multiple artists to design a suite of original avatar images for which I wanted multiple styles.

 

As a freelancer I have worked on many projects which hire many freelancers, sometimes dozens or more.

 

I don’t think that every job (or most jobs even) need to hire multiple freelancers. But it is not uncommon.


Preston H wrote:

re: “Which job was that?”

 

Thank you for asking.

 

I hired exclusively through Upwork for this:

http://www.database-design.org

 

...hiring over a dozen Microsoft Access specialists to write content, plus six or seven designers, whose submissions I combined.

 

.


For the whole site? Or for the Q/A? In which case that's not a job, that's a survey...

Over twenty people in total were hired for the Q/A and the design.

 

Some of the people who were hired never did any work, and were not paid anything.

 

The site ended up featuring Q/A content from 14 Access specialists, and design from six different designers.

 

I don’t mind if you refer to this as a “survey.” A survey is a legitimate type of job on Upwork. This is an example of a job I used to hire people to answer questions, although it was not formally a “survey.”

 

I have also participated in more structured, formal paid surveys as a freelancer, both written and phone-based.


Preston H wrote:

Over twenty people in total were hired for the Q/A and the design.

 

Some of the people who were hired never did any work, and were not paid anything.


So contrary to the claim that over 20 people were hired and paid for the same job ("I have hired and paid up to twenty freelancers for the same job."), people were hired to do different things and not everyone was paid.

 

Thanks for clearing that up.

Yes, that is a good point. In looking at the site now and the work submitted, it looks like a total of 20 people who were paid, using separate job postings for MS Access database specialists and web designers.

 

So the precise numbers would be 20 people hired and paid to work on the "project," but not through a single job posting.

 

With more people who were sent hire offers for both Q/A and design work, some of whom accepted the offers but did no work, and some of whom did not accept the offers.

 

Anybody reading this far into the thread woud be able to see that it is certainly possible to send multiple hire offers on Upwork, the types of situations in whch it makes sense to do so are very specific, and do not constitute the majority of jobs posted on Upwork.

I don't know about y'all, as I believe you are all in different fields than I, but as a designer when I see that a client wants to hire multiple freelancers, I'll usually bow out. The budget is not typically going to be adequate for those jobs anyway, but I use Upwork to get away from the 99designs mentality.

re: "I don't know about y'all, as I believe you are all in different fields than I, but as a designer when I see that a client wants to hire multiple freelancers, I'll usually bow out. The budget is not typically going to be adequate for those jobs anyway, but I use Upwork to get away from the 99designs mentality."

 

I appreciate your observations about this.

 

I have been involved in hiring designers on Upwork in different ways. I have hired designers to work on personal projects of my own. And I am often involved in helping clients hire designers for projects that I'm working on as a programmer., because I don't want to do front-end design myself. Plus (as I point out to my clents), they are far better off hiring dedicated designers than trying to get me to do their design. I would only be able to do a mediocre job for them. So whenever possible I encourage project owners to hire real designers to do their design work. (Unless the design doesn't matter, such as with back-end work that will only used by a few administrators.)

 

For my personal projects, I have only hired designers using hourly contracts.

The same goes for the projects I have worked on as a programmer which hire other freelancers to do front-end design. These projects have hired designers using hourly contracts.

 

In all cases, these hires have been made using the freelancer's hourly rate.

 

So I don't think "budget" is a factor, because the freelancer is being paid for her time.

 

Some of these projects have only required an hour or two of work from the freelancer. On some of these projects, designers have been paid thousands of dollars.

 

When I have hired multiple designers to work on the same project, I did not indicate in the job posting that I was looking for multiple people. Would that have made a difference to them? I don't know. I have never really thought about it.

 

If you saw one of my job postings, to do graphic design or web design using an hourly contract, would that be something you would avoid because you don't like hourly work?

 

If you knew I wanted to hire multiple designers, would that make a difference to you if the contract was hourly?

@ Jonathon,  I think I love you.

 

What no one is mentioning is the very negative impact 'hiring' multiple freelancers for a gig and then paying them a token $5 a pop has on a buyer's profile.  Such actions utterly destroy the buyer's credibility in the eyes of any savvy FLer. 

 

No creds = no quality applicants going forward.

Thats a good point.

 

If I see a job posted with no specified budget or on hourly rates, then one of the first things I do is look at the clients average hourly rate and then look at history to see what they have paid for similar projects. If I see a load of jobs paid at a few $ an hour of $5/$10 fixed price jobs then i generally flag as 'insufficient budget' and move on.

 

If a client sends me 2 offers and I accept, does it count as 2 hires for that job?

Yes i need a reply regarding that also

Well explained!

3a4c6091
Community Member

  1. yes
khushbu_gohil
Community Member

Yeah you can hire 😊 just confirm your milestone and requirements with respective freelancer so you can plan your budget 

439dbde0
Community Member

Yes, You can cause if you hire just one freelancer he may not be interest with your Project so that's why you have to hire more than one freelancer.
THAT'S MY OPINION ON THAT!!!

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