How can I contact a freelancer who declined an invite, but asked me to get in touch?

[ffa124b3]

I posted a job and invited a freelancer who I thought would be a good fit. He declined, but wrote back and told me he didn't think he could commit to the whole project, but would bw open to discussing the possibility of doing certain discrete parts of it. I would like to explore this idea with him to see if it would work. How can I contact him? I see no way to do this. 

[abinadab-agbo]

I don't think this freelancer is serious about working with you. But if you must, you can

- Post another job, indicating in the job posting or in your message inviting him that you're open to him doing parts of the project

- Send him a direct offer and withdraw it. This will create a message room b/w you too; or

- Upgrade to Upwork plus. This will afford you a few free DMs not related to any job post. You may then proceed to chat with the freelancer about your project.

[ffa124b3]

I don't see how you can draw the conclusion that he's not serious, if he specifically asked about working on certain aspects of the job, for which he has demonstrated expertise. 

In any case, if that's how you have to do this, that's a pretty lame workaround (no reflection on you for suggesting it, but on UpWork for not making this kind of communication a possibility). The freelancer should have the option to open a line of communication with the customer, for situations like this. I am sure there are plenty of scenarios where someone is a good fit for a specific part of a project, but not the whole thing, which might be too broadly scoped. 

[petra_r]

Simply go to his profile and click on "Invite" - then follow the process to create an invite only job post. Explain in the invite what you are after. If the freelancer accepts the invite, it will create a message room where you can discuss the project.

---

Perry P wrote:

I don't see how you can draw the conclusion that he's not serious

---

You are absolutely right. Such a conclusion can't be drawn from what you have shared so far.

[abinadab-agbo]

Indeed it was my assessment that the freelancer was not keen on working with you.

If he was, he'd have accepted your invite sending in a proposal in which he specifies that he can only do part(s) of the project. Accepting will open a chat between you two, and you can carry on ironing out the details there.

By clicking the decline button he aborted a possibility of communication between you two.

If he has any sort of history here, he'd know that is the outcome of declining an invite.

But I may be wrong. Which is why I suggested other ways you can still reach out to him.

Indeed some freelancers will not respond positively to job posts that contain any parts they can't complete or do not meet the requirement. Even though you're free to iron out scope and specify the exact deets in your offer which may or may not be different from the job post, some freelancers may be concerned you'll not be 100% satisfied because you'll feel like they talked you down on scope. So they'll just decline. It's an ace it or botch it culture that sucks indeed.

[a_lipsey]

---

Abinadab A wrote:

Indeed it was my assessment that the freelancer was not keen on working with you.

If he was, he'd have accepted your invite sending in a proposal in which he specifies that he can only do part(s) of the project. Accepting will open a chat between you two, and you can carry on ironing out the details there.

By clicking the decline button he aborted a possibility of communication between you two.

If he has any sort of history here, he'd know that is the outcome of declining an invite.

But I may be wrong. Which is why I suggested other ways you can still reach out to him.

Indeed some freelancers will not respond positively to job posts that contain any parts they can't complete or do not meet the requirement. Even though you're free to iron out scope and specify the exact deets in your offer which may or may not be different from the job post, some freelancers may be concerned you'll not be 100% satisfied because you'll feel like they talked you down on scope. So they'll just decline. It's an ace it or botch it culture that sucks indeed.

---

I tend to agree that if he was actually open to working with you he would have accepted your invite and explained what part of the scope he could or couldn't do. 

[prestonhunter]

If you have somebody willing to work on a specialized task within the broader scope of a complex project, that is a good thing. Any complex project is likely to benefit from having a team of specialists rather than a single individual working on it.

Even if you have a team of freelancers equally proficient in the same tasks, a complex project will benefit by having more than one person familiar with the system. If for no other reason than because you have backup personnel and cross-training available in case somebody goes on vacation or gets sick or if you simply have more work that needs to be done this week than a single individual can handle.