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86936de3
Community Member

Send an answer to all candidates

Hi! When I post a job and I get lots of candidates applying for it, can I send a bulk message to all of them to keep them updated about the project? Let's say that I want to add some information about the project or as everyone to make a quote or give an update about the selection process.

Best, Martin

7 REPLIES 7
AleksandarD
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Martin,

 

Unfortunately, this option is not available at the moment. You need to message individually each freelancer with an update about the project. However, I'll share this as feedback with our team for consideration.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork

Hello support! Thanks for the info - yes, that would be a great option to have!
Kind regards, Martin Millinger
tta192
Community Member

Once you actually hire all those freelancers you are allowed to communicate with them outside the platform. All you need is their email addresses then you can send messages to all of them at once.

Of course, you'll have to pay for the time each one of them spends reading your messages so make sure all this is relevant to the project. 

 

If you wish not to pay for this activity, then why would multiple freelancers (I assume tens of them since you're having trouble sending individual messages) want to waste random amounts of time whenever you think of something? 

Better focus on a small group of freelancers and keep them in the loop - by manually sending them individual messages - until you hire one of them (or until they all get bored of the 'selection process').

 

As a client, spending a lot of time on the hiring process, or spending a lot of time interviewing a large number of people, is mostly a waste of time.

 

It is better to "hire quickly and fire quickly."

 

That means: Don't try to figure out which individual freelancer will be the best for your project. That is impossible. Hire lots of freelancers to see how they work out and continue working with the best ones. This may mean adjusting how you write job posts. Instead of saying you want to hire writers to write blog posts for the next five years, you might need to say you are hiring writers to write a single blog post, but top-performing writers will have the opportunity to continue with the project on a long-term basis.

Preston is an excellent client. I've never worked for him, but his advice is usually spot on. He and I differ on only a few issues, and this is one. If you're hiring someone to write blog posts, his approach makes sense. If you're hiring somene to be the subject matter expert on fleet strategy for an international airline, nobody will work with you.

 

Most of my job postings are somewhere in between. I occasionally need someone to do commodity work, such as data entry, and my former business partner handles that. She has a host of firms that do this kind of thing,  and manages them for other clients. She is semi-retired, so I turn commodity work over to her and she tells me whom to hire. The whole process is a black box to me.

 

I sometimes need original artwork for a book. Recently I needed seven characters portrayed, and I found artists' whose style resonated with me. I invited them to apply, and kept every one of them infomed of status throughout the hiring process. These are creative professionals, not providing commodity services, though, so it's different. I've needed chemistry PhDs on some projects, and nobody at that level is interested in doing an audition. On the other hand, I've used several original artists for small projects, and every one whose portfolio appealed to me did great work.

 

Freelancing is akin to mining for carbon. Some work in a coal mine, some work in a diamond mine. The closer you get to diamonds, the more important it is to keep everyone informed.

Martin, as a Freelancer who when she was in corporate had the pleasure of hiring a lot of talented folk ... and occasionally the less than pleasant task of having to fire some.  That said, Bill's approach beats Preston's hands down when it comes to creatives. Preston's in the tech sphere and I can't speak to that.

 

Communications - open, candid, and honest - are the key to getting the creative work clients need. FLers are not mind readers so the more info a client can share > the better the chances of getting an end product that exceeds hoped for returns.  And the ideal communications process begins in the interview stage ....

m_sharman
Community Member


Martin M wrote:

Hi! When I post a job and I get lots of candidates applying for it, can I send a bulk message to all of them to keep them updated about the project? Let's say that I want to add some information about the project or as everyone to make a quote or give an update about the selection process.

Best, Martin


I just want to clarify whether you are speaking about the interview process, or working with freelancers you have hired.

 

On the interview process, I think if you close the job, everyone who sent a proposal, or that you interviewed, will receive a message the job was closed. I sometimes receive these from Upwork, but I'm not sure what triggers it on the client side. 

 

I agree, enabling the client to send a message (same to all proposals) that says "Thank you for your interest, I have selected a candidate" isn't a bad idea.

 

If you are speaking about communicating with a group freelancers who are working on the same project, but separately, there are multiple options to handle this.

 

 

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