Community Manager
Hi Sibylle,
Thanks for sharing your input. Please note that the OP is referring to recommended freelancers from the proposals list, while you are referring to freelancers from the invite freelancers list. I do see there are a few users that don't meet your preferred qualifications. Our team is aware of this discrepancy and is working to update this tab so it includes only users who meet all the requirements, and not just some of them.
Community Manager
Hi Mark,
I'm sorry about the difficulties you're facing with hiring freelancers for your jobs. Looking at the points you outlined, it looks to me that there might be some confusion with the way jobs are posted.
To your first point, please note that freelancers who do not meet your preferred qualifications will still be able to apply to your job. We do educate and advise freelancers against submitting a proposal which does not match their skill set. We do sort out freelancers in the proposals list by best match, but stopped moving proposals that don't match client's requirements to a different folder, due to freelancers feedback who found this practice unfair.
To your second point, the applicants list contains proposals from users who applied to your job, and those freelancers are not offered by Upwork. I found the proposal you mentioned and will forward it to our team.
Regarding filtering proposals, we've shared this feedback with our Product team and they are exploring this option. Seeing that you have a clear idea about the type of freelancer you need, I'd suggest running a search and using appropriate filters to account for the requirements you mentioned, and inviting users who meet all the qualifications to bid on your job. In your case, I think this method would more appropriate than posting a public job, since you already know exactly what you need.
#4 I'll share your thoughts about expanding the proposals list with our team.
#5 Could you please take a screenshot of the proposals which are shown both in the proposals list and the archived folder, and send them to Customer Support?
#7 It's possible that a freelancer hasn't completed the number of jobs required to get a Job Success Score on their profile yet. For the other users you mentioned, the previous jobs on their profile might be the ones they completed on Elance, or they might have been completed more than two years ago and the freelancer only recently resumed using they account, which is the time frame Job Success Score takes into account.
#8 Please see this Help article, which you can access from the proposal tile or freelancer's profile.
#9 Please see our announcement here for more information about the Rising Talent program.
#10 To understand a difference between freelancers and agency contractors (freelancers submitting proposals under their Agency), please see this Help article and Hiring Headquarters blog about Agencies.
#11 You can use the "details" link and find more information about a specific test the freelancer completed. Skill tests are one of the indicators of the user's abilities, and you can also check if the user has verified their language proficiency, along with reviewing feedback left by other clients.
#12 Freelancers have the ability to bid their own rate for your job, and it doesn't necessarily have to match the budget you've stated in your job post. You can search freelancers by their hourly rate to get a closer match, but invited freelancers can also negotiate their rate when discussing contract terms.
I'll share your suggestions and feedback with the team, and do please send us screenshots of the proposals that you mentioned are showing up in both the proposals list and the archived tab. Feel free to follow up with any questions you might have so we can clarify any remaining confusion about Upwork's procedures and processes.
Community Manager
Hi Mark, let me follow up on some of your points here.
"To your second point, the applicants list contains proposals from users who applied to your job, and those freelancers are not offered by Upwork."
Sorry, I have no idea what this means.
It means that all proposals on the list are submitted directly by freelancers and not by Upwork, which is related to the fact that freelancers decide whether to submit a proposal or not and Upwork doesn't interfere in this process. From your previous comment, it sounded like you thought Upwork offered these freelancers on their own.
So basically, I should be expected to dig through thousands of freelancers that match the required qualifications, manually invite each one that looks promising, and then sort through the list of applicants and look for those that I have invited?? Why would Upwork force clients to do that much work when there's an even simpler, more user-friendly solution: implement the same search filtering system for the applicants list! That way, I don't have to waste my time inviting qualified candidates who may or may not be available or interested in the position.........
Based on your comment and complaint regarding the number of applicants who don't meet all of your qualifications, posting invite-only jobs is a viable alternative when you already have a comprehensive list of requirements.
Again, I appreciate Upwork's response to my concerns, but this answer gives off an air of "sorry, we can't be bothered to improve the user experience and make life easier for our clients, so just deal with the **Edited for Community Guidelines** system we offer currently"...
We are monitoring clients' feedback and constantly looking into streamlining the screening and hiring process, on both public and private jobs.
1.) Why can't I disallow agency applications completely? This is a no-brainer and a 2-minute fix for your coders.
Please see my reply to your first and twelfth point in the previous post.
2.) What does it mean if a freelancer is "associated with" an agency (as shown on the right sidebar of an applicant's profile)? The Help article doesn't even mention that at all.
That means that a freelancer is also part of an agency, whose details you can see by clicking on the agency link.
3.) One Upwork help chat rep talked about "exclusive" and "non-exclusive" freelancers... there is absolutely no mention of this at all in the Help docs.
That information is not really important for clients, as it pertains to the freelancer's status within the agency. In one of the freelancer facing Help articles on the same topic you can find further details about working for and managing an agency, which is not necessary for clients to read about as it doesn't impact the hiring process.
4.) Why am I receiving applications from an agency whose "relevant contractor" is also an agency? Is there any oversight over agencies and their applications at all?
It seems that the freelancer used their Freelancer profile to advertise their Agency, and the agency name was used instead of the user's real name. We'll follow up with the freelancer and address the error.
Why the total lack of transparency around agencies? Why force clients to dig through help docs or talk to clueless chat support reps to try and figure out whether they're hiring an agency or an individual? Why not make this 100% clear to clients in the applications list, and provide an option to disallow all agency applications? These are, once again, simple changes that almost all clients would surely appreciate and benefit from.
Proposal tiles do show this information as you've noticed, as freelancer's proposals won't have agency details on them. As I've stated before, on publicly posted jobs we don't block proposals from applicants who do not meet client's requirements, and you as a client do have the option to archive proposals sent by agency contractors. I'll follow up with the team and check if we need to clarify this distinction further.
Yes, thanks, you have summarized the problem very well with that statement. Simply put, I want to receive only applications from those freelancers willing to accept the non-negotiable salary I specify.... and I can't do that. Why? Why force me to dig through the list of thousands of contractors who may or may not be interested, be willing to accept the rate I'm offering, and manually invite all of them (even though I still don't know if they'll actually bid for the job at the rate specified)?
This one is unexcuseable to me... I know what I want to pay for a given position (especially since we have 7 contractors already doing the same job at the same rate), and I am not interested in receiving applications from anyone who does not want to do the job at that rate.... and yet your proposed solution is to spend even MORE time trying to achieve what could be fixed with a simple check box that forces freelancers to apply at the specified rate, or don't apply at all. If I receive no applications because no-one is interested in doing the job for the salary I'm offering, well then I'm out of luck and I'll have to raise the rate if I want to find a contractor to fill the position.
The whole point is that I don't want to have to spend hours trying to find a qualified candidate, and your suggestion involves spending MORE time doing so. Why not make life EASIER for clients by implementing this kind of incredibly simple solution? If you're concerned about overcomplicating things for new clients by having too many settings and check-boxes in the job post options, how about a single check-box in a client's Account Settings page that enables "advanced features"??
As I've mentioned, we don't have a mechanism to exclude the proposals you don't want to receive on publicly posted jobs, and freelancers will continue to be able to set their rate when submitting proposals on these jobs. Most of the freelancers who applied to your job did bid in line with your prescribed budget, and users will often forgo on applying if a client clearly states that the budget is set in stone. However, clients sometimes agree on paying a higher rate than the one they were adamant about after negotiating with freelancers.
I'll reiterate that if you'd like to receive only proposals which perfectly match your requirements and budget, posting a private job and inviting freelancers might be a better solution. I can confirm that this wouldn't take hours, and I hope other Community members who are hiring on the platform by using this method will follow up and share their experience soon.
Thanks again for sharing your insight and the rationale for filtering the proposal list.
