For 4 years, I have been a loyal Upwork client. I've spent $143k on Upwork in the past 18 months (client feedback score of 4.99, currently have 12 open contracts).
That said, I will not be using Upwork to fill the next job opening in my company. The process of finding and interviewing quality applicants is simply too time-consuming and difficult, and every time I post a job it seems that the entire UX has been completely overhauled (usually making the process more confusing and difficult).
Here are some of the issues I have experienced in the past 48 hours while trying to fill a part-time customer service position:
1.) I specified the required qualifications for this position (ie. at least 1 hour billed on Upwork, feedback score of 90%+, etc) but this makes zero difference to who applies for a job, since there's no way to specify mandatory qualifications (and disallow applications from unqualified freelancers).
2.) The default sort order for the applicants list is "Upwork Recommended", which is completely useless as the "recommended" applicants are very often totally unqualified for the position. For instance, in my recent Customer Support job post, I required applicants to meet the following qualifications: "Must be a native English speaker", "freelancers only (no agencies)," "job score 90% or better," located in "East Asia," with "at least 1 hour billed".... one of the first Recommended Freelancers in the list of applicants is an agency specializing in "OpenCart Technology" based in India with no hours billed, no feedback score, and an application letter written by someone who clearly speaks almost no English..... in other words, Upwork's top recommendations for this position include an applicant who meets 0 of the job requirements specified.
3.) There is no way to filter the list of applicants, except for the option to show only shortlisted candidates... why can't I filter the list to show only those who meet X requirement? How hard could that POSSIBLY be to implement?
4.) I have to hit "show more" to see more than a handful of applicants at once... why? If I accidentally click the back button in my browser, the list re-sets and I have to click the "see more" button 12 times to get back to where I was previously. Why can't I simply check an option to display all applicants on one page?
5.) The applicants list is just completely broken. Many times, an 'archived' applicant shows in the main list, even though clicking on their application to open it in a popup window shows their application status as "archived". The number of "new applications" changes constantly every time it's refreshed, sometimes showing 15 new applicants and other times showing 45+.... on this recent job post, I archived some freelancers at least 5-7 times and they still occasionally showed up in the main applicants list.
6.) There's no way to search the list of applicants, so I had to scroll through 179 applicants looking for the name of a freelancer who was recommended by a colleague.
7.) On some applications, the freelancers' feedback score is shown in the list of applicants (ie. "88% job success").... on others, there's no score displayed, even though when viewing the applicant's full profile there are multiple past jobs with feedback and feedback/job score. Why can't the score be displayed on every application instead of only some?
8.) I have no idea how the "job success score" is calculated, so it's essentially meaningless... one applicant to my recent job has complete a total of 3 jobs on Upwork, all 3 with a feedback score of 5.00, and yet her "job success" is only 88%.... how is that possible? That doesn't make any sense.
9.) What the hell does "Rising Talent" mean? The Help page on this topic offers a vague, unhelpful explanation: "Rising Talent freelancers have great potential based on strong backgrounds in their fields and early success with their clients on Upwork. Rising Talent agencies are new agencies that either have strong backgrounds in their industry or is an agency started by a Top Rated freelancer." <== who decides what a "strong background" is? What vetting process takes place? How can someone be given this "Rising Talent" status when they've never worked a single hour on Upwork? Why would being in an agency started by a Top Rated freelancer automatically give the same status to their agency members (who may have 0 experience / relevant skills for the job)?
10.) I don't want to hire an agency for this latest job post, but I have agencies applying for the job (with a "relevant contractor" attached, which in some cases was also an agency and not an individual freelancer) and applicants whose profile says they're "associated with" 1-3 agencies. The Help page does not properly explain the difference between these two types of applications, and two chat support reps gave me completely conflicting answers to the question. Why the ambiguity? Why not just allow either individuals to apply (meaning they get 100% of the salary if hired), or agencies (meaning you hire a company and they arrange a contractor suitable for the job)? The confusion essentially has made me look only at freelancers without "associated agencies" shown on their profile.
11.) What can I learn from a freelancers "test scores"? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Some of our best freelancers have mediocre scores on English tests, but they speak and write English so well that a native speaker couldn't tell it was not their native tongue. Also, there's not really any clear benchmark for what a "good" score is (ie. is 3.70 / 5.00 a decent score, or did the freelancer basically flunk the test?), aside from labels like "top 30%" which isnt meaningful if the other 70% of people tested speak 4 words of English and scored 2 out of 20. Also, what is done to ensure an applicant hasn't hired someone or asked a friend to take tests under his/her account?
12.) For this recent job I posted, I set a specific non-negotiable salary (stated explicitly in the job post description)... 80% or more of the applications I received bid at a different rate from what I had specified in the job post... why can't I set a specific rate for a job, and only accept bids from contractors willing to work for that chosen hourly rate?
I find it almost laughable that, after posting over 100 jobs on Upwork in the last few years (99 hires), I can still list off 12 separate issues with the hiring process. Granted, not all my complaints would be shared by other clients, but surely several of them are features that a) would benefit and be well-received by almost all clients; and b) could be implemented in a day or two by any competent programmer.
Sorry to vent this publicly, but I simply cannot contain my frustration with the hopeless hiring process that seems to be steadily getting LESS user-friendly and more confusing, even though Upwork's fees and rates have increased dramatically.
Please, Upwork, listen to your clients and address the numerous problems with the hiring process.
