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abbnibas103
Community Member

Job Quality has gone down!

Since the COVID-19 situation, I've sent out a handful of proposals, and haven't received even a single invitation to interview!

 

Seem dodgy to me. (As in, Upwork bots are generating jobs to recover connects!)

 

Anyone else facing the same issue?

22 REPLIES 22
moonraker
Community Member

You came to that conclusion after sending a 'handful' of proposals?

Competition has rocketed since the onset of the pandemic, which would be a very feasible reason why you are struggling to get jobs. There's really no need for conspiracy theories. 


Jamie F wrote:

You came to that conclusion after sending a 'handful' of proposals?

Competition has rocketed since the onset of the pandemic, which would be a very feasible reason why you are struggling to get jobs. There's really no need for conspiracy theories. 


I must respectfully disagree. There is always room for more conspiracy theories! BTW, I just asked the bot if he creates fake jobs, and this is what he said: Sorry, I can't find an answer for you. Now that is exactly what a bot creating fake jobs would say, right? Right?


I must respectfully disagree. There is always room for more conspiracy theories!

Indeed. And Upwork won't let me wear my tinfoil hat in my profile picture. Sinister, or what? 


Robert Y wrote:

I must respectfully disagree. There is always room for more conspiracy theories!

Indeed. And Upwork won't let me wear my tinfoil hat in my profile picture. Sinister, or what? 


Tell them you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and wear a colander. Should work equally.


IAleksandr S wrote:

Robert Y wrote:

I must respectfully disagree. There is always room for more conspiracy theories!

Indeed. And Upwork won't let me wear my tinfoil hat in my profile picture. Sinister, or what? 


Tell them you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and wear a colander. Should work equally.


I don't know.  Even though they allow religious headgear in profile pictures,, there's a lot of prejudice against colander wearers.

Thanks, I've been getting twice as much work since I donned the colander. 

Has anyone considered the people wearing the tinfoil hats might be the only sane ones left? Maybe if we all adopted this sensible precaution the 21st century might just disappear. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS8dNzRhMgk

florydev
Community Member


Abdullah B wrote:

Since the COVID-19 situation, I've sent out a handful of proposals, and haven't received even a single invitation to interview!

 

Seem dodgy to me. (As in, Upwork bots are generating jobs to recover connects!)

 

Anyone else facing the same issue?


There is a rythm to nature.  Every year the cicadas come out in my neck of the woods as the air starts to both heat and fill with moisture. There are lightening bugs and june bugs and locusts playing their songs at night. The birds only sing in the morning and the evening and try to find shade during the day. Here it only rains in buckets, all at once or nothing, usually nothing.

And...

Someone in the forum is complaining about the drop in the quality of jobs.

 

It could be what you say.  It could be just summer in the northern climates.  It could also be there is a global pandemic. Nobody can say.  It could be it will pass and be like it always was or it could be forever different. Nobody can know until we are already doing it.

Just to make it clear, you're not accepting work from insects, are you?

 

The global lockdown has led to cost-cutting and provided experience with using remote workers. It has also led to a lot of commodity workers being laid off. It will likely be a year before we have enough information to know what the sum of effects is.

 

I'm turning away work, but I've been doing that for years. I go two or three years between invitations, but I'm getting one every three weeks for reasonable rates and sensible jobs.

 

Honestly, I'm reminded of the first time I was asked to sign a death certificate for a hundred year old with multiple chronic illnesses whose body had just run out. My original cause of death was "stuff happens." The Bureau of Vital Statistics was not amused.

etrusca
Community Member

Mark F., I'm fascinated by your philosophy!

florydev
Community Member


Antonia B wrote:

Mark F., I'm fascinated by your philosophy!


I don't know if it is a philosophy or I was just trying to poetically say that someone always is complaining about the quality and quantity of jobs and it is always far worse in the summer because a lot of jobs on UW stim from the US and people here are out to lunch.  If you couple that with what is going on economically right now across the world and then not surprisingly there are less jobs.

 

What is probably my philsophy is that in order to be successful long term workinhg independently you need to find a way to survive periods of time without income. Even in the best of times I expect work to be sporadic and it seems to come feast or famine.

lysis10
Community Member

I heard that the quality of jobs is going down because of the cost of connects and forum regulars being too snarky. I heard it on NPR. Spread the word.

a_lipsey
Community Member


Jennifer M wrote:

I heard that the quality of jobs is going down because of the cost of connects and forum regulars being too snarky. I heard it on NPR. Spread the word.


Well, I've already been denounced as venomous and bitter. 

 

To the OP, it's too complex a question to answer from freelancers in different fields. For example, my annual revenue is up, invites are up, and the jobs I've accepted are up, on platform and through my off-platform client acquisition strategies. 

e_luneborg
Community Member


Abdullah B wrote:

Since the COVID-19 situation, I've sent out a handful of proposals, and haven't received even a single invitation to interview!

 

Seem dodgy to me. (As in, Upwork bots are generating jobs to recover connects!)

 

Anyone else facing the same issue?


I really don't think Upwork needs to create fake jobs to get freelancers to spend connects. Freelancers do that anyway. Last week I got more than 400 proposals for a job I posted. I don't know how many connects Upwork charged freelancers to apply for that job, but just the value of that one job for Upwork would probably be a couple of hundred dollars worth of connects. 

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy

This is what I was thinking as well Eve. Why somebody bids for a job that already has over a 100 proposals? Chances of getting the job are minimal

lrbeaudoin
Community Member

In the past few month, most likely due to Covid19, I notice the number of jobs as reduced. This would also imply that the number of quality job would have also reduced.

At the present time, I see improvement has we seems to be returning to normal.

robric
Community Member

I am receiving invitations for better quality jobs. Less trashy jobs, more thoughtful ones. Good news for the gig economy

I would like a collander hat but with the Upwork logo - actually come to think of it Upwork could do a neat trade in Upwork masks. I think I might look into this ... 

I haven't looked for work in over a year because I've had two long-term projects.  I'm a little concerned about what I'll find when I do.  Two very good clients from 2018-2019 are in COVID-19 related difficulty.  My target market, small businesses,  have been hard hit and are about to be harder hit due to the expiration of government benefits.  But I cannot complain too much about being affected by secondary effects.  It's like complaining about hazardous air quality while others not too far away have lost their homes.

I have one great client (not on Upwork) who has been seriously, seriously hit by the pandemic. I will work with her pro bono to help her (and ultimately, me) to stay afloat. 

Best of luck to her, Nicola.  (And, of course, to you).

 

One of these clients was a thriving catering business, with Yale one of its biggest clients.  Five months ago they contacted me because the system I developed had crashed.  The bug turned out to be a boundary condition.  The system assumed that there would be at least two items sold in a day.  They had sold just a single sandwich.  All day.

Yeah, it's tough because you get to know these people - you see how hard they work and how smart they are.

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