Upwork Talent Group process

[georgefilippou]

Just the facts

I was hired by Upwork Talent Group (UTG) to write articles for a client of theirs, a large industrial catalogue, marketing and technical content corporation. The job had a clear description on the pricing per article, and only contained one milestone named "Placeholder milestone for work yet to be assigned", which I thought was very logical at the time.

However, 10 days after being hired I haven't been assigned any articles/milestones or even contacted by the job poster. Meanwhile, my hiring automatically gave me access to the jobs posted on this specific UTG, for which I just yesterday started bidding on.

What worries me

I was expecting that the placeholder milestone on the job I was hired for, would be updated to my first assigned article and then the process would continue, as it normally happens in copywriting jobs with a fixed price per article. Moreover, there wasn't any information or communication that would make me think otherwise.

However I am afraid it doesn't work like that in this case. Just yesterday i was invited for a job from that specific UTG that was invite only and had only one invitation to me. I suspect the hiring at the inital job was done just in order for me to enter the UTG and be invited at a new posted job for each article. I have no problem working like this, although I admit it seems a bit odd.

Does that make sense? Am I missing something in how UTG's operate?

Any help is truly appreciated, and thank you for your time.

Best Regards,

George

[g_vasilevski]

Hi George,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, our team will investigate this further and we (Moderators) will post and update here as soon as possible. Additionally I would like just to confirm that the client is the one who is hiring in Talent Groups and not our team. Thank you.

[georgefilippou]

Thank you Goran for the immediate response.

Best regards,

George

[kochubei_valeria · Accepted solution]

Hi George,

We've checked with the team and can confirm that it's not unusual for a client to offer more than one contract to the same freelancer. Large Enterprise clients often have many contracts at the same time that can also be managed by different team members, so it's not unusual that you were offered a second contract before the first one fully started.

[georgefilippou]

Thank you for letting me know Valeria. However, even though I have been awarded four new contracts from the client already, I have yet to receive work as part of the initial contract.

This fact, combined with yours and Goran's replies has led me to realize that the customer came to Upwork asking for a technical writers pool from which to pick & choose freelancers as they see fit, and the first contract was just for forming that pool, sort of speak. That or something was broken in the whole proccess.

Either way, I have proceeded with working with this client the way they see fit, so no more wondering for me, at least for now.

Can you please advise whether having contracts open & inactive (as this seems will be) can hurt my job success score? If so, I should consider contacting the person that opened the first contract and close it.

Best regards,

George

[a_kuntsi]

I questioned the same thing and got the answer from more experienced than me that open idle contracts affect you JSS only if:

- nothing was ever paid

- you have a significant percentage of them

[petra_r]

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@George F wrote:

Can you please advise whether having contracts open & inactive (as this seems will be) can hurt my job success score? If so, I should consider contacting the person that opened the first contract and close it.

---

 Yes it can (but not for 2-3 months), and will if nothing was ever paid. Inform the client that just before the contract hits 2 months you will log 10 minutes of time (if hourly) or request $ 1.00 as a submit work and request payment request to prevent any negative impact on your metrics.

That said, I am under the distinct impression that Enterprise initiated administrative contracts such as yours may not hurt you either way. That is something I have reason to believe (as someone with several Enterprise clients) but am not 100% certain about.

[alphazomgy]

How interesting.. thanks for the post bro.