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fsafner
Community Member

Connects mess again

Hello.

I'm wondering who's in charge with this mess named "connects". This is really out of control and lost the common sense.

There are no criteria about how to set a real amount of these units according with the job value. Some bigger projects could ask for 4 "connects" but sometimes simple jobs are requiering for 6 or 8. My impression is that people who is in charge of this count have not idea about the jobs meaning and importance scale. 

An example, right now of a simple job which requires 8 "connects":

"**Edited for Community Guidelines**" (**Edited for Community Guidelines**)

"Send a proposal for: 8 Connects"

Upwork guys, train better your employes, some of them seems have no idea what they are doing.

This is happening every day. Very bad.

Florin

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
m_terrazas
Community Member


Plamena T wrote:

.....................................

In adition, if you submit a porposal and get an interview, you would get rewarded 10 connects. If for example the job application costs 6 connects, you get refunded the 6 and rewarded +4 connects for your efforts in writing a good proposal and the client actually considering you to being a valid candidate. (If it was 8, you get 8+2, if it was 4, you get 4+6).

...........................................


You no longer receive 10 connects for "all" interviews:
https://community.upwork.com/t5/Product-Release-Notes/Connects-for-Interviews-Won/ba-p/1147321

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27 REPLIES 27
2bce1ff3
Community Member

I cannot agree more, the connects thing is now visibly the primary way of earning for Upwork, I don't understand why unverified payment jobs are getting 6 connects, like for what? my account is new but I used it last year too, they are giving 10 connects each month, and with all the bidding features the connects are lost in the air witin seconds. And this is my 7th account on Upwork just for those free 70 connects and yet I dint land a job and now I got only 5.


Tanush S wrote:

I cannot agree more, the connects thing is now visibly the primary way of earning for Upwork, I don't understand why unverified payment jobs are getting 6 connects, like for what? my account is new but I used it last year too, they are giving 10 connects each month, and with all the bidding features the connects are lost in the air witin seconds. And this is my 7th account on Upwork just for those free 70 connects and yet I dint land a job and now I got only 5.


Wait a minute, are you saying that you have had up to 7 different accounts on Upwork? or have I misunderstood?
Because if it's right, I hope you can't create one more, now or ever.

 

And if you need more connects, you buy them, just like the rest of us do.


Tanush S wrote:

And this is my 7th account on Upwork just for those free 70 connects and yet I dint land a job and now I got only 5.


It might be your last account on Upwork. Creating a new account is a ToS violation that can get your account permanently banned, and now you admit to doing this seven times? Upwork isn't supposed to be a free service - is there some reason why you think that you're special and shouldn't have to pay for connects, when everybody else is paying for them?

78d190f9
Community Member

Could not agree more, the whole bidding system is even more laughable. Its essentially forcing people to pay silly amounts of money to buy credits in the hope of getting a job, the platform earns enough money from the % they take from each completed job, then forcing people to pay on top of that to buy these credits is ludicrous and is just going to make people move to other platforms that do not extort their users, I already pay for the account and a percentage of any jobs that I get andnow we are expected to pay for hundreds of these connects a month its silly, each job shoul dbe a flat rate of 2 connects per bid and thats it any more is extorsion 

fsafner
Community Member

Almost all the freelance platforms have similar matters but no one is exceeding more than 1 unit (so called "connect" here"). If the site is giving to you 10 units per month you have 10 possible biddings for work. Here is a real abuse with this issue. They are giving us 10 "connects" per month which means nothing. Every month we are giving a juicy % from our work to the site, however it seems that's not enough and we have to pay more and more for working here. I'm never boosting my bids, I really refuse to be manipulated this way. 
This is it. I do not agree this but it's the site managers decision.


Florin S wrote:

Almost all the freelance platforms have similar matters but no one is exceeding more than 1 unit (so called "connect" here").


I guess you haven't used many other freelancing websites, then. Which websites are only charging 1 connect per proposal? None that I know of, and many websites are more expensive than Upwork. I'm using one website where it costs $10-20 to send one proposal, and they don't give anyone free connects (and it's totally worth it, because no-skilled amateurs aren't going to risk that much money, so there's hardly any competition).


Christine A wrote:

Florin S wrote:

Almost all the freelance platforms have similar matters but no one is exceeding more than 1 unit (so called "connect" here").


I guess you haven't used many other freelancing websites, then. Which websites are only charging 1 connect per proposal? None that I know of, and many websites are more expensive than Upwork. I'm using one website where it costs $10-20 to send one proposal, and they don't give anyone free connects (and it's totally worth it, because no-skilled amateurs aren't going to risk that much money, so there's hardly any competition).


Here I have to correct you 😁
In PPH the proposals cost 1 connect, they give you 15 each month, but they do not accumulate.
But, of the platforms that I know of, it is the only one that costs that per proposal.

LOL - I stand corrected. I did register on PPH but then I got busy and didn't bid on anything, so they booted me off because I hadn't gotten any jobs for three months (which was fair enough). Upwork ought to do the same with freelancers who never earn any money.


Christine A wrote:

LOL - I stand corrected. I did register on PPH but then I got busy and didn't bid on anything, so they booted me off because I hadn't gotten any jobs for three months (which was fair enough). Upwork ought to do the same with freelancers who never earn any money.


There was a time when you could still find some good jobs, but now it's as hard as it is here.
I'm not using it much, I get more desperate than here 😖


Florin S wrote:

Every month we are giving a juicy % from our work to the site, however it seems that's not enough and we have to pay more and more for working here.


They only get a juicy % from the freelancers who actually get work. There are far too many freelancers who are using the website, never getting hired (or taking clients off of Upwork to avoid the fees), so they contribute absolutely nothing. Why shouldn't they have to pay anything to use the website? If anything, connects should be more expensive in order to discourage freelancers from spamming clients and driving them away.

For beginning, Upwork must care for published projects be REAL, and freelancers would not waist their connects. Now freelancers (experienced or not, professional or not) support Upwork by their money (spent for connects), but clients - not. So many of them are not CLIENTS really. May be, would be correct to provide a payment for clients for projects publication (not for hiring like it provided just now), what do you think?

I think that your ideas would result in far fewer projects being listed here, and make things even more difficult for freelancers.

Really? )  I think that my idea would result in far ALL real projects will stay here (a little amount for job publication will not repel clients who REALLY needs anything to be done), and nobody of freelancers will loss nothing. But those "projects" where executor never hired, will not be published for money (even so little amount as $1 for example)

But I'm interesting for an oppinion of community, and I'm going to create a new topic about, with my specified vision of possible conditions, and will ask all oppinions. Yours too, as an experienced freelancer, ok? )

Very Good Point
eb75cef7
Community Member

Well I have read everyone's connect related posts
And so Upwork would like to tell you that you should review the things in Connect,
and at least you should aim to bid within Connect

What a deep thought... ))

feed_my_eyes
Community Member


Florin S wrote:

Upwork guys, train better your employes, some of them seems have no idea what they are doing.


You seriously think that Upwork employees are reviewing each and every one of the hundreds of jobs that are posted each day, and making decisions about how many connects are required? That's obviously not the case; the connects price is determined automatically, depending on what the client says in their bid (like longer-term jobs cost more connects). If you don't think that a job is worth the connects that are being charged, you can decide not to bid.

This make no sense. Jobs are different, each one has diffrent content details, proposed budgets etc. Do you really think that a kind of robot/system app could evaluate the projects content in a correct way? Seriously? Maybe this is happening, as you said, but it's far away of a correct evaluation. It's failing because the evaluations are not correct. 

This is it, as I said, it's a mess.

Really, it makes by some algorithms considering a list of criterias preassigned previously.

Not by a human exactly )

We can not like a result, but I think, the better one is unreal...


Florin S wrote:

Do you really think that a kind of robot/system app could evaluate the projects content in a correct way? Seriously? 


Your whole post was about how the system does NOT evaluate the projects in a correct way. So why don't you believe that this is happening?

 

It's completely unrealistic to demand that Upwork train its staff to have in-depth knowledge about the thousands of different skills that people provide on its platform, then read each job post and decide how long projects should take and how much they should be worth. And for what? Just so freelancers don't "waste" another 30 cents or so? It's up to you to evaluate the projects yourself and decide whether it's worth spending your connects or not. 

Yeap, Christine. You are very right. It's more realistic to be handled by a system software which makes no difference, it cannot do it well because it has no certification/programming for evaluating a job content, right? I placed a sample in my first lines: a simple job, of resizing an image to the page size, means 3 minutes for an experienced artist, was "evaluated" for 8!!! connects. Good job!

I ignore how this could be emproved, you are right that's difficult to involve a human factor but this way is not working well either. Best regards.

elytn
Community Member

As per this response from Upwork Community Manager, the number of connects can vary depending on the number of proposals the job has received prior to you applying, on market demand, budget and duration. The number of connects can either go up if too many proposals, or down, if not enough proposals.

 

In adition, if you submit a porposal and get an interview, you would get rewarded 10 connects. If for example the job application costs 6 connects, you get refunded the 6 and rewarded +4 connects for your efforts in writing a good proposal and the client actually considering you to being a valid candidate. (If it was 8, you get 8+2, if it was 4, you get 4+6).

 

If you get invited from a client to an interview, then you don't need any connects to apply. So focus on building a good profile as well - pay attention to what Upwork says you need to do to improve your profile, because that's what's in their algorithm (and this applies to any platform on the nternet). Here is the link to the help section with a wealth of articles on the subject.

 

So you see, really the system is designed to discourage spam replying on job posts with copy-paste proposals that don't get attention and only make the recruitment process harder. I mean, you could, but then that would cost so you get 3 choices - pay, quit, or the hardest one - #3 - focus on the delivery of your services and on being able to effectively communicate this to your potential clients.

 

If you don't yet know how to do the latter, there are plenty of free resources available on the internet, and it's a matter of reseaching and implementing. I'd suggest researching how to get clients' attention and buyer psychology and then doing an A/B testing with your proposals - I know it's an effort, but it pays off in the long run. Choice is yours. Good luck

m_terrazas
Community Member


Plamena T wrote:

.....................................

In adition, if you submit a porposal and get an interview, you would get rewarded 10 connects. If for example the job application costs 6 connects, you get refunded the 6 and rewarded +4 connects for your efforts in writing a good proposal and the client actually considering you to being a valid candidate. (If it was 8, you get 8+2, if it was 4, you get 4+6).

...........................................


You no longer receive 10 connects for "all" interviews:
https://community.upwork.com/t5/Product-Release-Notes/Connects-for-Interviews-Won/ba-p/1147321

shtramilo
Community Member


Plamena T wrote:

As per this response from Upwork Community Manager, the number of connects can vary depending on the number of proposals the job has received prior to you applying, on market demand, budget and duration. The number of connects can either go up if too many proposals, or down, if not enough proposals.

 

It is nonsense. Every project is publishing for ALREADY marked quantity of needed connects, nothing is changing after publication, so, nothing can depend of the number of received proposals

I don't know if they will do it now, but I have seen jobs that I had saved that have varied in the number of connections needed.

shtramilo
Community Member


Plamena T wrote:

So you see, really the system is designed to discourage spam replying on job posts with copy-paste proposals that don't get attention and only make the recruitment process harder. I mean, you could, but then that would cost so you get 3 choices - pay, quit, or the hardest one - #3 - focus on the delivery of your services and on being able to effectively communicate this to your potential clients.

 

But really the system is NOT designed to discourage spam on exact job posts  )  Especially now, when so many posts with "Some of the content in this job post may have been auto-generated using advanced AI" )))   that is just bla-bla, absolutely unreasonable and uninformative...

fsafner
Community Member

End of discussion, closed, there is no consensus, only justifications. Have a great day all of you.