Solved: 83% of jobs never hire anyone

jacarmichael · ‎07-31-2019

Hi guys,

I've just been over my proposal data for the last month and noticed that, out of the 30 proposals I've submitted in the last month, I've landed 5 and a further 2 have been closed. The other 23 jobs never closed and never hired anyone, according to the job description pages.

I just wanted to ask whether these job postings are what people have been calling 'fraudulent' postings? Now that we're paying to submit proposals in the platform, it seems like these unfilled jobs are a huge waste of resources for freelancers.

Is anything being done about these kind of clients? Is there anything I can do as a freelancer to avoid time and money-wasting job posts?

Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks everyone!

Best,

James

mgmason1975 · ‎07-31-2019

I've just looked at your profile. You have two jobs from 2017. Are you still working on them? If not, I strongly recommend you contact the client. Firstly, if they have more work for you, that will start to boost your JSS. If not, you need to get these jobs closed and a rating in place. That too will boost your JSS.

You're already at 70% JSS. You will have to apply for jobs I'm afraid. It shouldn't take long to get yourself up. Be selective and have a list of red flags. For example, don't bother with new clients, clients with a low post-hire ratio, those with poor star ratings.

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mwiggenhorn · ‎07-31-2019

James, there are lots of reasons besides fraud why a job isn't filled on UW - hired on another platform, hired locally, used someone within the company, decided to cancel the project for budgetary or other reasons. When you send a proposal, forget about it. Otherwise, you will go slowly mad...

jacarmichael · ‎07-31-2019

Haha thanks, Mary, that's useful advice.

I've been taking more care about not submitting proposals for clients that haven't paid freelancers more than $1k on the platform. Is there any way I can find out more about a client before submitting? How do you go about deciding whether a client is worth the investment?

valery221166 · ‎07-31-2019

Please don´t waste your time.
Upwok will ignore all this.
Best regards,
Val

mgmason1975 · ‎07-31-2019

This has come up many times since the changes were introduced. The short answer is no - Upwork has no intention of trying to get people who post on the site to change their habits. Otherwise, they would have done so before finding yet another way to eat into the money that freelancers make from the platform.

I have always maintained that fif they required failsafes such as ensuring a payment method is verified before a client can open a job, and to encourage a better class of client, the platform would be better for everyone. But I think they allow this so they can continue to claim that a billion jobs go up every minute.

Your best bet is not to play ball. Refuse to pay for connects, build up your profile, make it to Top Rated and let clients come to you. Connects never cost a penny that way.

jacarmichael · ‎07-31-2019

Thanks Mathew, that's interesting. How would I go about building up my profile without submitting proposals? Don't I need to complete jobs in order to improve my rating? I've yet to have a client find me for a job so I'm intrigued as to how you go about this...

mgmason1975 · ‎07-31-2019

I've just looked at your profile. You have two jobs from 2017. Are you still working on them? If not, I strongly recommend you contact the client. Firstly, if they have more work for you, that will start to boost your JSS. If not, you need to get these jobs closed and a rating in place. That too will boost your JSS.

You're already at 70% JSS. You will have to apply for jobs I'm afraid. It shouldn't take long to get yourself up. Be selective and have a list of red flags. For example, don't bother with new clients, clients with a low post-hire ratio, those with poor star ratings.

jacarmichael · ‎07-31-2019

Fantastic advice! I like the idea of assessing the post:hire ratio - that's really useful. Thanks for your help Mathew

feed_my_eyes · ‎07-31-2019

Matthew M wrote:

Your best bet is not to play ball. Refuse to pay for connects, build up your profile, make it to Top Rated and let clients come to you. Connects never cost a penny that way.

He's going to have a pretty hard time building up a profile without placing any proposals, unless a stroke of luck happens to land him at the top of the search results.

mgmason1975 · ‎07-31-2019

He's going to have a pretty hard time building up a profile without placing any proposals, unless a stroke of luck happens to land him at the top of the search results.

He has dormant jobs that he can close. But yeah, the odds are stacked against newbies right now. I bet for the first few months, most are paying more to Upwork than they are actually earning.

feed_my_eyes · ‎07-31-2019

Matthew M wrote:
He's going to have a pretty hard time building up a profile without placing any proposals, unless a stroke of luck happens to land him at the top of the search results.
He has dormant jobs that he can close. But yeah, the odds are stacked against newbies right now. I bet for the first few months, most are paying more to Upwork than they are actually earning.

I agree that following up with past clients (without nagging or spamming them) is a good idea for getting repeat business, but ideally you don't let two years elapse. If the clients didn't close their jobs and provide reviews back in 2017, what makes you think it'll be a priority for them now?

mgmason1975 · ‎07-31-2019

f the clients didn't close their jobs and provide reviews back in 2017, what makes you think it'll be a priority for them now?

I agree this should have happened much sooner but it is worth pursuing because I've been in that position on more than one occasion and had positive results. I've had jobs dormant for over a year and when I've contacted them to ask if they want to proceed, they have somehow magicked up some more work.

Do you have any suggestions for improving his JSS? Because so far, you've offered only naysaying.

maryrossi · ‎08-22-2019

Matt, can you please tell me how a freelancer becomes 'featured'? I have been on Upwork for almost a year. I have a 97% JSS. I have rave reviews (mostly, then there's that 3% we're hoping will fall off soon). Please tell me how to become featured?

mgmason1975 · ‎08-22-2019

Matt, can you please tell me how a freelancer becomes 'featured'?

Featured where and when? I'm a freelancer like most others here. I don't know what you're talking about, sorry.

maryrossi · ‎08-22-2019

I'm sorry, you said 'top rated'.'

feed_my_eyes · ‎07-31-2019

James C wrote:
Hi guys,

I've just been over my proposal data for the last month and noticed that, out of the 30 proposals I've submitted in the last month, I've landed 5 and a further 2 have been closed.

If you've landed 5 jobs out of 30 proposals, then you're doing well. Do you know of any cheaper websites or marketing methods that would give you the same kind of results?

florydev · ‎07-31-2019

No joke, save some for the rest of us!

jacarmichael · ‎07-31-2019

Thanks for the encouragement Christine! That's good to hear

florydev · ‎07-31-2019

James,

It could be that Upwork will do something about this but the reality is we do not know and they may never. To me, if the issue is people spamming projects and your solution is to charge for connects then refunding them if a client never hires is probably not a good idea. You are actually rewarding people for spamming clients off the site.

The bigger issue for Upwork is why did those clients never hire on UW in the first place. That's the problem I would like them to solve.

People are unhappy about paid connects. Some people think there are fake jobs. Some people even believe that UW is creating fake jobs.

I don't personally see that I can do anything about it so if that is the system I need to figure out how to make the system work for me...or leave.

mgmason1975 · ‎07-31-2019

Indeed, Mark. If clients are persistently not hiring, Upwork must look at why that is. There are likely two reasons

One, the client is a flake. It is in Upwork's interest to discourage these types of client as they they waste everybody's resources . They waste the freelancer's time, space on Upworks servers, and money for both. Resentment grows between freelancers and Upwork. There is a lot of resentment around because Upwork keeps hitting freelancers with more costs while doing nothing about this problem that has existed since the days of Odesk.

The second is a problem with Upwork itself. If clients sign up, set up a job, go through all the procedures and then decide there is a problem with Upwork that they don't want to post again, then Upwork needs to ask itself what that is and what about the system is putting people off hiring.

But they won't do either of these things. I'm at a complete loss for why.

florydev · ‎07-31-2019

I don't think we are going to agree on much.

I can't imagine that Upwork is NOT looking at this problem seriously. This is almost the entirety of their bottom line so convergence almost certainly has to be the main factor. I would argue that charging for connects is one thing they are doing about it.

What's more, they have change the clients plans and I pretty much don't agree with that even though I am not sure how it effects me directly.

One, the client is a flake. It is in Upwork's interest to discourage these types of client as they they waste everybody's resources . They waste the freelancer's time, space on Upworks servers, and money for both.

My problem, which I have stated many times before, is in weeding out those flakes their is a higher chance of also weeding out a great client. If you have never posted a job you may not know this but I find the whole process cumbersome, I would really rather they did not complicate it.

There is a lot of resentment around because Upwork keeps hitting freelancers with more costs while doing nothing about this problem that has existed since the days of Odesk.

Not something I get. I wasn't here before so I don't have the anger of something changed (I wouldn't anyway but that is besides the point). To me, the cut they take is their cheese and not my concern. The reality is, it's the client paying that, but I already know most people don't seem to see it that way so this is probably a waste of typing.

The people who complain about this should just go find their clients in the real world and see how that goes for them. They can keep 100% of that, as long as they can find them, and oh yeah, actually get paid.

I think some of this is mindset differences that will never get resolved. Upwork is not my employer, they owe me nothing, I owe them nothing. They don't have to stay the same, I don't have to use them at all. If they started dictating my rates (as some sites do) I would leave and never come back.

petra_r · ‎07-31-2019

Matthew M wrote:
But they won't do either of these things.

They don't?

Matthew M wrote:
I'm at a complete loss for why.

I'm a complete loss how you know (to the degree where you state it as a fact) that Upwork doesn't do either of those things?

mgmason1975 · ‎07-31-2019

They don't?

Based on his analysis of an 83% fail to hire rate (which is appalling by any standards and even worse while the company is charging freelancers to apply for these jobs in the first place), no they don't. Unless you have evidence to the contrary. As somebody who has been here since the odesk days, this is the one thing that has remained constant in all that time.

I'm a complete loss how you know (to the degree where you state it as a fact) that Upwork doesn't do either of those things?

It's a conclusion based on over 6 years of experience here. As I said above, if you have evidence to the contrary then let's see it because as nothing has changed in 6 years, it's a reasonable conclusion to make.

This is almost the entirety of their bottom line so convergence almost certainly has to be the main factor.

Maybe it's just me, but I would say six years and a platform merger is long enough to get these problems resolved. I commend them on the speed and efficiency of their price rises though.

tlsanders · ‎08-22-2019

Matthew M wrote:
Indeed, Mark. If clients are persistently not hiring, Upwork must look at why that is. There are likely two reasons

Actually, there are dozens of possible reasons in addition to the ones you listed:

-the client doesn't find a freelancer he or she likes among the proposals

-the client gets busy and lets the job posting lapse

-the client runs into funding problems, or someone further up the chain pulls the plug or puts the project on hold

-the client learns something from the proposals received that changes the project or the project timeline

-the client was one of the many who post jobs on multiple sites, and hired somewhere else

-the client chose a freelancer on Upwork and they went off platform

-the client ended up hiring the chosen freelancer through a different account (I have experienced this as both a freelancer and a client), so the job artificially appears to be unfilled

for starters. I'm sure if you think about it with an open mind, you'll see many more possibilities.

jurelampe · ‎07-31-2019

James, 83%? You are lucky. Our statistic - 97%: 500 jobs, 13 of them were accepted, we've won 10.

BR

Jure

doctlb · ‎08-01-2019

Not sure if anyone has already resonded with this thought, but it needs to be said. This is exactly the reason that I believe clients should be charged for posting a job. Fine my me if the fee is returned to them upon hiring a freelancer, but there are 2 benefits. First, it reduces the 83% rate you found and saves us money in the form of wasted connects. Second, it keeps them invested in the project and gives them reason to actually hire someone rather than post and run.

petra_r · ‎08-01-2019

Todd B wrote:
Not sure if anyone has already resonded with this thought, but it needs to be said. This is exactly the reason that I believe clients should be charged for posting a job.

Only about a few hundreds of times, and it is as commercially disastrous a suggestion as all the other times. It would be a disaster and that's the reason why neither Upwork nor any of the other platforms have done anything as utterly suicidal as that.

Todd B wrote:
First, it reduces the 83% rate you found and saves us money in the form of wasted connects. Second, it keeps them invested in the project and gives them reason to actually hire someone rather than post and run.

It also prevents clients from posting a job in the first place.

Sure, you lose a lot of the chancers, but also a hell of a lot of the rest.

Personally, I would rather skip the no hope job posts and see the platform survive and have job posts I can bid on.

Those who have trouble sorting through job posts to identify the safer ones should probably stick to the ones by established clients with high previous hire rates, and leave the "riskier" ones to those of us who can recognize potential and want to take the chance.

resultsassoc · ‎08-22-2019

“There are likely two reasons. One, the client is a flake. The second is a problem with Upwork itself.”

Early in my time on Upwork’s predecessor I tackled large complex projects. I won’t submit a response to a posting unless I am absolutely certain I can complete it successfully. That always meant finding expertise I didn’t have. Over time I developed a network, but the first seven or eight years were spent building the network. I posted jobs on Upwork and another site to be sure the talent existed and knew what it would cost me. I was always upfront that the work would occur only if I was awarded the work. I didn’t always get the work, and if I did, I often turned it down after exploring a fit with the client.

As a client I wound up with a 64% award rate. You are winning about 17% of your responses. On both Elance and Guru.com I won 10% of mine; on both boards I won 75% of all responses to jobs that were ever awarded. This is nothing new, and there were dozens of times I never found anyone qualified. I tried using an Upwork Talent Specialist last year for a job for a packaging engineer. She sent me the profile of a flower arranger.

jim_g · ‎08-22-2019

I was looking at this job posting **edited for Community Guidelines**, something like that. I started researching the poster from what is available. He/she had about 60 jobs open. I was looking at them and about 30-40 of them were the same job! They would change the title wording slightly and post once for "Entry" "Intermediate", "Expert" separately each time. I couldn't believe it!!!!!!!!!!!

AveryO · ‎08-22-2019

Hi Jim,

I was unable to locate the client you are refering. If you haven't already, please flag the client's job post as inapproriate so that the team can look into the client's job post.

You may also send it to me through a private message so that I can look into it further.

~ Avery

amezquita_vanesa · ‎08-23-2019

Hello community, I do not know if I have a problem in my profile, but I have a good percentage of 100%, before they sent me several invitations and hiring, I have months, that I do not receive an interview and I am worried. I don't know if it could be something of the algorithm.

florydev · ‎08-23-2019

Vanesa A wrote:
Hello community, I do not know if I have a problem in my profile, but I have a good percentage of 100%, before they sent me several invitations and hiring, I have months, that I do not receive an interview and I am worried. I don't know if it could be something of the algorithm.

Upwork changed client accounts so that the basic account can only invite 3 freelancers to their job postings. In order to invite more they must either upgrade their account or they can make the job a Featured Job for $29.99 with unlimited invitations. That is probably the biggest reason for invitation fall off.

shetani · ‎08-23-2019

Granted, my stats aren't very representative since I rarely ever bid on jobs, but here are the stats on my last 30 proposals:

Pct of jobs where someone was hired: 70%
Pct of jobs where no one was hired: 30%

Breakdown

Hired someone else: 11/30
Won: 10 / 30
No hires: 8/30
Cancelled by UW: 1/30

This definitely doesn't represent anything in the grand scheme of things - only Upwork has the actual stats. What this IS showing though is that I'm not wasting time on flaky jobs and whatever I'm doing seems to be working in my area.

So if you're bothered by the % of jobs you apply to that don't end with a hire, maybe rethink what kind of jobs you're applying for. Look at those 83% again and see if there are any similarities between the clients, the job descriptions, hiring rates and histories. Maybe this will help you identify what the flaky clients look like in your industry.

2489c885 · ‎08-24-2019

Never hired anyone on Upwork.

richardsmith94 · ‎08-24-2019

Aaron N wrote:
Never hired anyone on Upwork.

Really? This is your post in the Clients discussion area:

I've always awarded each job to someone. I used to find that person on Upwork, but lately have had to look elsewhere. I mainly hire writers. I really don't need more than one qualified applicant and would be thrilled with three. I don't mind looking through twenty applicants for that one who knows a sentence starts with a capital letter, contains at least one noun and one verb, and ends with some form of punctuation. I don't mind waiting a day or two to find the right person. But when none of the three applicants can form a proper English sentence I need to look elsewhere.

Make your mind up.

lysis10 · ‎08-24-2019

Sounds like someone just admitted to taking work off platform.

Between this dude and the one who wants to know if his 45 cousins can use the same computer without getting banned, Saturday morning has been good for dramacoin. The Internet is not sending its best.

feed_my_eyes · ‎08-24-2019

Jennifer M wrote:
The Internet is not sending its best.

I hereby order the Internet to do better.

florydev · ‎08-24-2019

Jennifer M wrote:
Sounds like someone just admitted to taking work off platform.

Between this dude and the one who wants to know if his 45 cousins can use the same computer without getting banned, Saturday morning has been good for dramacoin. The Internet is not sending its best.

Or is it...

lysis10 · ‎08-24-2019

Mark F wrote:
Or is it...

lol I didn't think about it this way. We're doomed.

tlsanders · ‎08-24-2019

Richard S wrote:
Aaron N wrote:
Never hired anyone on Upwork.
Really? This is your post in the Clients discussion area:

I've always awarded each job to someone. I used to find that person on Upwork, but lately have had to look elsewhere. I mainly hire writers. I really don't need more than one qualified applicant and would be thrilled with three. I don't mind looking through twenty applicants for that one who knows a sentence starts with a capital letter, contains at least one noun and one verb, and ends with some form of punctuation. I don't mind waiting a day or two to find the right person. But when none of the three applicants can form a proper English sentence I need to look elsewhere.

Make your mind up.

I don't think he was claiming never to have hired anyone on Upwork. I think he was correcting the assertion that a high percentage of clients "never hired anyone" to read "never hired anyone on Upwork," since we of course have no way of knowing whether they hired through another channel (and many likely did).