Am I slumping, or is Upwork struggling?

[93c1469c]

Hi freelancers! I'm a copywriter who's been using Upwork for about nine months now. I've been able to get loads of work by using this platform in the past, but April has just been a grind.

Typically I win one out of every five jobs I apply for. This month, I've applied for over 50 jobs and won just three.

Is this a seasonal thing? Like, is April a slow month? Or have shifts in Upwork caused this to happen? I feel like I've been doing all the same things in my proposals, and I've even lowered my rates.

More importantly, has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks for your input.

-Kyle

[colettelewis]

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Kyle D wrote:

Hi freelancers! I'm a copywriter who's been using Upwork for about nine months now. I've been able to get loads of work by using this platform in the past, but April has just been a grind.

Typically I win one out of every five jobs I apply for. This month, I've applied for over 50 jobs and won just three.

Is this a seasonal thing? Like, is April a slow month? Or have shifts in Upwork caused this to happen? I feel like I've been doing all the same things in my proposals, and I've even lowered my rates.

More importantly, has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks for your input.

-Kyle

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If it's any comfort Kyle, I have been with oDesk/Upwork for over ten years. In the last few months I have had two small jobs from the same client.

It may or may not improve but in my category, what with Upwork's geoblocking policy and sad misunderstanding of how language pairs work, I very much doubt it will. 

[ladyelexia]

The past 6 weeks have been a slump. Maybe it's due to tax season or just the general surge in virus cases. I usually get a lot of work, but even my regular clients are not very active. It will probably pick up. 

[alejandrocrespo]

I'm starting to believe that the recent changes to transform the platform into a freelancing marketplace clone are scaring away the serious clients, who prefer to deal with a bit of a more curated freelancers base, and not with a continuous stream of very low quality proposals.

[moonraker]

I went through a slump from November to March. It was the worst I've ever experienced on the platform. If I find myself with no clients I can usually expect to have a full workload again within two weeks. This time I was still feeding off scraps after 3 months.

Then...

In early March it all seemed to return back to normal. It wasn't a gradual increase either, it was as though somebody just flicked a switch. I was getting responses to new proposals I was writing, and to proposals I sent 6-7 weeks previously. I've also had some quality invitations. It's pretty much stayed that way since. 

A couple of potential explanations are the time of the year (it happened during a period that is typically quieter than usual), and COVID. There's also the probability factor to take into account. Statistically speaking it's inevitable that some freelancers will experience slumps just through sheer probability. It might be something as simple as you going through a period of bad luck (or bad luck with a combination of other factors) 

[gilbert-phyllis]

I've been on the platform for nearly five years. Both the quantity and quality of work ebb and flow (sometimes in tandem, sometimes independently) and I've never been able to discern a pattern of seasonality or anything else. And my fluctuations seem entirely unconnected to those experienced by FLs I know in other categories. There are too many variables operating to suss out cause and effect or even clear correlations. I know that search results rotate. Also, UW does a/b testing on us (often without notice) of new features & functionalities that can have real effects on our marketing.