Does being Top-Rated even matter anymore?

[bridgewater_tim]

Hi guys,

I'm just wondering how everyone else is feeling about these changes coming to Upwork. The option to bid Connects to have your proposal move to the top of a client's list has been implemented for a while, and I've never been a fan of it. It doesn't seem right to me that I can be Top-Rated, but then someone who isn't can just outbid me to increase the chance of their proposal being seen before mine. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, which is possible.

And now I'm seeing that you now need to spend Connects in order to even have your availability shown, and also to boost your profile to the top of search lists?? What was the point of many us working incredibly hard to become Top-Rated if it's just going to come down to whomever spends the most money on it? I was Top-Rated Plus for over a year and recently lost that for some reason. Probably because I'm booking less jobs due to being outbid by less qualified people. I know the concept of bidding is nothing new here when it comes to the budgets. But I believe that Top-Rated freelancers should show up at the top of search results and proposal lists because we are TOP-RATED. Otherwise what's the point? It's getting hard to even see the advantages anymore and I haven't booked nearly as much work since all of this has come along.

Any thoughts on this? Is it just me?

[tlsanders]

I'm not at all sure it ever did. The overwhelming number of top rated freelancers makes it seem sort of insignificant, and I've seen countless freelancers over the years complaining that their invitations and hire rates didn't increase (or even decreased) after they became top rated. Other than the top rated feedback removal perk, it seems to be mostly a feel-good gold star for freelancers.

[bridgewater_tim]

Hey Tiffany, I appreciate your response here. Very good point about the overall number of Top-Rated freelancers - that's not something I've thought about much. Though I can say from my experience there was a point where I was getting invites so frequently that I had to start turning some of them down, and I attributed that to being Top-Rated as well as my portfolio, etc. But it all seemed to slow down drastically once the proposal bidding was implemented. I guess whether or not being Top-Rated as ever really mattered depends on everyone's personal experience with it. How's your experience been since the proposal bidding started? Any noticeable difference?

[tlsanders]

I could be wrong, but I think that shift coincides with the bidding system only in time--or perhaps helped inspire bidding. The number of freelancers has increased dramatically, while Upwork (by its own statement) has shifted away from advertising to the type of clients most of us work with to focusing on "long-term" clients. In every field I've checked, at least 25% of postings (and usually more) are contract-to-hire. So....a lot more freelancers and fewer clients looking for freelancers combines to make a tough landscape.

I actually like the boosting option and my boosted proposals are at least twice as likely to be opened as unboosted. But, I think it works well for me because of the way I send proposals. I never submit a proposal unless I'm virtually sure that I'm either the top candidate or at least among the top 2-3 for that job. Clients usually contact me if they open my proposal, so increasing that likelihood is high value for me.

[bridgewater_tim]

You're totally right about there now being way more freelancers and far less clients. It wasn't as bad when I could see approximately how many other proposals they had already received, or what other editors (I'm a video editor) had bid for budgets, but now seeing how many Connects are being bid on some of these is just discouraging. I just saw a post for a job that had only been up for an hour or so and already people have bid over 50 Connects towards it. What incentive do I have at that point to even submit for it? You mentioned that you only submit when you feel like you'd be a top candidate, but what are you basing that on? I know I'm good at what I do but I definitely know I'm not the only one, so I'm not as confident about trying to outbid someone in all cases. Losing all those Connects just because the proposal was viewed isn't even worth it if I don't book the job, which I likely won't if I'm competing with 50 other people with more Connects to bid. I felt like my chances were greater back when I thought being Top-Rated actually meant something but now it clearly doesn't. I'm definitely looking into other options right now as Upwork's new direction isn't working for me at all.

[the-right-writer]

Top rated, 100% JSS seems meaningless now. At one point, it did mean something, but that was before Upwork decided to remove limits, tests, etc. and allow anyone with connects to be a freelancer.

As Tiffany mentioned, there is the removal perk, but I have never needed to use it so, it's worthless to me.

The point is that Upwork has changed its business direction.

[bridgewater_tim]

Wow, I wasn't aware of all the limits and tests being removed. I felt like I had to jump through a million hoops of verification and certification my first year on Upwork. Ultimately I didn't mind though because I knew, or at least I thought, I'd get more serious clients as a result. Seems like the those on the client-end don't have to go through nearly as much and can just disappear whenever they want with no consequences. I've also never used the removal perk, so I agree, worthless.

[tlsanders]

I've used it twice. Once was when a client I had worked with for months who had paid me tens of thousands of dollars completely lost his mind when I ended our contract. After multiple attempts to get me to stay, offering various changes to make it more attractive for me, he snapped when I made it clear that I was actually leaving and began ranting about the quality of my work, accusing me of trying to sabotage his business, etc...to the point that I had to block his calls and tell one of his employees that if there was any remaining information they needed from me, someone other than the boss would have to reach out as I wouldn't be interacting with him. 

I actually have no idea how he rated me--I removed it before it ever posted.

The second held himself out to be a US lawyer but soon after his profile location changed to Pakistan. He repeatedly told me there were numerous errors in the first few pages that I sent him and that they would need extensive revision, but refused to identify a single error. It was an area of law that I'd written about extensively, and I checked everything against the statute and government sources. I asked repeatedly for him to tell me what the errors were and declined to move forward without that information. He pushed and pushed and pushed to have me keep writing. I refused to continue the project and offered him the choice of paying for the completed pages and using them or agreeing in writing not to use them and I would refund. He suggested that I refund his money and let him use the pages, since they were going to require so much work anyway. 

He posted the pages precisely as I wrote them, except that he inserted some poorly-written CTA language into one or two of them. And then he gave me a 1.4 rating with a long comment about how I apparently just didn't know what to do with the project (one I've done literally hundreds of times). Although he'd only paid me somewhere in the $300-500 range, it dropped my JSS from 100 (where it had been for years) to 91. I was going to suck it up so that I could review him, but then someone on Reddit told me that removing his feedback didn't remove mine, so I went ahead and did it.

[lysis10]

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Tiffany S wrote:

I've used it twice. Once was when a client I had worked with for months who had paid me tens of thousands of dollars completely lost his mind when I ended our contract. After multiple attempts to get me to stay, offering various changes to make it more attractive for me, he snapped when I made it clear that I was actually leaving and began ranting about the quality of my work, accusing me of trying to sabotage his business, etc...to the point that I had to block his calls and tell one of his employees that if there was any remaining information they needed from me, someone other than the boss would have to reach out as I wouldn't be interacting with him. 

I actually have no idea how he rated me--I removed it before it ever posted.

The second held himself out to be a US lawyer but soon after his profile location changed to Pakistan. He repeatedly told me there were numerous errors in the first few pages that I sent him and that they would need extensive revision, but refused to identify a single error. It was an area of law that I'd written about extensively, and I checked everything against the statute and government sources. I asked repeatedly for him to tell me what the errors were and declined to move forward without that information. He pushed and pushed and pushed to have me keep writing. I refused to continue the project and offered him the choice of paying for the completed pages and using them or agreeing in writing not to use them and I would refund. He suggested that I refund his money and let him use the pages, since they were going to require so much work anyway. 

He posted the pages precisely as I wrote them, except that he inserted some poorly-written CTA language into one or two of them. And then he gave me a 1.4 rating with a long comment about how I apparently just didn't know what to do with the project (one I've done literally hundreds of times). Although he'd only paid me somewhere in the $300-500 range, it dropped my JSS from 100 (where it had been for years) to 91. I was going to suck it up so that I could review him, but then someone on Reddit told me that removing his feedback didn't remove mine, so I went ahead and did it.

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aah the good ol' "Everything is wrong" client when you realize this is probs a middleman and ooof here we go. I too ask for specifics, and they can never come up with what's specifically wrong other than "it's all wrong" even though it's something you've written about numerous times and even had technical reviewers pass it. But the one guy pretending to be in the US says it's all wrong. lol

[celgins]

There aren't many advantages to being Top-Rated or Top-Rated Plus. Clients may see the Top-Rated and Top-Rated Plus ratings and conclude that a freelancer is highly skilled and likely to satisfy their job requirements. Outside of that, and the feedback removal perk Tiffany and Jeanne mentioned, there isn't much to being Top-Rated or Top-Rated Plus.

Even before freelancers could boost their profiles, all freelancer profiles--including Top-Rated and Top-Rated Plus--were already being shifted up and down search results to allow all freelancers a chance to be seen.

Upwork appreciates Top-Rated and Top-Rated Plus freelancers; it means all of your hard work has made their pockets fatter.

[bridgewater_tim]

It's really disheartening to hear this, but after spending some time browsing through similar threads it looks like this is how a lot of folks on this platform feel. I've never actually used Upwork from the client side, so I was unfamilar with how things actually show up on their end. I do respect Upwork's effort to make sure all freelancers are seen, but they should be seen because they do good work, not because they paid more money. Especially over those of us who have made Upwork so much money over the years. It's really a bummer, and they need do a better job of reassuring us so we don't have to get this point of frustration. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, Clark.