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lenaellis
Community Member

Feedback Question: Would you like to ask a client questions before sending a proposal?

I want to hear your opinion and feedback. As a freelancer, would you like the ability to ask a question about a client's job, prior to submitting a proposal?  Would you find this beneficial? Do you have any concerns?

 

Side note: In the past, freelancers had mentioned they're concerned that clients may be spammed in DMs if freelancers were able to message them before a contract had started. When addressing this question, we're thinking outside the box of direct messaging and perhaps including this in the product in such a way that would deter any spamming behavior. Likely, this would be a public type of Q&A, with questions about the job post and answers being public. 

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feed_my_eyes
Community Member



I was on Elance, which had this feature. We couldn't message clients directly, but there was a message board where freelancers could ask for clarifications. It was mostly filled with people begging to be hired (or complaining that the budget was too low), and even when somebody did ask a relevant question, the client usually ignored it and didn't respond (I would estimate that clients only responded about 10% of the time). Ever since then, it's been my belief that most clients who post vague job descriptions aren't serious about hiring in the first place, so it doesn't matter how many questions they're asked.

 

If freelancers have any method at all to ask for work without having to spend any connects, then the client is going to get spammed - I don't see how you'd avoid this.

If some clever bod can work out a way to do it without clients being swamped in spam, then sure. 

I can't see it though. 

c_dornelles
Community Member

Yes, definitely! Some job postings are very vague and it would really help to have more information before using connects. As a translator, I wish I could ask clients what their content is about and whether it's meant for the Portuguese or the Brazilian market, among other things.

gilbert-phyllis
Community Member

I would not pose questions to a client publicly. Asking smart, pertinent questions -- even basic ones needed to understand the fundamental job scope -- is part of how I showcase my expertise and superior fitness for the project. I'm not interested in other FLs being privy to that exchange.

tlbp
Community Member

People per Hour had this feature. Freelancers used it to ask for the client to "review their profile" to see if they could work together. It was just a rules-break-o-rama. 

m_terrazas
Community Member


Tonya P wrote:

People per Hour had this feature. Freelancers used it to ask for the client to "review their profile" to see if they could work together. It was just a rules-break-o-rama. 


PPH has it, and sometimes it has come in handy for me.
At first, freelancers used it to get attention or ask to be hired. People were looking for a way around the rules for questions.
They changed the way of carrying it out, the question is revised. If it is not relevant or has already been asked, it is not supported and it will not appear.
Since they started doing it, most jobs have no questions, even though a lot of people have submitted proposals.

Would it work here? I do not know.

I'm not in favor of it. As Phyllis said, the questions I ask are questions I've developed through nearly 20 years of working in this field, and I'm not interested in giving that proprietary knowledge away. 

researchediting
Community Member

When I ask a question, that's part of my own screening process, as well as, as others have said, part of how I market my expertise. I want those pointed questions (and sometimes, demands) to have the weight of a proposal behind them. Conversely, if a posting or invitation is serious enough to respond to, I already have a channel for questions. And if not—why bother?

Upwork has already done too much to lower the bar for freelancers and skew its recommendations toward the least qualified. Many Upwork policies and practices already ensure that clients are bombarded with unsuitable matches. And you want to increase the level of noise?


Douglas Michael M wrote:

When I ask a question, that's part of my own screening process, as well as, as others have said, part of how I market my expertise. I want those pointed questions (and sometimes, demands) to have the weight of a proposal behind them. Conversely, if a posting or invitation is serious enough to respond to, I already have a channel for questions. And if not—why bother?

Upwork has already done too much to lower the bar for freelancers and skew its recommendations toward the least qualified. Many Upwork policies and practices already ensure that clients are bombarded with unsuitable matches. And you want to increase the level of noise?


This! This cannot be overstated. It seems to me that just about every new "improvement" is really an attempt to idiot-proof the platform for poorly qualified and ill-equipped freelancers or else try to address the low hire rate that is driven in large part by the proliferation of poorly qualified and ill-equipped freelancers. I've advocated before for a mechanism that meaningfully vets freelancers and excludes those that are not ready (and certainly those who never will be). Evidently UW is loathe to turn anybody away, so how about a two-lane admission chute? Vet new FLs and enable those who are truly qualified and ready to start earning money to do so. Those who are not, divert into a Freelancer Boot Camp program where they can use self-study to get better prepared to pass the meaningful readiness test as well as seek advice on profile development, positioning/marketing their skills, etc. UW gets to count them on the platform (since having umpteen zillion members is clearly a be-all, end-all goal) but without turning them loose into the talent pool until/unless they are ready. 

 

It MIGHT be useful for clients who are... kind of clueless about writing job posts.

 

How many clients would benefit from this? I don't know.

 

When I post a job, I provide all the information necessary, and I would not want to be peppered from would-be freelancers.


Preston H wrote:

It MIGHT be useful for clients who are... kind of clueless about writing job posts.

 

How many clients would benefit from this? I don't know.

 

When I post a job, I provide all the information necessary, and I would not want to be peppered from would-be freelancers.


I agree with Preston. As a client, when I post a job, I give the information the I deem necessary to give at the initial stage. I know freelancers will have questions, and I expect them to. But I only want to talk to the ones who submit a proposal that I feel like are worth my time to talk to. 

atreglia
Community Member


Lena E wrote:

I want to hear your opinion and feedback. As a freelancer, would you like the ability to ask a question about a client's job, prior to submitting a proposal?  Would you find this beneficial? Do you have any concerns?

 

Side note: In the past, freelancers had mentioned they're concerned that clients may be spammed in DMs if freelancers were able to message them before a contract had started. When addressing this question, we're thinking outside the box of direct messaging and perhaps including this in the product in such a way that would deter any spamming behavior. Likely, this would be a public type of Q&A, with questions about the job post and answers being public. 


I would like to see something to remind a client that the reference file they say was uploaded was not uploaded.  I see this a lot and it's an easy oversight.  Perhaps a drop-down box of basic canned questions may work and once a question is sent it would be grayed out so it could not be selected and sent again.


Anna T wrote:

Lena E wrote:

I want to hear your opinion and feedback. As a freelancer, would you like the ability to ask a question about a client's job, prior to submitting a proposal?  Would you find this beneficial? Do you have any concerns?

 

Side note: In the past, freelancers had mentioned they're concerned that clients may be spammed in DMs if freelancers were able to message them before a contract had started. When addressing this question, we're thinking outside the box of direct messaging and perhaps including this in the product in such a way that would deter any spamming behavior. Likely, this would be a public type of Q&A, with questions about the job post and answers being public. 


I would like to see something to remind a client that the reference file they say was uploaded was not uploaded.  I see this a lot and it's an easy oversight.  Perhaps a drop-down box of basic canned questions may work and once a question is sent it would be grayed out so it could not be selected and sent again.


I agree with Anna. In the Graphic Design niche the phrase "look at the attachment" appears a lot, but the file is nowhere to be found.

 

Many times the job description is so vague: I need an animation, vectorize some images, I want a PDF, etc ..., that the proposal I submit consists of only questions.
I already mentioned it a long time ago, some way of telling the client that the file is not there, or that with so little information it is not possible to make a proper proposal.

 

Perhaps Preston and Amanda should teach some good job posting classes Smiley Wink


Anna T wrote:


I would like to see something to remind a client that the reference file they say was uploaded was not uploaded.  I see this a lot and it's an easy oversight.  Perhaps a drop-down box of basic canned questions may work and once a question is sent it would be grayed out so it could not be selected and sent again.


A drop-down box of canned questions is a good idea, actually - and please include the question "How many pages are in your document?" on this list. I still don't think that I'd personally use this feature, though - I just skip vague job posts and move on. Upwork needs to do more to encourage clients to post detailed job descriptions in the first place. (Especially these days - I assume that one-sentence descriptions are fake jobs posted so that freelancers can interview themselves and get free connects.)

 

rverang
Community Member

freelancer.com used to have it too.

 

People out of bids (connects) use it to send their proposal.

 

So, please NO.

kinector
Community Member


Lena E wrote:

I want to hear your opinion and feedback. As a freelancer, would you like the ability to ask a question about a client's job, prior to submitting a proposal?  Would you find this beneficial? Do you have any concerns?

 


Lena, you could do what I do:

- Insert the top 3 questions, particularly those that define your budget on fixed-price deals, in the cover letter part of the proposal

- List the assumptions that your quotation is based on

- List what is not included in that price and would need more discussion

 

We should not have any public Q&A section for the reasons mentioned others earlier.

petra_r
Community Member


Mikko R wrote:


Lena, you could do what I do:

- Insert the top 3 questions...


Mikko, Lena isn't asking for advice how to apply, she is the nforum's community manager and an Upwork employee, who is asking our input about a possible new feature...

 

I don't want to see this either. The masses of "HIRE ME I BESTEST FREELLANCE" "questions" the clients would get would overwhelm them.


Mikko R wrote:


Lena, you could do what I do:

- Insert the top 3 questions, particularly those that define your budget on fixed-price deals, in the cover letter part of the proposal

- List the assumptions that your quotation is based on

- List what is not included in that price and would need more discussion

 

We should not have any public Q&A section for the reasons mentioned others earlier.


While possibly misdirected, the advice above is sound. Leading a proposal with the questions that are essential to responding to a posting or an invitation is an excellent way to establish that we know our business and mean business.

As a bonus, it sometimes yields the information we are seeking—and as suggested, obviates the need for any prior-to-proposal dialogue.


Douglas Michael M wrote:

Mikko R wrote:


Lena, you could do what I do:

- Insert the top 3 questions, particularly those that define your budget on fixed-price deals, in the cover letter part of the proposal

- List the assumptions that your quotation is based on

- List what is not included in that price and would need more discussion

 

We should not have any public Q&A section for the reasons mentioned others earlier.


While possibly misdirected, the advice above is sound. Leading a proposal with the questions that are essential to responding to a posting or an invitation is an excellent way to establish that we know our business and mean business.

As a bonus, it sometimes yields the information we are seeking—and as suggested, obviates the need for any prior-to-proposal dialogue.


Agree 100%. Contracting 101.

sjbercot
Community Member

Just chiming in to say I wouldn't use this feature for the reasons many others have noted, and think it will probably create problems for the same reasons others have noted as well.

tlbp
Community Member


Lena E wrote:

I want to hear your opinion and feedback. As a freelancer, would you like the ability to ask a question about a client's job, prior to submitting a proposal?  Would you find this beneficial? Do you have any concerns?

 

Side note: In the past, freelancers had mentioned they're concerned that clients may be spammed in DMs if freelancers were able to message them before a contract had started. When addressing this question, we're thinking outside the box of direct messaging and perhaps including this in the product in such a way that would deter any spamming behavior. Likely, this would be a public type of Q&A, with questions about the job post and answers being public. 


It would be much more effective to allow freelancers to flag inadequate posts. However, that would require Upwork to do something with that data. Perhaps set triggers. If a gig receives more than X flags for inadequate details, send an automated message to the client suggesting they revise their post. If a gig receives 150%X or more flags, send an automated message telling the client their listing will be removed unless updated.

Of course, you would then have to impose some penalty on freelancers who abuse the flag option to punish clients who offer low rates. We see that problem already. "I'm going to flag this job because I don't like the offer!" 

Maybe just start using gig upvote/downvote metrics for something useful. "Dear client, out of X votes by freelancers, 90% downvoted your gig posting." Or your post has been viewed by Y freelancers today and received Z downvotes. 


Tonya P wrote:

Maybe just start using gig upvote/downvote metrics for something useful. "Dear client, out of X votes by freelancers, 90% downvoted your gig posting." Or your post has been viewed by Y freelancers today and received Z downvotes. 

I like this idea because we need a mechanism for signaling to clients when they need to up their game on job post writing, while blocking abuse and also avoiding clients experiencing it as punitive or cumbersome in any way. Everything that touches a client should be experienced as helpful.

What if up/down voting were only available to TR FLs? Or at least, have the metric that clients see include how many up/down votes from TR vs the general population.

 

lysis10
Community Member

omg they are going to make it public LMAOOOO YESSSSS

 

Do you Elancers remember this feature? You could just pop popcorn and watch freelancers go at it in the rooms LMAOOOOO This would be AMAZINGLY hilarious. Like they would see the question from their competitor and tell the client the other guy was a scammer. LMAOOOOO

jennifervh
Community Member

This is probably not something I would ever use or need due to the nature of my work. I pretty much only do hourly projects, and there are rarely firm requirements or specfications. Often a big part of what I do is figure out what needs to be done, give the client a few options, and we go from there. 

 

I do get job invitations that are very general and have few details, but I don't really mind. My proposal is then just my hourly rate with a response, 'Sounds interesting, let's set up some time for a conversation". That's where I ask questions and get more info. These questions are better in the context of conversation than as a written list for the client to fill in.

audrey1111
Community Member

I don't know if overall direct questions to clients would be helpful or not (I can argue both pros and cons, not sure which wins out)... but IF you're going to implement something along these lines:

 

1. I like the idea of just being able to flag a job posting for being too vague, and I like the idea of limiting who can flag it. One potential approach -- only folks who are Top Rated or have 90%+ JSS can flag it; the flag basically says "I *might* be interested but the description is too vague to tell," and the client can see who flagged it. That way clients will know that they need to add more detail, but they can also look at the profiles of who flagged it and reach out directly with info and an invitation to apply.

 

2. If there is an actual "ask a question" feature -- limit it in some way (e.g., one message per freelancer per job, cap on total questions from a freelancer in a day or month) and then ONLY show the questions publicly that the client has actually answered. (Realistically I don't think a private Q&A option will work well from the client side unless it's only offered to select freelancers, and I have mixed feelings about whether I'd choose to use it.)

There are definitely times that I would like more information about a job and am unwilling to pitch something bare-bones; there are occasionally times when a simple clarification would tell a 6-connect project is worth spending time pitching or not at all in my wheelhouse; and I also feel like I do a decent job of sussing out what to pitch or not and I use thoughtful questions to help with my candidacy.

Hope this is helpful -- thanks for seeking input!

re: "I like the idea of just being able to flag a job posting for being too vague, and I like the idea of limiting who can flag it."

 

Very smart idea.

 

Could save a lot of wasted time simply by limiting flagging privileges to freelancers with demonstrated sense about such things.

gina-herrera
Community Member

This doesn't directly address the original question (although I agree with those who said it is a resounding no), but my suggestion would be to have a box pop up with tips right before the job is even posted, and the client has to check off the boxes (almost like a TOS checkmark sort of thing)

 

"Does your post have a clear description with a list of defined deliverables? This can affect the number of proposals you receive, as vague job posts do not get as many replies."

"Is your budget fixed, flexible, or are you unsure of how much your project should cost?" (this should show up in the job post for freelancers somehow, similar to the way the hourly rate and project turnaround time shoes up)

Would also be nice if freelancers had a checklist to fill out too - rather than the canned questions saying "do you have any questions about the project" or "do you have any questions about the job description" (drives me absolutely wild when they choose to use BOTH of these, THEY ARE THE SAME QUESTION!!), maybe it could have a checkbox for "need more information to quote" while filling out the proposal, just so the client immediately knows the proposed price is a placeholder and they can decide if they want to pursue the freelancer further before we waste our time asking for a big long list of info only for them to never get back to us.

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