Hire rates falling

[ripujitsingh]

I have been on Upwork for 3+ years. Initially it was bit tough to get work but after a bit of struggle I started getting small projects. From July’19, I became a bit irregular because of some local project. This irregularity continued till February’20 and in the meantime all my scores and badges vanished, Even my Job success score started droping until finally it started showing not available. During pandemic and lockdown,  I started bidding again, but this time It became even more tough to get projects. The rates had fallen and after sometimes I realised I was actually quoting too high and people are expecting freelancers to work for very less. Even the per hour rates had fallen. I decided to find the reason.

I upgraded my account, saved some jobs and started tracking them regularly. After upgrading or due to some unknown reason I started getting invites. I tried to bid 90% of them and tracked the jobs. To my surprise I found most of the jobs closed without any hires.

Then I created an account in some other freelancing sites. Since I have great respect for this platform, I won’t name these sites but again I found many job posts common. So It’s not only the competition on this platform by peers, we are also facing competition with other freelancers who have not got chance to register here.

Currently I am having 8 active candidacies, but I know none of them are going to materialise, because all the client’s are unresponsive. Can anyone help me improve the situation.

[deborah-ponzio]

Hello, I have noticed more or less the same that you did, many jobs, even when I'm invited, seem from unresponsive clients who would not even evaluate responses, won't hire anyone and go missing. In a way, if they go missing they do me a favour as they weren't serious since the beginning.

I don't think that below a certain rate it is possible to ensure good quality and it is even uneconomical for us to commit with jobs below a reasonable standard - even if of course there are different costs for living in the world.

Maybe some of these clients have no idea of rates for services out there, have no experience with out-sourcing and are just trying their luck with different opportunities, websites, word-of-mouth etc.

My profile here is active only since March 2020 and my client contact/work ratio is about 1 on 10 or even less. Am not sure if it is usual or not or it's because of the pandemic. I am curious to read other opinions. 

[ripujitsingh]

Good to see that I am not alone to face such situation, also I think Upwork should comeup with some ratings/score for the clients also, where there scores will drop If they close a job without hiring. I know we can see how many job post a client has done and what is thier hire percentage but somehow this is not something that many freelancers bother to see.