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luke715
Community Member

How often do clients actually hire from a job post?

I know that freelancing is very compeditive. But I hear back from so little jobs, it seems like clients are not actually hiring anyone most of the time. 

 

I went to Guru.com.com and browsed their job postings. Guru lets you see everything like the amount of proposals, who is applying, and whether or not someone was hired. Most of the job postings had 0 hired, even with 80+ proposals submitted. 

Even the oldest jobs usually had 0 hires. So then I filtered the jobs to the oldest jobs with clients who have spent at least $500. The hire rate was a little better, but most jobs still had 0 hires.  

Is Upworks any different than Guru? There seems to be very little chance of winning these jobs. It's like trying to win a small lottery. Even if you do win a job, they are usually temporary gigs. Then you have to find another job. 

16 REPLIES 16
spectralua
Community Member

Is same.

But client able to post job at many platforms at same time. So one person was hired, all other jobpost is unhired.

An 90% of my time here is hunting for jobs. But one of my skills is emergency recovrery, so i must monitor feed and apply very fast.

Thats a little enlightening, but it also means your competing against more than just the people on one platform! It's a real rat race. 

 

25005175
Community Member

Welcome to the hustle!

feed_my_eyes
Community Member

It's a fact that many job posts will end up with nobody being hired, and even when clients do hire, you won't win the majority of those jobs. And yes, the nature of freelancing is that you need to continually market your services and look for new clients. If that doesn't appeal to you, why not look for a permanent job?

luke715
Community Member

That's a shame. 

Even some jobs titled "ugently hiring" don''t end up hiring anyone. Seems to be alot of hot air and tire kickers out there :D. 

Undoubtedly someone with an urgent need would post in multiple places, such as other freelance platforms and job boards, instead of relying on one outlet. 

That's exactly right, Tiffany! Back in the day, when I was on multiple platforms, one of my strategies for sniffing out scammers was to put the text of their offer into "the" search engine we all love. Invariably, scams and legitimate urgent offers popped up on multiple platforms.

Ideally, Upwork clients with urgent requirements and deeper pockets will just hire three or more freelancers and use the first/best result. I've seen that, and at least one youtuber confirmed using that strategy for creative work (KDP book cover.)

pudingstudio
Community Member


Lucas H wrote:

I know that freelancing is very compeditive. But I hear back from so little jobs, it seems like clients are not actually hiring anyone most of the time. 

 

I went to Guru.com.com and browsed their job postings. Guru lets you see everything like the amount of proposals, who is applying, and whether or not someone was hired. Most of the job postings had 0 hired, even with 80+ proposals submitted. 

Even the oldest jobs usually had 0 hires. So then I filtered the jobs to the oldest jobs with clients who have spent at least $500. The hire rate was a little better, but most jobs still had 0 hires.  

Is Upworks any different than Guru? There seems to be very little chance of winning these jobs. It's like trying to win a small lottery. Even if you do win a job, they are usually temporary gigs. Then you have to find another job. 


Yup. That is freelancing.

paywell
Community Member

Take an hour or two just browsing jobs and adding those you like to your favorites.

Then get back to them after a day, a week, two weeks...and even months or years after - you will see them.

The feedback you are looking for in this practice is a yellow/orange font saying, that the job has been closed.

Your task is to look inside and see, whether there were any hires.

And to mark job / client details, which could have indicated, that there will be a hire. 

And, if any other jobs are open by this client and your skills are a match for it - you can apply and have a higher chance of being hired (since the client has hired before)

 

I have posted a thread in the community idea exchange for search and filter functions to be implemented in the "favorite jobs" section. 

I believe it can be used as a tool to answer the question you have posted. 

6bfcdaf8
Community Member

Well, lets assume we have a small store, clients come in browse and dont buy anything. Nothings wrong with that. But as you continue freelancing, you collect nice clients and they keep coming back if you deliver. So because there are job posts that dont end up hiring doesnt say anything negative about the platform i guess. Upwork is on our side on this. They want the job to end with a hire as much as we want it.

paywell
Community Member

That is a good analogy but not fully accurate, let me elaborate:
At Upwork we have names and titles (which would be the shop sign), our proposal and profile page (the merchandise) and we do jobs (a sale). 

We can only see statistics on whether somebody viewed our profile page or proposal. 

 

Oftentimes, jobs have no hire and one could think - there was no matching candidate, so you apply.

 

And then there's no view of your profile, nor of the proposal. Meaning the shopper/buyer didn't even look inside the shop. And we can't tell - did he even look at the sign?

 

Some job offers  don't even hire on Upwork. 

In the analogy you've provided that means - wannabe shoppers just browsed and didn't buy. At all.

Although, by submitting a job, they kind of send a message to all shops, asking for offers.

 

I would love for there to be a differentiation between "clients" (who hire) and "wannabe clients" (who browse, "window shoppers"). And that connects would be spent only on hiring clients, or when your profile and proposal has been viewed.

6bfcdaf8
Community Member

If i remember correctly, job posts with no hire are auto closed after some time. And when this happens your connects are returned back

paywell
Community Member

Correct. But this can take months. 

ericaandrews
Community Member

On Upwork, I'd say 98%+ of the 'brand new' clients never hire and are just 'posting stuff' to test out the site and 'try it out' and aren't really serious, but just 'experimenting'.  Most of the new 'brand new' clients come on here either to scam or unrealistically hoping to find somebody that would normally be paid a 6-figure salary willing to work for $3.  Once they see they can't find super cheap QUALITY labor for 'sweat shop' wages, they leave.   For the clients that have been on here a while, you'll see a 'hire rate' in their profile for the job post you are looking at, which can very:  I have seen clients that have been on here YEARS, posted dozens and dozens of jobs, and have a 0% hire rate (Now, why Upwork doesn't KICK those type of 'time wasters' off the site is beyond me).  I have also seen plenty of clients that have spent thousands or millions of dollars that have 80%, 90%, and even 100% hire raters.  It really depends.  My advise is not to waste connects on brand new clients that has no 'hire rate' listed on their profile or clients that have very low or 0% hire rates, because most of the time they just 'post something' and then abandon the job post or are actually simply using Upwork to 'find' people and then luring them off the site - either to be hired or scammed.   Personally, I just don't even bother with 'brand new' clients because they almost always turn out to be scam artists or somebody just 'posting stuff' and wasting people's time - a waste of connects either way.  If you stick to only dealing with clients that have been on the platform at least 90 days and have viable HIRES and payouts showing in their profile. you'll get better 'mileage' out of you connects and more quickly separate the SERIOUS clients from the 90%+ of junk 'clients' just posting stuff to 'play around' on the site with no intention to hire.   Upwork doesn't release any statistics about the ratio of job posts that lead to a viable hire with a paying contract, but my guess is that, at best, 1 out of every 30-40 job posts leads to a hire and the rest of the job posts were posted as a joke, to scam somebody, or by a non-serious client that 'abandons' the job post because they had no real intention of hiring anybody

luke715
Community Member

 

are my analytics.

 

Is this the usual for freelancers?

Screenshot 2022-11-28 110632.png


81f2681a
Community Member

Yes, you are doing good.

In my opinion, a good rate for everything must be 10%, and you are above 10%.

From 276 proposals sent, you must have at least 10% viewed. You have near 40%.

From 106 proposals viewed, you must have at least 10% converted to interviews. You have near 20%.

From 19 interviews, you must have at least 10% of hires. You have near 20%.

This is marketing, the hopes is to get at least 10% in return.

You can still improve, but you are doing well. Believe me, a lot of freelancers can´t even reach 1% of conversion.

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