Hello,
I'm a top-rated freelancer, and from early 2019 to about August 2019, I used to get at least 1 invitation a day...sometimes as many as 3 invites a day.
Since August, there has been a sharp decline, and I'm still not back to what I used to be. I just checked and I received 7 invitations in 90 days. It's been around this number since August.
I heard (on this forum), that the algorithm cycles freelancers every so often so that all freelancers get a chance. I also heard on this forum this cycle happens every 5 to 7 weeks. Well, it's been alot longer and I've been waiting patiently. I also heard clients aren't sending as many invites because they have to pay to send more than X number of invites. I'm not buying that because I have heard from freelancers (on this forum) say they get the number of invites that I used to get. Also, plenty of clients (including my own client account) can still send as many invites as the want without paying a cent. I think I read somewhere this is because we are "grandfathered in". I'm also not buying UW's line that most clients don't send invites. This concerns me because from about April 2019-August 2019, I didn't need to send a single propposal to a job. I got ALL of my jobs througb invitations. Sure I got plenty of useless invites, but I also got a lot of really great paying jobs through invite-only opportunities. And, I would really like to get those opportunties again.
My guess is that it has something to do with profiles or it's a setting that's "off". That's because it was around that time (early August), when I did two things: start an agency, and built out 2 additional profiles (because UW didn't let me add more portfolio items until I created a profile). After I did these two things, it was like I flipped a switch...literally. See, when I started the agency, I noticed it wasn't showing in the marketplace. An UW customer service agent helped me change a bunch of settings to get it to show. Thanks to UW's filters, it didn't take me long to discover that my agency was showing in the marketplace, but my freelancer profile wasn't showing. Apparantly freelancers must choose one or the other to show in the marketplace, so I chose my freelancer profile. That was restored, but I don't think all of the settings were changed back that I had to change to get my agency to show, and I don't remember what they all were that got changed.
Anyway, after ALL of that happened (in less than a day), the invites stopped suddenly, and its still not the same. It was early August, and so the other thing I heard was people are on vacation...relax it will be back to normal soon. Well, again, been waiting patiently (for 4 months), and nothing is changing. So I really do believe it is because I did something wrong with the profiles (maybe I should only have 2 profiles, not 3??).....or, it's one of the setting changes that the UW support agent help me make to get my agency to show.
Sorry for the long-winded story. Any help would be appreciated.
