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frederick_steve
Community Member

Is Upwork Giving Some Freelancers Unfair Advantage?

I'm a freelancer who decided to hire a freelancer myself for a project, and was very disturbed by how Upwork handled it. I'm wondering if this is standard practice.

 

After posting my ad, I received an email from Upwork with the names of nine freelancers. It started by saying, "We think this is the best freelancer for you," and gave me one name. Below were three other names, and then it said, "Click here to see more names."

 

Now, I've been on Upwork for several months. I've sent out tons of proposals, and usually get no response at all--even for jobs that are right in my sweet spot. I thought that we were all competing on an equal footing for jobs. But, at least in this case, Upwork RIGGED the bidding process by saying one freelancer was the best. Further, in order to see the remaining five names, I had to go through an extra step of clicking. 

 

I have to say that I'm more than a little upset if this is standard procedure. It would certainly explain (at least partly) why almost no one responds to my proposals.  

43 REPLIES 43
versailles
Community Member

It's their questionable algorithm. Its accuracy is more a case of faith than computer science.

 

 

 

 

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless

Thanks for the response. That is just wrong. Why am I paying Upwork money to put in bids, only to have them tell the employer that someone else is better? The decision of who is best should be up to the employer. Why would Upwork do that?? 


Steve F wrote:

Thanks for the response. That is just wrong. Why am I paying Upwork money to put in bids, only to have them tell the employer that someone else is better? The decision of who is best should be up to the employer. Why would Upwork do that?? 

 

Could someone from Upwork please confirm (or otherwise) that this is correct?


 


Richard S wrote:

Steve F wrote:

Thanks for the response. That is just wrong. Why am I paying Upwork money to put in bids, only to have them tell the employer that someone else is better? The decision of who is best should be up to the employer. Why would Upwork do that?? 

 

Could someone from Upwork please confirm (or otherwise) that this is correct?


 



Steve, 

 

It cuts both ways. Just recently, I had a notification from an Upwork "talent specialist" (interpret that as you will), who had suggested me to a client and invited me to send a proposal. The skillset had nothing to do with mine. I wonder how many of these unhelpful suggestions that client had. 

 

Some time ago, we were assured, after many heated posts and discussions, that the talent specialists would be receiving full, hands-on training. I believe there have been a few accurate pairings, but I feel these might be due more to lucky numbers than skill. 

Thanks for that. I'm getting really upset, thinking about all the hours I've spent and dollars paid to Upwork to submit proposals--only to find that Upwork has (apparently) been sabotaging me. If Upwork is in fact (based on who knows what) saying another freelancer is best, that is stupid and wrong. I may be the best for a certain job, but far from the best for others. That should be between the freelancers and the employers.

 

Why would Upwork interfere in an honest bidding process--putting their thumb on the scale in favor of one freelancer over another?

 

Steve,

 

If what you say is true, I'd chalk it up to Upwork needing to be a service that is largely algorithm-driven in order to try to finally become profitable.

 

Like the JSS, the process you describe gives clients who don't know what they're looking for or are too lazy to really vet potential freelancers an easy way out. I doubt higher end clients (however you want to measure that) rely on Upwork to tell them who to hire, but it might create freelancer engagements and revenue for Upwork on the lower end that might not otherwise occur.

 

I submit about 250 - 300 proposals a year, many of which are the result of invitations from potential clients. The others are projects I find through searches.

 

Upwork keeps me as busy as I want to be, so the system works for me. 

 

Good luck to us all!

I was interested in your comment...finally become profitable. I'm mystified as to how it couldn't be hugely profitable. They take a whopping 20% of all the transactions PLUS charging us fees to bid. And don't they collect money from those who post jobs too?

You can find extensive information about Upwork's operations, financial results, challenges, etc. through December 2019 in this long document:

 

https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1627475/000162747520000006/upwk-20191231.htm


Will L wrote:

You can find extensive information about Upwork's operations, financial results, challenges, etc. through December 2019 in this long document:

 

https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1627475/000162747520000006/upwk-20191231.htm


Upwork also maintains an investor relations page where they discuss and extrapolate each quarter's performance in less abstruse terms. The quarterly letter to investors of about a year ago makes for some interesting reading about Upwork's current market (and profitability) strategy.

For the record, and while the trajectories of the two businesses are quite different (not least because one of the businesses is actually a conglomerate of many), Amazon rarely turned a quarterly profit in its first two decades, during which time it became a behemoth in both consumer and investor markets. Forbes published a nice accessible discussion of that phenomenon a couple or so years ago.


Nichola L wrote:

Steve, 

 

It cuts both ways. Just recently, I had a notification from an Upwork "talent specialist" (interpret that as you will), who had suggested me to a client and invited me to send a proposal. The skillset had nothing to do with mine. I wonder how many of these unhelpful suggestions that client had. 

 

Sometime ago, we were assured after many heated posts and discussions, that the talent specialists would be receiving full, hands-on training. I believe there have been a few accurate pairings, but I feel these might be due more to lucky numbers than skill. 


Yes, and the "talent specialists" are paid with the fees we are paying.

kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Steve and others,

 

This email is sent to the client right after they post a job directing them to search where they can find freelancers whose profiles fit the descriptions and requirements they outlined in their job post. These aren't freelancer who have sent proposals to the job and the email is not sent by the Talent Specialists. The email directs the client back to the site so the client is more likely to invite freelancers from search instead of abandoning the job posting.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Capture.PNGThis is very unfair and unethical. Did you read a client job description and did you research all of the proposals who bid for that job? How come you can decide who is a good fit for that job? And you think it's a way to inspire a client to hire a worker! You should spend your time on some fair things. 


Valeria K wrote:

Hi Steve and others,

 

This email is sent to the client right after they post a job directing them to search where they can find freelancers whose profiles fit the descriptions and requirements they outlined in their job post. These aren't freelancer who have sent proposals to the job and the email is not sent by the Talent Specialists. The email directs the client back to the site so the client is more likely to invite freelancers from search instead of abandoning the job posting.


Valeria, thank you for the detailed explanation, even though I don't agree with the implementation. If it's intended to prevent abandoned job postings, why not wait until proposals have abated somewhat with no client activity before sending the email, rather than 'right after' the job posting?

__________________________________________________
"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

Hi John,

 

Thanks for your feedback. Invite Freelancers tab with the freelancer search is the step the client sees after posting the job. Similarly, this email directs them to the same page. Inviting freelancers is something the client can do while they are waiting for proposals to come in, so that's the page and the email they get right after they post the job. 

~ Valeria
Upwork


Valeria K wrote:

Hi Steve and others,

 

This email is sent to the client right after they post a job directing them to search where they can find freelancers whose profiles fit the descriptions and requirements they outlined in their job post. These aren't freelancer who have sent proposals to the job and the email is not sent by the Talent Specialists. The email directs the client back to the site so the client is more likely to invite freelancers from search instead of abandoning the job posting.


oh that's cool. Maybe it's why invitations seem to be better these days. Haven't seen these complaints lately and I've noticed it's gotten better too.

atreglia
Community Member


Jennifer M wrote:

Maybe it's why invitations seem to be better these days. Haven't seen these complaints lately and I've noticed it's gotten better too.


A couple days ago I received my first invite in 6 months.  It could be that perhaps you haven't seen complaints because it's no use complaining about it in this forum. 

lysis10
Community Member


Anna T wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

Maybe it's why invitations seem to be better these days. Haven't seen these complaints lately and I've noticed it's gotten better too.


A couple days ago I received my first invite in 6 months.  It could be that perhaps you haven't seen complaints because it's no use complaining about it in this forum. 


idk dude people still keep complaining about connects and don't seem to get the hint that connects aren't free anymore, so I doubt that would stop them. Last year at this time lots of complaints about invites including from me and you don't really see those complaints anymore and I have noticed it's gotten better.


Jennifer M wrote:

Anna T wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

Maybe it's why invitations seem to be better these days. Haven't seen these complaints lately and I've noticed it's gotten better too.


A couple days ago I received my first invite in 6 months.  It could be that perhaps you haven't seen complaints because it's no use complaining about it in this forum. 


idk dude people still keep complaining about connects and don't seem to get the hint that connects aren't free anymore, so I doubt that would stop them. Last year at this time lots of complaints about invites including from me and you don't really see those complaints anymore and I have noticed it's gotten better.


Jennifer, for me the number of invites has increased, but the quality of the leads has decreased. So, I don't think this system is working very well, and see alot of areas for improvement. Would you agree? 


David S M wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

Anna T wrote:

Jennifer M wrote:

Maybe it's why invitations seem to be better these days. Haven't seen these complaints lately and I've noticed it's gotten better too.


A couple days ago I received my first invite in 6 months.  It could be that perhaps you haven't seen complaints because it's no use complaining about it in this forum. 


idk dude people still keep complaining about connects and don't seem to get the hint that connects aren't free anymore, so I doubt that would stop them. Last year at this time lots of complaints about invites including from me and you don't really see those complaints anymore and I have noticed it's gotten better.


Jennifer, for me the number of invites has increased, but the quality of the leads has decreased. So, I don't think this system is working very well, and see alot of areas for improvement. Would you agree? 


Quality is relative. I've gotten several direct offers and invites since they eased up on the invite limitations. I don't really care about quality as long as there is at least one job that I can nab from the list. I got two yesterday that are perfect for me (that's what I like). Most freelancers would QQ over budget but idc about budgets listed. Both had red flags. The first one I told them they have to go hourly. The second one I bid 10x their budget and that job has plenty of bidders. It's escrow with red flags, so I jacked up the cost so high that if this goes into dispute (there is a hint of outsourcing so a good chance) I could settle for the time it would actually take me to do the job and get money from it while the client thinks they got a discount. lol  So you tell me, if they go with me is that quality since I'm getting money and don't care about budgets? I'm sure most freelancers would cry and rant about it being low quality. So yeah I maintain freelancers are not very smart people and that's why they can't see the total potential on Upwork and should just go get a job.

Quality is relative. I've gotten several direct offers and invites since they eased up on the invite limitations. I don't really care about quality as long as there is at least one job that I can nab from the list. I got two yesterday that are perfect for me (that's what I like). Most freelancers would QQ over budget but idc about budgets listed. Both had red flags. The first one I told them they have to go hourly. The second one I bid 10x their budget and that job has plenty of bidders. It's escrow with red flags, so I jacked up the cost so high that if this goes into dispute (there is a hint of outsourcing so a good chance) I could settle for the time it would actually take me to do the job and get money from it while the client thinks they got a discount. lol  So you tell me, if they go with me is that quality since I'm getting money and don't care about budgets? I'm sure most freelancers would cry and rant about it being low quality. So yeah I maintain freelancers are not very smart people and that's why they can't see the total potential on Upwork and should just go get a job.

Agree, quality is relative, For me, quality means simply a project or client I would not take, for one of number of reasons (one being not a fit with skills or experience). For example, a client who really needs CAD design instead of graphic design...They both have the word "designer" in the title, so I can see how low-quality clients can get confused. But they are completely different skill sets. I also stay away from clients who I know in my gut are going to be an absolutely PITA, and/or have a history of giving low scores to freelancers. Unless I can use my feedback removal perk again (Yes, I have used it for these clients), its not worth it...but I may have to try jacking up the price 10x their budget for clients like that. Good idea!! 


David S M wrote:
Quality is relative. I've gotten several direct offers and invites since they eased up on the invite limitations. I don't really care about quality as long as there is at least one job that I can nab from the list. I got two yesterday that are perfect for me (that's what I like). Most freelancers would QQ over budget but idc about budgets listed. Both had red flags. The first one I told them they have to go hourly. The second one I bid 10x their budget and that job has plenty of bidders. It's escrow with red flags, so I jacked up the cost so high that if this goes into dispute (there is a hint of outsourcing so a good chance) I could settle for the time it would actually take me to do the job and get money from it while the client thinks they got a discount. lol  So you tell me, if they go with me is that quality since I'm getting money and don't care about budgets? I'm sure most freelancers would cry and rant about it being low quality. So yeah I maintain freelancers are not very smart people and that's why they can't see the total potential on Upwork and should just go get a job.

Agree, quality is relative, For me, quality means simply a project or client I would not take, for one of number of reasons (one being not a fit with skills or experience). For example, a client who really needs CAD design instead of graphic design...They both have the word "designer" in the title, so I can see how low-quality clients can get confused. But they are completely different skill sets. I also stay away from clients who I know in my gut are going to be an absolutely PITA, and/or have a history of giving low scores to freelancers. Unless I can use my feedback removal perk again (Yes, I have used it for these clients), its not worth it...but I may have to try jacking up the price 10x their budget for clients like that. Good idea!! 


If they will be a PITA then going hourly is a good way to deal with it. Then they can be a PITA all day long and you're getting paid for it. I hate hate hate escrow jobs but I'll do it if they are straight forward. If I think the person will be a pain, I tell them it has to go hourly.

 

Outsourcers are tricky. There is always a good chance there will be a dispute but chances are they don't have the money to go to arbitration so you can get them that way.

And here we are wondering why clients are hiring less and less on UW Thanks for the clarification - this totally makes sense.


Valeria K wrote:

Hi Steve and others,

 

This email is sent to the client right after they post a job directing them to search where they can find freelancers whose profiles fit the descriptions and requirements they outlined in their job post. These aren't freelancer who have sent proposals to the job and the email is not sent by the Talent Specialists. The email directs the client back to the site so the client is more likely to invite freelancers from search instead of abandoning the job posting.




Valeria K wrote:

Hi Steve and others,

 

This email is sent to the client right after they post a job directing them to search where they can find freelancers whose profiles fit the descriptions and requirements they outlined in their job post. These aren't freelancer who have sent proposals to the job and the email is not sent by the Talent Specialists. The email directs the client back to the site so the client is more likely to invite freelancers from search instead of abandoning the job posting.


So people may potentially take hours creating a proposal and use their connects, but Upwork advises the client of other users that it considers more suitable for their project...rather than those who have applied and may be most suitable. Is that correct?

Now I find this unfair, and here we are paying for Connects and fees, telling us to have better proposals and presentation and try to pick good projects that fits us, but you guys are already setting us up with lesser chance to get a project. 

 

Also I find the invitation from Upwork doesn't suit me and most of the time rejecting it really. Thanks.

atreglia
Community Member

This is unacceptable and infuriating.  UW needs to be held accountable for the mess they've made and continue to make with paid connects and talent specialists.  How dare they take our money with one hand and deceive us with the other.  If an algorithm is behind any of this please know there should be no such thing as an algorithm when it comes to personal choice.

rafsun_ug
Community Member

You might discover the darkness!

This is ridiculous! We all are paying to send proposals and like you, I am also not getting any kind of response from any client for a long time! I am a Top-rated with 100% JSS and I know there are thousands of Freelancers who are Top-rated with 100% JSS! Truly how Upwork can decide who is the best? This is very very bad and totally injustice! But I know Upwork will not feel a little bit of shame for this! They will run this like a dictator. I think they think, "Yes we are like this, if you want to work, then work or just leave. We will do whatever we want to do!" Shame!

I think Upwork needs to realize that FREELANCERS ARE CUSTOMERS TOO. They take our money, they should be helping us to earn, not stabbing us in the back.  I think I've paid my last fees to Upwork.  This is inexcusable. 

Very true. It seems like they never think of us as a customer nor a worker who is paying them fro sending proposals and sharing 20% with them of their hard work. 

I don't think we are the customers or the workers, we are the product.


Andrea G wrote:

I don't think we are the customers or the workers, we are the product.


I like you. You are smarter than 99% of people on Upwork and that concept isn't even that hard to grasp. Make Upwork money and they will throw piles of clients at you. They might get mad at you and ban you from forums and delete your posts, but they will kept you fed so it's a fair trade.

Make Upwork money and they will throw piles of clients at you.

 

But if Upwork is recommending people who may not even have bid on the project to the prospective clients, it's pretty hard to make them money. This is truly an awful business. 

You know, you are free to go.

 

I checked your profile out of curiosity, maybe take a look at your JSS and see what you can do better for your clients instead of looking for someone else to blame. I have seen posts here from clients who immediately discard any freelancer with less than 80 or 90 JSS, I would recommend sending proposals to jobs that do not have a lot of them, that way it is more likely that the client will get to reading yours. If they have like 50+ proposals to go through they probably don't have the time to read them all.

And if you do get a client make SURE they are happy at the end of the contract, remember there is private feedback which also influences your JSS.

Ah yes.  There's that.  Got all 4s and 5s on my jobs, but someone--Upwork won't say who or what was said or even if it was someone I actually worked with--said something negative about me. There's no way to address it or rectify it. So that drags me down on Upwork as well. 

 

 

Stop. Now you are trying to blame the person who gave you bad private feedback, but that is something you can prevent by delivering great work and customer experience, which is very important too and those are the only way to fix your JSS. Private feedback is, well, private. Upwork will not tell you anything about it and it must have been someone you worked with, the feedback is only given at the end of a contract.

I think the whole point of this discussion is that it's so hard to get work to provide good service. As I said, I have all 4s and 5s on my work assignments. I'm putting out all these proposals and paying Upwork to do so, only to find there is no level playing field. I'm done discussing this with you. You can defend the indefensible all you want. 

I fail to see why people are outraged that Upwork encourages clients to invite freelancers?

 

Jobs we are invited to apply for do not cost us any connects and who does not want more invites?

 

Many of my biggest contracts came from invites.

 


Steve F wrote:

They take a whopping 20% of all the transactions


Not all by any stretch of the imagination, only the first $ 500 with any one client.

 

Steve F wrote:

Ah yes.  There's that.  Got all 4s and 5s on my jobs, but someone--Upwork won't say who or what was said or even if it was someone I actually worked with-


People you never had a contract with can't leave any feedback, good or bad, public or private, that affects your JSS. 

So your poor JSS is due to private feedback from people you actually had contracts with. 

 


Steve F wrote:

As I said, I have all 4s and 5s on my work assignments. I'm putting out all these proposals and paying Upwork to do so, only to find there is no level playing field. 


You're right, there isn't a level playing field, but I can see both sides of this. I think we can all agree that there are huge numbers of clients who post projects on Upwork and then abandon them, and that this is a problem. There's no way that all of these people are just tire-kickers, so for the majority, there must be some reason why they decide not to hire anyone. 

 

Upwork has said before that clients get overwhelmed if they have too many proposals, and even after implementing paid connects, this has only gotten worse. We've all seen projects that have 50+ bids in less than an hour, and it's reasonable to assume that a lot of the freelancers who get their bids in early are not necessarily the best candidates - they're just the ones who have time to stare at the job feed all day, hitting the "refresh" key every 10 minutes. And if clients are flooded with unsuitable bids at first, they might decide that it's a waste of their time to read any further, that's why they abandon their projects. If Upwork can then email them and say, "Hey wait a minute, we DO have these other freelancers that you should consider before you give up on this process," then I think that's a good thing.

 

What DOES worry me is that Upwork is using faulty algorithms to determine who's a suitable freelancer and who isn't. Just this morning I was invited to a web design project, even though there's absolutely nothing in any of my profiles to indicate that this is service I provide. I do think that it's getting better, though; I'd say that probably 90% of my invites are spot-on these days. (And I never seem to hear from "talent specialists" any more - is that still a thing?)

 

I understand why people are frustrated that they're being treated unfairly, but what's the solution? I've said before that I would support Upwork charging more money for connects (and not refunding them), and/or limiting the number of bids that a freelancer can place each month, but both of those suggestions would be pretty unpopular, I suspect.

 

 


Andrea G wrote:

Stop. Now you are trying to blame the person who gave you bad private feedback, but that is something you can prevent by delivering great work and customer experience, which is very important too and those are the only way to fix your JSS. Private feedback is, well, private. Upwork will not tell you anything about it and it must have been someone you worked with, the feedback is only given at the end of a contract.


You must be new here, because your posts are much too sensible. Once you've read more forum comments, you'll realise that the JSS is actually a vast underground conspiracy, designed to unfairly punish freelancers for no reason. 😉

 

I am not saying the way the JSS is calculated is good, in fact I disagree with some of the parameters. But the fact is that it exists so I just think we need to play the cards we have as best we can.

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