Is it worth it anymore?

grekko · ‎07-03-2019

Just browsing some 2-3 days old proposals I've sent, wondering why, suddently, nobody is responding anymore.

This is a typical Job Details page (on Design & Creative category):

Job name: posted 3 days ago
Proposals: 50+
Last viewed by client: 2 days ago
Interviewing: 0

As someone who was a top freelancer on Elance, I'm just wasting my time and money on Upwork?

thirdtemple · ‎07-03-2019

also the reports are gone, i can't even see how much i'm paying my freelancers, unless i pay 50$ a month subscription, 'is it worth it' is a good question?

williambernal · ‎07-03-2019

GC,

Very valid question.

Upwork is going through yet another sea change due primarily to its new (almost 2 months) Pay-for-Connects policy which has def shifted both ends of the client/freelancer dynamic.

On the one hand, you'll notice many jobs being competely ignored because more experienced freelancers aren't wasting their time/Connects on these non-serious clients (a positive).

On the other hand, the jobs that are being bid on are swamped with proposals, which most likely lean towards the higher end of the pay scale. Which in turn explains why so many inexperienced clients who are primarily searching for the lowest end bargains are ignoring them , and you, me and many freelancers are esssentially wasting our time and Connects (a negative).

In my experience it generally takes a few months for big changes like this to shake out and find some market equilibrium.

In my niche (writing & translation), it is currently an absolute desert of viable options and it may be time to bail.

In yours, you might have to wait and see for a while longer.

So, keep your expectations low and work smart and safe!

grekko · ‎07-04-2019

Some thoughts:

- Generally, I think the idea of paid-connects-only policy is pretty resonable. In theory, this will resolve the problem of inflation of freelancers: low-bidders will be discouraged to stay on the platform.

- The number of connects needed to apply for a job is decided by an algorithm. The algorithm may be precise, but it measures something highly subjective: God nows what Expert level means for a client that usually pays $5/hr.

- On Elance, for fixed-price projects, the client could estimate the budget only like this: "under $500", "between $500 - $1000" etc. On this new platform, usually, the client has a budget of $100 for any kind of job! There are guys right here willing to spend $100 for one minute or more of animation (the industry standard for 60s of animation is around $8,000!)

r_satta · ‎07-03-2019

Gabriel C wrote:
Just browsing some 2-3 days old proposals I've sent, wondering why, suddently, nobody is responding anymore.
This is a typical Job Details page (on Design & Creative category):

Job name: posted 3 days ago
Proposals: 50+
Last viewed by client: 2 days ago
Interviewing: 0
As someone who was a top freelancer on Elance, I'm just wasting my time and money on Upwork?

Yeah well, it's not something that happened in a day or two, but if you look through the posts posted on this community, you will find tons of posts like yours (one of them is mine too).

Basically, we all know what is happening. Upwork job posting is awful. Clients can open a job and leave it open for ages without consequences, except consequences for freelancers (after 2 months of inactivity the job gets automatically closed and your connects won't be refunded). Clients can easily write "I want somebody to do a job for me" without specifying anything, because there are basically no rules. Obviously we should spend connects just to ask why the client decided to create a **bleep**ty job offer, I can open my window and throw a 1€ out of it, I'll get a better result.
This lead to clients opening jobs to multiple platform, and often they totally forget Upwork's existence. There's a need for more rules in job postings and more clarity for proposals (I pretend to know if a client has at least seen my proposal if I have to pay for it, if a client has to look at 300 proposals, that is his problem, not mine)

P.S.: Just wait for the army of "don't send a proposal to those jobs" AKA "When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger" AKA "no **bleep** Sherlock" AKA "This is not happening to me" AKA "there are not tens of posts about the same subject everyday"

himadripatel · ‎07-04-2019

Agree Roberto. The army will come and distract the original thread to something else. But, no body will answer/comment about why the clients become so inactive SUDDENLY. I mean, this was not the case before two months! This change in client behaviour is obsrved by many of the freelancers. Co-incidently, it is happening at the same time when upwork decided to charge for connects.

In a way, they are right that we should not bid to the jobs with incomplete details and check the client history and all. But, then we will just keep looking at the jobs and will not be able to submit proposal for any of them. Because, almost all of them are eighter 20 to 50 proposals or 50+ proposals within only 30 minutes.

vsalinitro · ‎07-04-2019

Himadri P wrote:
Agree Roberto. The army will come and distract the original thread to something else. But, no body will answer/comment about why the clients become so inactive SUDDENLY. I mean, this was not the case before two months! This change in client behaviour is obsrved by many of the freelancers. Co-incidently, it is happening at the same time when upwork decided to charge for connects.

No, this is not true.

Unfortunately, clients always had the habit of leaving jobs open, this is not something that started with the introduction of the new connects system.

What changed is the fact that freelancers are now paying more attention to this situation.

r_satta · ‎07-04-2019

Valerio S wrote:
Himadri P wrote:
Agree Roberto. The army will come and distract the original thread to something else. But, no body will answer/comment about why the clients become so inactive SUDDENLY. I mean, this was not the case before two months! This change in client behaviour is obsrved by many of the freelancers. Co-incidently, it is happening at the same time when upwork decided to charge for connects.
No, this is not true.
Unfortunately, clients always had the habit of leaving jobs open, this is not something that started with the introduction of the new connects system.
What changed is the fact that freelancers are now paying more attention to this situation.

This was exactly my point, maybe I had to make myself clear. It was always like this, but before it was free. We had 30 proposals per month, that was plently. Many of us started to realize that there's no control over clients, that half of the job postings are just not worth it (often because the client is lazy to write what job he needs) and that half of our proposals probably are not even viewed by them.

vsalinitro · ‎07-04-2019

Roberto S wrote:
This was exactly my point, maybe I had to make myself clear. It was always like this, but before it was free. We had 30 proposals per month, that was plently. Many of us started to realize that there's no control over clients, that half of the job postings are just not worth it (often because the client is lazy to write what job he needs) and that half of our proposals probably are not even viewed by them.

No need to make yourself clear, my answer was not for you. I completely understand your point, I just don't agree with you.

As William said, things need to settle down a bit, I don't think that knowing if a client read your proposal is going to help you, nor forcing clients to write more compelling posts is going to magically solve anything.

You say that half of the job posts are not worth it, ignore them (yes, I'm part of the "don't send a proposal to those jobs" army) and let someone else waste his/her connects on that post. Why do you want to work with them anyway? Would they be better clients if they would be forced to write better posts? I personally find posts without specifications (or even worst, without specification and full of randomly picked stupid questions) very helpful, they allow me to filter this kind of clients and move on because I don't want to waste my time (and now, my money) working with someone who can't write a decent job description.

himadripatel · ‎07-04-2019

May be you are right. This was already there and I didn't realised it before as the connects were free. Or may be this is because of my changed strategy in selecting jobs (or clients).

My past experience was that, when I bid for jobs, I get interview response from at-least half of them. Now the senario is changed. I am bidding on jobs but getting very fewer responses. And when I go through my proposals sent two days earlier, there is '0' interviews - most of the time.

If this situation is not new for this platform then it looks like I was lucky in initial months of my joining to get good response from clients. 🙂

tlsanders · ‎07-04-2019

Himadri P wrote:
But, no body will answer/comment about why the clients become so inactive SUDDENLY. I mean, this was not the case before two months!

Can you explain, then, why there are posts going back years complaining of this same thing, and asserting that "more than half" or even "the vast majority" of jobs are abandoned without hires.

rolludesig · ‎07-05-2019

i have posted this issue number of times..why cant proposals be kept open for a week otherwise automatically close them and refund freelancers the connects spent..

i think around 70% of our connects go wasted in such job postings where the clients dont bother to reply or choose any freelancers..

cmdcodemaster · ‎07-05-2019

For me, you should move on. It is a job post with 50+ proposal and 3 days ago, I will focus on some project.