Is there any sense to submit proposals?

[bonbons]

I have got around 170+ submitted proposals during all my upwork career, every job offer I received was given to me by a client who found me.

As a result, the efficiency of this proposals is minus infinity, because whatever cover letters, it does not guarantee that your proposal even will be seen, read, then interviews and discussions which waste a lot of time, which also provide 0 guarantees. 
In addition to this, every proposal is 1.5$ now, and clients do not care to answer or close it, as a result, many proposals opened, wasted money. 

If I could, I would create a poll about this. 

1. What is your proposals efficiency?
2. How much you spend time (to read and create a personalized proposal, interview etc) * your hour rate + a number of proposals * 1.5$?

3. Do you think implementing proposal limitations for the job offers will solve the issue?

For example, limit every job offer to accept only 5 proposals, the client MUST decline or accept, or his JO will be hidden. It is for sure should make platform better.

You might think that I got that issue because I have JSS 83% while all reviews are 5 stars, no I had it all the time since here when was rising talent, 90%+ JSS and good reviews does not matter.

[zen_abe]

🙂

Proposal efficiency is 0% after the paid connect thing was implemented.

Previously it was better.

I think, that's not directly related though.

But paid connect (and the client restrictions, unless paying) get Upwork's standing in the eyes of investors and clients to go low.

That, in turn, causes low quality job posts.

I believe the intention was noble though.

[bonbons]

Maybe go to the office? Or change the freelance platform? 

[r_satta]

Creating a poll would be totally useless, since this is a problem that Upwork is fully aware of. They perfectly know that their proposal system lacks transparency but they prioritize clients over freelancers. During these last 5 or 6 months there have been thousands of freelancers asking the same things.

• Do clients even read my proposal?
• Why is it full of posts opened 35 days ago and the last view by the client is 35 days ago?
• Why should I not get my connects back if the client last viewed the job post 5 minutes after posting it, and clearly they found another freelancer on another platform?
• Why this client sent 3000 invites?

And you can keep going on for decades with everything that is wrong with the system. Upwork knows it, they possess the unique ability called reading tons of complaints.

They just don't care. Face it and you can go on with your life. 
I know that this is not the answer you were looking for, but this is the only answer

[feed_my_eyes]

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Andrey S wrote:

If I could, I would create a poll about this. 

1. What is your proposals efficiency?
2. How much you spend time (to read and create a personalized proposal, interview etc) * your hour rate + a number of proposals * 1.5$?

3. Do you think implementing proposal limitations for the job offers will solve the issue?

For example, limit every job offer to accept only 5 proposals, the client MUST decline or accept, or his JO will be hidden. It is for sure should make platform better.

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1. Not sure what you mean by "proposals efficiency", but I agree that I get most of my jobs through invitations and it would be great if everybody could just sit back, relax and let the work flow in. But I accept the reality that being self-employed means that you need to spend time and money on marketing, and there are still good jobs to be found through bidding. 

2. I probably spend about 15-20 minutes reading about the project and writing my response, and maybe another 20 minutes either messaging the client or chatting on Skype (but once I get to the interviewing stage, I almost always get the project, so this is rarely "wasted" time). It's absolutely worth it in order to get 1 or 2 new clients per month. I don't know where you're getting the $1.50 per bid, though - for me it costs $1 including VAT for the 6-connect jobs. Lately, I've also been finding good projects that cost only 1 or 2 connects because the client's payment method is unverified, so most other freelancers won't place bids. (In fact, I want to give a special shout-out to everyone in the forum who keeps giving advice not to bid on these projects - thank you for two of my most recent, awesome clients!)

3. No, I DO NOT think that clients should be limited to 5 proposals and forced to accept one of them. What I do think is that the price of connects should be increased and/or freelancers should be limited to placing 30 or so bids per month, because good clients are still getting spammed with way too many proposals.