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ivan_juric
Community Member

Job Success Score issues

Hi all,

 

I'm having terrible issues with my JSS. I had some old jobs that I had to close down with no feedback, some of which were jobs with relatively large amounts.

So my JSS dropped to 79%

Then I managed to track down a couple of these clients and they provided 5 star reviews. Also, In the last month I completed several new jobs, all with 5 star feedback. I have exclusively 5 star feedback on my profile but I didn't get many new jobs in the past year or two because I had plenty of clients outside of Upwork. I can understand that the JSS would go down somewhat due to that (although I think the entire metric is ridiculous - how can someone with dozens of jobs and exclusively 5 star feedback rate at 79%?), but since that last update to the JSS on Aug 16 I managed to complete more jobs and add feedback to previously closed jobs and today with the new update the JSS is 79% again. What is a freelancer supposed to do to get this number moving up? I mean, if making more than $800 in the last couple months and getting only 5 stars isn't enough, what in the world is?

I'm hoping this was some sort of bug on this last update to the JSS.

 

Thanks,

Ivan

14 REPLIES 14
wescowley
Community Member

Ivan:

 

Two things I'll note:

1) Your JSS has almost certainly not updated yet today. Check it later this evening.

2) The stars don't matter, the private feedback does, and you don't know what those clients left for private feedback.

Thanks for reply. Well, it says it updated today, so I don't know.

I'm quite certain that I didn't have bad private feedback because these are all repeat clients who intend to hire me again. Also, Upwork clearly states that both public and private feedback count.

petra_r
Community Member


Ivan J wrote:

but since that last update to the JSS on Aug 16 I managed to complete more jobs and add feedback to previously closed jobs and today with the new update the JSS is 79% again.


Just like every 2 weeks, even though the site says "updated on today's date" - it won't have reliably update completely for several hours.



Closing contracts with no feedback, as long as money was paid, don't hurt the JSS anyway if you don't have an insanely high percentage of such contracts.

 

What hurts the JSS is almost exclusively contracts with poor private feedback and contracts that never lead to any earnings ever at all.

 

 

 

I'll check if it changes later today, thanks.

Closing contracts definitely did hurt my score, but that was probably because they sat idle while I was waiting for unresponsive clients to close contracts. I don't see how contracts that make no money can be the freelancers fault, at least not every time. In my experience, this was always due to a bad client. My only fault was ever accepting their contract offers.

Also, I highly doubt I have much bad private feedback as most of my clients are repeat customers.


Ivan J wrote:

Also, I highly doubt I have much bad private feedback as most of my clients are repeat customers.


When you go to your "My Stats Page" - what does it say about "clients who would recommend you?"

 

(Although that is your LIFETIME private feedback rating, whereas your JSS is maximum over the last two years)

 


Ivan J wrote:

I don't see how contracts that make no money can be the freelancers fault.


So you have some of those in your 6 month, 12 month and 2 year windows?

 

Ivan J wrote:

Also, Upwork clearly states that both public and private feedback count.


But not how much.... Seriously, stars are mostly eye candy.

94% would recommend me.

I had a few conracts that had no payments, but most of them ended with disputes where I was owed money after they disappeared and Upwork closed the contract.


Ivan J wrote:

I had a few conracts that had no payment


There you have it.

 


Ivan J wrote:

I had a few conracts that had no payments, but most of them ended with disputes where I was owed money after they disappeared and Upwork closed the contract.


Why didn't you just request payment against the funded milestones before the 3 month deadline?

 

Yeah, as if you can get most clients to do things accoring to the rules all the time. You do some work, you get payed through a milestone, you do more work, but the client never opens the new milestone. There's nothing to dispute and then they disappear an I get money for maybe one milestone. I would assume that such things shouldn't count against me since there was a dispute and even Upwork didn't ask for feedback be exchanged.

Also, why would a/ job or two with no feedback or payment count more than all the good work I've been doing all this time? This JSS thing is extremely unfair and I'm only lucky that a lot of experienced clients know to ignore it since it doesn't in any way represent actual skills.


Ivan J wrote:

Yeah, as if you can get most clients to do things accoring to the rules all the time. You do some work, you get payed through a milestone, you do more work, but the client never opens the new milestone..


That would not have any negative effect on your JSS. As long as you were paid SOMETHING, there is no effect, and Upwork ONLY closes contracts if there is money in Escrow (ie a funded milestone) - So something doesn't add up here... 

 


Ivan J wrote:

Also, why would a/ job or two with no feedback


AGAIN: Contracts with no feedback do NOT have a negative effect as long as you don't have a literally huge percentage of them OR if nothing was EVER paid under them. They just don't.

 

You also have very few completed contracts in the last 2 years (13, 10 of which have fedback), so every one counts heavily. Everything older than 2 years is out of the maximum calculation window.

Btw, I think it's pretty silly that publicly available freelancer ratings are not considered to be an accurate reprensetation of that freelancer's skills. What's the point of these stars, then? And it's not just stars, it's written feedback that's been in line with the 5 star ratings.


Ivan J wrote:

What's the point of these stars, then? And it's not just stars, it's written feedback that's been in line with the 5 star ratings.


Eye candy. The written feedback is not included, algorithms can't read.

Eye candy. Well, that's just great. I'd like to hear from an Upwork official. I wonder what sort of mental gymnastics they'd employ to explain to the world that their entire feedback and rating system is bogus.


Ivan J wrote:

I'll check if it changes later today, thanks.

Closing contracts definitely did hurt my score, but that was probably because they sat idle while I was waiting for unresponsive clients to close contracts. I don't see how contracts that make no money can be the freelancers fault, at least not every time. In my experience, this was always due to a bad client. My only fault was ever accepting their contract offers.

Also, I highly doubt I have much bad private feedback as most of my clients are repeat customers.


You can see your private feedback in your "clients that would recommend you" percentage. What is it?

94%

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